A group of US senators failed on Wednesday evening in their attempt to block President Donald Trump's administration from carrying out further strikes on suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean.
The US has carried out a series of strikes on what the Trump administration says are drug cartel members travelling in boats off the coast of Venezuela. Twenty-one people have been killed so far, according to the military.
The senators forced a vote on a war powers resolution, introduced last month, that would end the use of the US military to engage in hostilities with alleged cartel members.
The resolution failed 51 to 48, with senators voting mostly along party lines.
“These military actions should stop, unless authorised by Congress,” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine told reporters ahead of the vote, highlighting that the administration has failed to answer questions posed by Congress on the evidentiary and legal support for the strikes.
Senator Adam Schiff, also a Democrat, underscored that the administration has not given clarity or responded to queries on how the decisions to carry out the strikes are made.
“Maybe these ships were transporting narcotics, maybe they were engaged in human trafficking, or maybe it was the wrong ship,” he said. “We just have little or no information about who was on board these ships, what intelligence was used, or what the rationale was and how certain we can be that everyone on that ship deserved to die.”
Quoting anonymous officials, AP reported that the Trump administration has yet to produce “hard evidence" that the vessels were carrying drugs.
Speaking on the Senate floor before the vote, Mr Schiff said: "For perhaps the first time in our history, a president of the United States ordered the US military to use lethal force against individuals who posed no imminent threat of attack and who could have been stopped thousands of miles from our shore had we interdicted and arrested those on board."
But Republican Tom Cotton countered by saying that Democrats were "tying the President's hands" and defending narco-terrorists who have the "blood of hundreds of thousands of Americans on their hands".
After returning to office, Mr Trump designated several Central and South American drug cartels, including Venezuela's Tren de Aragua group, as foreign terrorist organisations, which initiates financial asset freezes and immigration restrictions for members.
The US has sent thousands of sailors aboard several warships and a submarine to the Caribbean to combat drug trafficking and secure maritime routes.
The resolution – co-sponsored by Republican Rand Paul and Independent Bernie Sanders – states that drug trafficking alone does not justify military action and that the “designation of an entity as a foreign terrorist organisation or specially designated global terrorist provides no legal authority for the President to use force” against them.
The senators emphasised the importance of Congress retaining its power to declare war, and while it was not possible to know how much support the war powers resolution would have, they said that Mr Trump's unilateral decisions to carry out the strikes are of concern to members on both sides of the aisle.
Mr Schiff added that there is a risk that “in the absence of this resolution that this administration could undertake military action anywhere in the world, and use the rationale that's used here to try to justify it”.
They also expressed concern that continued strikes would lead the US into conflict with Venezuela.
The Trump administration this week reportedly ended diplomatic outreach to Venezuela.
It also comes after Mr Trump, in an attempt to provide legal cover for the strikes, sent a memo to Congress last week in which he said he had determined that the US is engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” with Latin American drug cartels.
The same day the memo was reportedly sent, Venezuela announced that several US fighter jets had breached its airspace. Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino described the incident as a “provocation” and a threat to national security.
Venezuela has accused the US of attempting to initiate regime change and oust President Nicolas Maduro – who has a $50 million US bounty on his head for alleged “narco-terrorism”.
But Mr Kaine dismissed the idea that the US was working towards toppling the Maduro government.
“I don't view this military action as a regime change thing, I view it as the White House is fed up – as we all are – with narco trafficking, but they're using a strategy to deal with it that is illegal and possibly ineffective,” Mr Kaine said.
