What's A Military General Doing Fighting The War On Drugs?
Jacob Sullum notes at reason that last month, General John F. Kelley, who is in charge of the U.S. Southern Command, said that he would need more ships if we expect him to win the war on drugs.

Huh?

Wait -- national defense?

That's supposed to mean defending our country against attack, not against those who wish to sell leaves and powder to willing buyers.

Sullum writes:

Yesterday Kelly complained that budget cuts have forced him to dial back drug interdiction in the Caribbean. In both cases, Kelly's complaints sound like good news to me.

"Because of asset shortfalls, we're unable to get after 74 percent of suspected maritime drug smuggling," Kelly told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "I simply sit and watch it go by." Mother Jones--which last year warned that "More Cocaine Could Soon Be on Our Streets, Thanks to the Sequester"--may be sympathetic to Kelly's plight. But since trying to stop Americans from snorting arbitrarily proscribed powders up their noses has absolutely nothing to do with national defense, it looks to me like giving the Pentagon a bit less money than it anticipated is forcing some perfectly appropriate and long overdue prioritization.