Global War on Terrorism to Remain Defense Department's Top Priorit

[Terri]

Global War on Terrorism to Remain Defense Department's Top Priority

By Jeremy Reynalds
Talon News
January 7, 2004

WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- The global war on terrorism will remain the Defense Department's top priority in the new year, as the department continues to focus on improving and modernizing its programs, systems, and forces to make them more responsive to 21st century requirements.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters Tuesday during his first Pentagon briefing of 2004 that the department has already made "remarkable progress."

"We'll need to continue to strengthen, improve and transform our forces; modernize and restructure programs and commands, which we're working on; streamline DOD processes and procedures," Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld praised the progress made in Afghanistan, saying it is "free and moving forward."

More (http://www.gopusa.com/news/2004/january/0107_rumsfeld.shtml)

[Brenda]

The Patriot Act still scares the bejeezers out of me, and it should worry those who care about thier right's as American Citizens esp. re: the 2nd ammendment, and the RIGHT TO PRIVACY, (which is quickly becoming a joke)!
http://www.gopusa.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif http://www.gopusa.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/flag17.gif http://www.gopusa.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif http://www.gopusa.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/flag17.gif

[midnight patriots]

Exactly Brenda! The first thing they should've done was seal the borders............. .............. of course that would mean they were truly interested in preserving this country and it';s ideals. Nooooooooooooooooooo ooooo, what do they do instead, send all our troops to protect other countries while they make sweeping laws to take away our freedoms and leave us unprotected. I know I feel special now. http://www.gopusa.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[Jon Q Republican]

Immigration is where the Bush administration is really failing in my opinion.

Still, little has been done to strengthen the boarders after September 11th.

The Border Patrol, INS and Customs are all still underfunded and undermanned.

The biggest threat we face is from terrorists groups that exist outside the USA. If we tighten our boarders and our immigration policies we could make giant leaps toward securing the country.

Now the Bush Administation propses the quasi-amnesty policy. I'm stunned, Reagan had amnesty. THe idea was to put the people to work that our country and economy needed and they stem the tide at the boarder.

Now we have the same amount of illegal immigrants AND the ones that took amnesty. And here we are about to repeat history.

I am in favor of a solid migrant worker program that allows people to come here legally for work in agriculture. Most of the folks that work these jobs do it seasonally, and then return home for the rest of the year where they can support thier families much better then the could do here.

However, I do not support rewarding illegal activity. Create a program and require that all people seeking it apply for it before entering the country.

Migrant workers are needs because there simply are not enough Americans willing to do these jobs. That is why Wendys and other fast food resturants sponser hundreds of foreign nationals every year. It costs them money to get people from outside the USA but they can't find willing workers here.

But to reward people who chose to break the law and sneak across the boarder rather then apply to the right to legally come here is crazy to me. And, from what I am hearing, those illegals will have preferential treatment when it comes to this program because they already have jobs in the US. That's crazy.

The question of what to do about illegal immigration still remains, but this policy is certianly not it.