WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (KUNA) -- US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Venezuelan officials "will have a unique and historic opportunity to provide a great service to the country, and I hope they will seize it." "We will make our next decisions based on the actions and decisions of the Vice President of Venezuela (Delcy Rodriguez) and the officials there," New York Times quoted him as saying on Saturday after the capture of Venezuelan president.
"I want to be clear about one thing, Nicolas Maduro had multiple opportunities to avoid this," he said. "He was provided multiple very, very, very generous offers, and chose instead to act like a wild man; chose instead to play around. And the result is what we saw tonight," Rubio added.
Asked about the legality of the US strikes on Caracas, he said that it would not have been possible to let US lawmakers know in advance. Rubio echoed Trump's statement that the operation was primarily an act of law enforcement, rather than the military action over which Congress has a greater purview.
Earlier today, Senator Tim Kaine, a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and a member of the Armed Services Committee (SASC), criticized President Donald Trump's unauthorized military attack on Venezuela.
"President Trump's unauthorized military attack on Venezuela to arrest Maduro-however terrible he is a sickening return to a day when the United States asserted the right to dominate the internal political affairs of all nations in the Western Hemisphere," Senator Kaine said. "That history is replete with failures, and doubling down on it makes it difficult to make the claim with a straight face that other countries should respect the United States' sovereignty when we do not do the same.
"Where will this go next? Will the President deploy our troops to protect Iranian protesters? To enforce the fragile ceasefire in Gaza? To battle terrorists in Nigeria? To seize Greenland or the Panama Canal? To suppress Americans peacefully assembling to protest his policies? "Trump has threatened to do all this and more and sees no need to seek legal authorization from people's elected legislature before putting servicemembers at risk," he argued.
"It is long past time for Congress to reassert its critical constitutional role in matters of war, peace, diplomacy and trade. "My bipartisan resolution stipulating that we should not be at war with Venezuela absent a clear congressional authorization will come up for a vote next week.
"We've entered the 250th year of American democracy and cannot allow it to devolve into the tyranny that our founders fought to escape," he went on.
Kaine has been a leading voice in Congress raising concerns over presidents' efforts to expand the use of military force without congressional authorization. Alongside Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), and Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), Kaine filed a War Powers Resolution last month to block the use of the US Armed Forces to engage in hostilities within or against Venezuela unless authorized by Congress.
That legislation is ready to be called up for a vote.
They had previously introduced a bipartisan resolution to prevent the use of military force within or against Venezuela, but it did not receive enough Republican votes to pass. Kaine and Schiff also introduced a similar measure focused on repeated strikes in the southern Caribbean Sea that the Trump Administration has carried out without congressional authorization, killing dozens of unknown individuals.
The legislation did not gain enough Republican support to pass. (end) rsr.gb