WASHINGTON, United States (CMC) – United States (US) Senators Tim Kaine and Adam Schiff on Friday introduced a War Powers Act resolution that would block the use of US Armed Forces to engage in hostilities against certain non-state organisations following multiple unauthorised military strikes on unverified alleged drug trafficking operations in the Southern Caribbean Sea.

“President Trump has no legal authority to launch strikes or use military force in the Caribbean or elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere,” said Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, stating that the Trump administration has refused to provide the US Congress with basic information about the multiple strikes it has carried out, including who was killed, why it was necessary to put service members’ lives at risk, and why a standard interdiction operation wasn’t conducted.

“Congress simply cannot let itself be stiff-armed as this administration continues to flout the law,” Paine added. “That’s why we’re introducing this legislation to require a debate and vote on whether the US should be conducting these strikes without congressional approval.”

Schiff, a Democrat from California, said the US Congress alone holds the power to declare war.

“And while we share with the executive branch the imperative of preventing and deterring drugs from reaching our shores, blowing up boats without any legal justification risks dragging the United States into another war and provoking unjustified hostilities against our own citizens,” he said.

“Congress must be fully briefed on these operations and, if the administration believes there is a case to make for a war authorisation, it should make it,” Schiff added. “But this unauthorised and illegal use of our military must stop.”

Paine and Schiff said war powers resolutions are privileged, meaning that “the Senate will be required to promptly consider and vote upon the resolution.”

The resolution reaffirms that trafficking of illegal drugs does not itself constitute an armed attack or threat of an imminent armed attack that would justify military action, and that the designation of an entity as a foreign terrorist organisation does not provide any legal authority to the US President to use military force.

The resolution also emphasises the importance of Congress retaining its power to declare war as President Trump has stated that “it is not possible at this time to know the full scope and duration of military operations that will be necessary.”

The resolution reiterates the lawmakers’ commitment to providing the Executive Branch the resources necessary to prevent and mitigate drug and narcotics trafficking into the United States.

The Ranking Member of the US Senate Armed Services Committee Jack Reed (D-RI) on Monday, Sept. 15, strongly condemned the US military strikes in the Caribbean as Trump on disclosed that he had ordered a second strike this month on a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, killing three on board.

“President Trump’s actions are an outrageous violation of the law and a dangerous assault on our Constitution,” said Reed, who is also a senior member of the Senate’s Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. “No president can secretly wage war or carry out unjustified killings – that is authoritarianism, not democracy.

Speaking from the Senate’s floor last week, Reed noted that Trump gave two orders to the US military that he described as “astonishing, even by this administration’s standards.

“First, he ordered the Department of Defence to be renamed the ‘Department of War’ – a political theatre exercise designed to sound tough while distracting from the real issues facing this nation,” he said. “Second, he ordered a military strike on a speedboat operating in the Caribbean, reportedly killing eleven people on board.”

In response to the attack, Reed said Venezuela has placed its military on high alert, “and we are one miscalculation away from a shooting war that no one in this chamber has authorised.