As the Trump administration goes full speed into a regime change gambit in Venezuela, U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Newton, is calling on Congress to take back its war powers and cautioning that a ground war in Venezuela would be a disaster.
Auchincloss, who sits on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, spoke with WBUR’s Tiziana Dearing on Monday about the president’s moves in Venezuela, which included the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro over the weekend and statements by President Donald Trump that the United States would “be in charge” of both that country and its oil industry.
“I have no idea what that means, which is why it is so terrifying and so frustrating that Republicans in Congress refuse to take back congressional war powers and actually do oversight and accountability of what is another poorly planned regime change attempt after we have seen in Afghanistan and Iraq how terribly these can go,” Auchincloss said.
The congressman added that Trump has been open about his pursuit of Venezuela’s oil, which the president has talked about going after for a few years now.
“This is armed conflict. It requires congressional authorization, and it’s armed conflict in pursuit of oil,” Auchincloss said. “He’s been very plain about that.”
Dearing noted that Auchincloss sounds angrier at Congress than the president, and he agreed.
“This is blood for oil in Venezuela,” he said. “My frustration is with Republicans in Congress who are sleepwalking as sheep into the potential of another endless war.”
Auchincloss, a Marine who helped train forces in Panama to fight drug cartels, said South American warfare would not be the same kind of fighting that we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Jungle warfare is not going to be like desert warfare,” he said. “The line of sight complicates navigation and communications. It complicates close air support. You have to deal with malaria, which is a whole new field that, whether or not RFK believes in it exists, would be a threat to our troops. And there has been no planning. There has been no consultation with Congress. There has been no debate about whether the American public actually wants to do blood for oil in Latin America.”
Democrats are the minority party in both the House and Senate. The midterm elections in November could change that, but meanwhile Democrats are calling on Republicans to rein in the Trump administration’s moves in
“The clear imperative is to prevent boots on the ground,” Auchincloss said. “Boots on the ground is a step change in the degree of military adventurism that this president is pursuing. And so that’s my focus. Can we get a few Republicans to agree to a congressional directive that any further engagement of U.S. troops require congressional authorization? I don’t know if we can, candidly. I mean, they’re so weak. I’m not sure that they’d even be willing to do that, but boots on the ground is an absolute five alarm fire.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey is calling for investigations into Trump’s dealings with oil executives as they relate to Venezuela and demanding full transparency from the administration.
“The Trump administration has been lying to Congress and the American people while carrying out illegal attacks on dozens of Venezuelan boats, seizing oil tankers, and now, conducting a large-scale land strike. This is what dictators do,” Markey said in a statement earlier this week. “Make no mistake: this is an unconstitutional and reckless act of war. Trump had no approval from Congress. This attack is unjustified and unauthorized.”