The Congressional newspaper, The Hill, reports that key lawmakers in the House believe the Senate is on the right track with its push to get the Administration to put funding for the war on terror into the DOD budget. They want to stop the seemingly endless run of “emergency supplementals.” There is clear precedent for stopping the use of supplementals for a protracted war, as seen in a recent Congressional Research Service recap of funding over the years for the wars in Korea and Vietnam. There was a large supplemental in the first year for Korea, then the preponderance of funding shifted to regular appropriations. For Vietnam over the course of 11 years, there were five supplementals of greatly decreasing amounts from 1966 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.