Republican senator challenges justification of U.S. military action carried out without congressional authorization.

A sharp political clash shook the U.S. Senate after Republican Sen. Rand Paul publicly confronted Secretary of State Marco Rubio for justifying the recent military intervention against Venezuela without congressional authorization and in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

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During a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Paul accused the administration of President Donald Trump of attempting to rebrand a large-scale military operation as a mere “law enforcement operation,” despite the fact that the U.S. military action on Jan. 3 included airstrikes against air defense systems, a blockade of Venezuelan territory, and the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

The senator directly challenged the official narrative by posing a reverse scenario: if a foreign power bombed U.S. defenses, kidnapped the U.S. president and left the country within hours, no one would hesitate to classify those actions as acts of war.

Paul also stressed that legal standards cannot be applied unilaterally, warning that double standards erode the U.S. constitutional and legal order.

Rubio avoided a direct response and reiterated that the military intervention, which he said lasted just four and a half hours, did not meet the “constitutional definition of war,” citing its short duration and the low number of casualties.

Paul, however, insisted that the length of an operation does not negate its wartime character, noting that even brief actions can constitute acts of war under international law.

The senator emphasized that Congress is the sole body with authority to authorize armed conflicts, a prerogative he said has been systematically ignored by successive U.S. administrations for decades.

Paul also recalled that Trump had pledged in 2016 to abandon “regime change” policies. Nevertheless, his administration not only pushed for the removal of the Venezuelan government but also publicly announced that the U.S. would “administer the country” until a political transition was completed, thereby confirming direct intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation.

The episode revived historical comparisons with conflicts such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, countries in which the United States avoided formally declaring war while carrying out large-scale military operations.

Paul warned that the practice of rebranding wars as “special missions” or “police actions” amounts to semantic manipulation designed to evade legal and political accountability.

The senator concluded that arguments that cannot be applied universally lack legitimacy and accused U.S. foreign policy of operating under a framework of exceptionalism that justifies the use of force without accountability.

teleSUR/ JF

Sources: TAC – AP – EFE

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