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You put troops on our border, if they are fired upon they fire back.

There will be a Kent State incident, and thus there is absolutely no way the majority of the American people will condone this. And if you think it can be sold to the public as a normal, non-overkill way of dealing with the real problems at the border, I believe you are kidding yourself.

Now there is a way some of this can be done that is acceptable, and it is going on now, and that is, operations to intercept drug smugglers. If drug smugglers are fired on, the public will accept that. Or if they are smuggling in terrorists at $30,000 a head, those people can be fired on.

But when they are bringing in poor Mexicans or poor Chinese, and bullets go astray and kill these people and their kids, then no, the majority of the American people will blanch.

I think a trained policing force, like a beefed up Border Patrol with teeth, that can arrest people without killing them is the way to go, and are trained to distinquish between the nefarious and civilian idiots. Soldiers are not trained to arrest people but to kill them and are trained to see everyone but their fellow soldiers as the enemy, and it is not good to mess with that mentality by giving them border guard duty.

You and wcbtinman may want to get together and vie for body count scores at the border, but my Christian vows don't allow me to join you in blood lust.

I believe the intercession of drugs and terrorists will give our newly invigorated Border Patrol shiny enough credentials in the public mind to allow them to also really start intercepting and shipping home a lot more illegals crossing both our borders (Canada and Mexico).

Frankly if you guys really want to intercept terrorists then the unpatrolled forest borders with Canada is the place you should go. There are trails there that the Soviets used to infiltrate people and if you took potshots at someone entering the U.S. illegally on those trails, you'd have a high likelihood of hitting a criminal or a terrorist, not a poor Hispanic slob trying to make a better life, plus the press would be a lot better if their bodies were ever found.

Our troops are trained to kill and not arrest? Our troops have been turned into the cop on the beat, look at Bosnia.

Both borders need defending. If women and children don't want to be killed they shouldn't hang around with drug smugglers. The only danger our troops would face would be being fired on by cartels.

Let me ask you to remember something right after 9-11 when our troops were placed at border crossings, activity, especially illegal activity, border jumpers, and drugs dried up at the border for the entire time the troops were in position.

I'm afraid your blood bath scenario is just not realistic.

"Frankly if you guys really want to intercept terrorists then the unpatrolled forest borders with Canada is the place you should go. There are trails there that the Soviets used"

And while we're watching the northern border, 1 or 2 terrorists can slip through the southern, with each new group. I'm wondering if it is a coincidence the money from Bandar's wife went to San Diego; sure would be handy to turn over the money as one of them comes across the border.

Like you, I'm not for a bloodbath, but this constant stream of people illegally crossing our borders has to stop. Fox won't cooperate, since he's glad to get rid of so many people who don't contribute anything to his needs (revenues), so perhaps it is time for Bush to get tough with Fox.

While I'm not affected economically like the border states, my concerns are more from the terrorist standpoint, and I believe there is a real danger. Terrorists are serious as death, and they don't want to lose.