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The House will turn its attention to the Global War on Terror this week. Members of Congress will have the opportunity to express their thoughts on the progress of the war thus far and discuss our nation’s future efforts to defend itself against terrorists.
This debate comes on the heels of an important victory in Iraq. America and its allies in the War on Terror won a significant victory when our troops killed the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. There will surely be another terrorist who rises to take Zarqawi’s place, but the fact that our military was able to take down this important figure shows that our military and intelligence gathering efforts are paying off. As the new Iraqi political structure takes shape and the terrorist networks are dismantled in Iraq, America and its allies come closer to victory.
There are some who subscribe to the theory that the United States would be safer if we pulled our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan and kept to ourselves. But U.S. troops were not in Baghdad in 1993 when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center for the first time. U.S. troops were not in Afghanistan when terrorists attacked U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. U.S. troops were not fighting a full-scale War on Terror when 19 terrorists hijacked planes and crashed them into buildings in New York and Virginia in 2001.
Whether it is al-Qaeda or groups like Hezbollah and Ansar al-Islam (a group that has operated in Iraq since 2001), these terrorists share the common goal of bringing the United States to its knees. This will be their goal as long as Americans possess the religious and other individual freedoms that are the essence of our nation’s identity. As a result, we must take the fight to the terrorists and ensure that they find no safe harbor.
USDA Extends CRP Contracts
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) decided last Wednesday to allow the option of extending Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contracts for all Bailey and Kent County farmers with expiring contracts. USDA made the right move by allowing these additional extensions. Bailey and Kent County farmers will now have more time to make the transition away from the CRP land and to better plan for their farms’ futures.
USDA’s decision means that all farmers in these counties with CRP contracts expiring between 2007 and 2010 can extend those contracts for a set length of time based on the environmental benefits produced from their enrolled land. A large number of those CRP contracts are set to expire beginning in 2007, and the extensions will help prevent large amounts of land from leaving the program all at once, thus providing a smoother transition. Without this change, thousands of acres in 14 counties nationwide, including 40,000 acres in Bailey County alone, would not have had the extension option.
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