By Mike Weland
U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate this week in opposition to a senate resolution challenging President Donald Trump’s constitutional authority to authorize strikes on alleged narco-terrorists trafficking drugs into the United States, a resolution which would have been a first step in the legislative branch’s reasserting its constitutionally-mandated oversight obligations over the executive.
Since Trump’s reelection, according to his website, whitehouse.gov, four vessels, classed as speed boats and small ships, have been destroyed off the coast of Venezuela, about 2,500 miles from the nearest U.S. coastline, killing more than 20 alleged drug traffickers, no proof presented, no due process, no direct or imminent threat to the United States.
The typical speed boat has a range of about 800 miles. A small ship of about 1,500 miles. At least two of the vessels reportedly turned back toward Venezuelan ports.
Trump legitimizes the attacks as self-defense. Article 51 of the UN Charter establishes that a claim of self defense requires an armed attack. There was no armed attack.
Despite repeated requests from Congress, the Trump administration has failed to provide hard evidence justifying the strikes or demonstrating that the targeted boats were carrying drugs. Some members of Congress, including Republican Senator Rand Paul, have expressed skepticism over the administration’s claims.
Legal experts argue that attacking and killing the crews of private vessels for allegedly trafficking narcotics is an arbitrary deprivation of life, which violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The standard procedure is to apprehend suspects for trial, not summarily execute them. Summary execution is defined by most nations as murder.
The resolution failed 28-51, with Republican Senators Paul and Lisa Murkowski voting in favor and Democrat John Fetterman voting opposed.
“Congress must not allow the executive branch to become judge, jury and executioner,” Paul said in favor of supporting the constitution.
Here are excerpts of what Risch said:
“Mr. President, we’re here today to talk about a resolution put forth by the Democrats that is very, very not well taken. We’re all aware in this body that on September 4th, President Trump notified Congress of his initial strike against narco-terrorists who were bringing deadly and illegal drugs … into this country, the first of four such strikes.
“My colleague referred to the fact that the President can, if there’s an imminent attack on our country, strike. This wasn’t an imminent attack. This was an actual attack. It was in progress. It was going on. People were attacking our country by bringing in poisonous substances to deposit into our country that would have killed Americans all over America, including your constituents. Fortunately, most of those drugs are now at the bottom of the ocean. Had that not happened, I guarantee you there would have been hundreds, maybe thousands, of people in this country who would have been killed with the tremendous amount of drugs being brought in.
“The facts of that are obviously well-known, well-reported … The people carrying those drugs were terrorists, plain and simple. They were trafficking drugs that finance a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. These strikes were fully compliant and fully justified under the President’s Article II constitutional authority, and not only authority but duty as Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces to defend this country, and he took an oath to do so …
“When he sees an attack like this coming—an attack of drugs or explosives or anything else that’s going to kill Americans—he not only has the authority to do something about it, he has the duty to do something about it.
“We should have a resolution out here not condemning what he did and telling him don’t do this anymore. We should have a resolution out here thanking him for the hundreds, probably thousands, of lives that he saved with these four attacks, including constituents in your districts.
“Thank you, Mr. President, for what you did. Thank you, and continue the good work of taking these drugs out of the traffic and putting them on the bottom of the ocean. My friends, this is Trump Derangement Syndrome. These people hate President Trump. I get that. But simply because you hate him, you should not wallow in that hate like you have and produce this kind of a product that stops the President from doing what he is supposed to do. This is shameful and it should be defeated, and it’s going to be defeated.”