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Posted on 01/31/2026 2:25:51 PM PST by Angelino97
Donald Trump said in 2016 to the Republican National Convention, “We must abandon the failed policy of nation-building and regime change.”
Earlier this month, after the current administration launched a war against Venezuela and ousted—one might say changed the regime of—President Nicolás Maduro, Trump said, “We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.”
U.S.-led regime change in Venezuela seemed to fly in the face of Trump’s prior warnings against regime change wars. But the president’s defenders said this was a different kind of military operation, unlike the Iraq, Libyan and Syrians interventions Trump had once bemoaned.
In fact, Team Trump even went so far as to say that the recent U.S. intervention in Venezuela wasn’t really even a war at all.
That’s the thinking Secretary of State Marcio Rubio brought when he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday.
When asked by committee member Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) why the administration waged war against Venezuela without consulting Congress, as the Constitution demands, Rubio said that it was merely a “law enforcement operation,” not a war.
Paul asked, describing the actions the U.S. took against Venezuela, “If a foreign country bombed our air defense missiles, captured and removed our president, and blockaded our country, would that be considered an act of war?”
Rubio replied, “I will acknowledge you’ve been very consistent on all these points the entire career, no matter who’s in charge.” Paul has posed similar challenges to the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations foreign policy actions in the past.
Rubio continued, “So I will point to two things. The first is it’s hard for us to conceive that an operation that lasted about four and a half hours and was a law enforcement operation to capture someone we don’t recognize as a head of state indicted in the United States.”
Paul pressed on: “My question would be if it only took four hours to take our president, it’s very short. Nobody dies on the other side. Nobody dies on our side. It’s perfect. Would it be an act of war?”
Rubio did not answer directly and still insisted that the U.S. somehow did not commit an act of war.
“We just don’t believe that this operation comes anywhere close to the constitutional definition of war,” Rubio told the committee, still citing the quickness and efficiency of the operation.
Paul pressed even further, trying to get a basic answer to his basic question, “But would it be an act of war if someone did it to us? Nobody dies, few casualties, they’re in and out, boom, it’s a perfect military operation. Would that be an act of war?”
This time Paul didn’t wait for another non-answer from Rubio.
“Of course it would be an act of war,” he continued (emphasis added). “I’m probably the most anti-war person in the Senate, and I would vote to declare war if someone invaded our country and took our president. So, I think we need to at least acknowledge this is a one-way argument. One-way arguments that don’t rebound, that you can’t apply to yourselves, that cannot be universally applicable, are bad arguments.”
Rubio’s bad argument was not new. The Vietnam War was never an officially declared war but a “police action” similar to Rubio’s “law-enforcement operation.” But trying telling a Vietnam vet that it wasn’t a war, or the families of those who lost loved ones there.
Was the recent U.S. war against Venezuela like Vietnam? Not remotely. Was Venezuela even like the more recent U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria that Western non-interventionists criticize? It was not. Wars can be different.
But it was a war, something Paul was right to point out to Rubio in that setting.
Congress was originally supposed to elect what kinds of wars America should get into, great or small. Instead, neoconservatives like Rubio and hawks of different stripes not only insist that Congress does not need to be consulted, but have redefined America’s wars as anything but actual wars to justify these actions outside of normal constitutional and moral parameters. They wage language wars to dismiss real ones.
That’s exactly what Rubio was doing and why he couldn’t give a straight answer.
In 1965, the United States went to war in Vietnam, no matter what it was called. In 2001, the U.S. went to war with Afghanistan. In 2003, the U.S. did the same in Iraq. In 2011, a U.S.-led war ousted President Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. “We came, we saw, he died,” the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton later boasted of America’s Libyan war.
Imagine if Russia’s President Vladimir Putin came, saw, and helped carry out the same acts against the United States and its president, Donald Trump? What might that be called? Whether or not any foreign country might be capable of doing this is separate from the question. In Marco Rubio’s defense, he is simply the latest government leader to make excuses for why yet another American war really wasn’t. Kudos to Rand Paul for not letting him get away with it.
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President Trump knows what he is doing. Instead of endless
wars, President Trump practices surgery. No fuss. No muss.
Rand, would it be an act of war if Venezuela, China, Cuba, Iran, Russia, Iran, and Serbia uploaded totally false election results in enough swing states to steal an election for Biden, from their base in Belgrade, Serbia, where John Brennan’s company installed the servers that allowed them to do it?
Would that be an act of war, Rand?
The thread has worn out from his repeated clutching.
So what?
“Rubio did not answer directly and still insisted that the U.S. somehow did not commit an act of war.”
You mean Rubio could not suggest that flooding the nation with killer drugs, thereby killing tens of thousands of Americans, is not an act of war?
Does Rand Paul, and Jack Hunter, think it is a good idea to allow a foreign nation to flood the nation with lethal drugs?
Does Rand Paul, and Jack Hunter, think it is a good idea to abandon Venezuela, the top oil producer and our close neighbhor, to the warm embrace of Russia, Iran, and China?
Rand Paul resists the interdiction of drug smugglers on the high seas, violating his purity of sentiments about what is right and proper.
Has Rand Paul ever offered any suggestions as to how the situation should be handled, according to his higher wisdom and purity of thought?
Also, Rand, the US does not recognize Maduro as the President of Venezuela, because the same Smartmatic software that was used to steal the 2020 US election for Biden was used to steal the 2022 election for Venezuela.
To fit the scenario your question should be whether it would be an act of war for Haiti to use force to execute the arrest warrant of Hillary Clinton for kidnapping and abusing Haitian orphans.
Would that be an act of war, Rand?
Rand is just a jerk.
Sorry Rand, you are wrong on this one. The Latin American countries in Central and South American have a clandestine plan to destroy us with drugs. Guess what, it is working. For several years now approximately 100,000 young Americans have died from illicit drugs. That is almost twice as many as died during the Vietnam fiasco. Politicians should defend the constitution and judiciously spend our tax dollars. So our president is finally going after the drug cartels. I appreciate your service but again, I disagree on this one.
Imagine doing something similar in Taiwan, which is already considers to be part of its country.
We'd look like hypocrites if we objected. And, there is no way we're going to war with China over Taiwan.
Rand should be accidentally sent to El Savador.
We are not even occupying Venezuela. We are still present in the area of Venezuela. So, your point is not even relevant, Rand Paul, because it 's not what is happening there.
Rand Paula refuses to call a government sponsoring their people invading our country and bringing in drugs that kills thousands of people every year an act of war.
If Rubio thought so, them why didn't he or Trump ask Congress to declare war on Venezuela, as the Constitution requires?
That's the issue.
Even after Hitler declared war on the U.S., FDR still felt obligated to ask Congress to declare war on Germany.
LOL. I remember when Rand ran for president. He proved to be a complete idiot and had to exit very early.
Did we declare war on France during the 1790s Quadsi-Naval War? No! We defended our rights to commerce on the high seas.
Did we declare war in the Barbary War? Where we again defended our right to conduct commerce. Added benefit we freed American merchant seamen who had been taken from American vessels and enslaved.
There are other examples!
Pirates by the law of the sea are enemies of all mankind. Seafaring nations have an obligation to destroy them.
You going to tell me criminal drug\human trafficking cartels are morally superior to pirates and deserve more consideration?
“If Rubio thought so, them why didn’t he or Trump ask Congress to declare war on Venezuela, as the Constitution requires?”
There is a difference between an act of war and declaring war. You did not know that? Nations commit acts of war against each other all the time.
The CCP conduct over COVID was an act of war.
Search Assist:
“Thomas Jefferson did not seek permission from Congress before sending military action against the Barbary pirates; he believed he had the constitutional authority as commander in chief to protect U.S. interests. This decision was controversial and marked a significant use of executive power.”
Since Congress declared war in WWII, how many military actions and wars have the United States been involved in that Congress intervened and declared a state of war existed?
To save you some time: Zero
To save you some time: Zero
You needn't tell me that. I already knew it was zero.
That does not prove that Trump was right not to ask Congress. Only that all previous presidents were wrong.
All you prove is the ongoing shredding of the Constitution.
Too many examples.
Yes, we've long ignored the Constitution.
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