The Air Force’s budget enemies have finished beating up on the F-22 now that the aircraft is in the field and working beautifully, and the buy has been truncated to 183 airplanes, says Gen. Ron Keys, head of Air Combat Command. So that means they’ve moved on to the F-35, hoping to delay it long enough so that the price goes up and becomes unaffordable, asserted Keys, adding, “There are always termites out there looking for something to feed on.”
U.S. Southern Command recently announced its first lethal strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in two months, and the first under a newly formed permanent counter-cartel task force. The U.S. is also reportedly planning to transfer MQ-9 drones to Colombia to bolster its counter-cartel efforts.