Commandos in the War on Drugs

The DEA has established five squads of commandos that have fought against drug cartels in Haiti, Colombia, Belize, Honduras and the Dominican Republic. The squads began under Bush, but continue and have actually expanded under Obama. The original mission of the commandos was drug traffic in Afghanistan. Now they operate mostly in the Western Hemisphere. 

Is the deployment of these squads really good for international relations? Is this money well spent? Again, this is another area where we could readily cut costs without any negative results.