The deadly Ebola virus is having devastating and deadly
consequences for a group of West African countries, including Liberia, Sierra
Leone, and Guinea. The virus is an aggressive one, involving enormous potential for epidemic dispersal. Its effects on those unfortunate enough to
contract it are often deadly and gruesome.
The
most widespread and devastating effects of Ebola have thus far been confined to
the aforesaid West African countries.
Among the hardest hit is Liberia.
The World Health Organization has recently projected that as many as
10,000 cases of Ebola could occur weekly in Africa by December of this
year. The disease appears to be
gathering strength and spreading rapidly.
Menacingly,
Ebola has now surfaced in the United States.
A Liberian national who flew into the U.S. through Dulles Airport,
Virginia, and then on to Dallas, Texas, had been infected with Ebola and soon
died of the disease. Subsequently, a nurse
who treated the Liberian migrant in Dallas was also diagnosed with Ebola. A concerned American public nervously awaits
the prospect of further cases entering or arising here.
And,
then, even while SR was writing this piece, another nurse who treated the
Liberian patient was diagnosed with Ebola.
And this nurse reportedly flew on a commercial flight after having
treated the Liberian – grimly demonstrating that human mistakes are apt to
undercut all the dubious assurances that have been given by the Administration
and others about the improbability of Ebola dispersal.
Facing
this grave threat to the public health, one would expect a firm and
uncompromising response from the Federal Government to shield Americans from
exposure to Ebola to the fullest extent possible. As is so often the case with the Obama
administration, however, any such expectation was illusory, and was soon
disappointed.
The
one thing Obama could and should do
as President, and without further delay, is close the U.S. border to the entry
of all travelers, immigrants, and migrants from the Ebola-affected countries --
with appropriate exception for returning
Americans who have been thoroughly and conclusively screened before
re-entry. Naturally, of course, this is
the one thing Obama has not done, and
which his administration insists (as of this writing) it will not do.
The
one thing Obama absolutely should not
do, on the other hand, is send thousands of Americans into the epidemic countries, where they will be unnecessarily
exposed to the disease, and placed at a geometrically enhanced risk of
contracting it. And, naturally, this is
exactly what Obama is doing.
The
Pentagon has recently announced that up to 4,000 U.S. Army soldiers, mainly
from the 101st Airborne Division, will be dispatched to Liberia. That's more than double the number of U.S.
troops reportedly sent to Iraq in connection with the effort to quell the
murderous ISIS rampage there. According
to Pentagon and Army spokespersons, the Liberian detachment will provide
logistical, engineering, air transport, training, and medical support to the
effort to contain Ebola in that country.
The Army insists that the soldiers will not be directly exposed to
infected people. But that is hardly
sufficient reassurance. The soldiers will
be engaged in operations in a devastated and disrupted country where thousands
of people are known to be infected with Ebola, and there are undoubtedly many other infected Liberians that nobody knows about.
Incredibly,
moreover, Democratic members of the House of Representatives (including the
radical Muslim, Rep. Keith Ellison (D. Minn.) are now urging Obama to remove
restrictions on these troops having direct contact with Ebola patents. It is not enough for these leftist agitators,
safe in their lush Washington offices, to send Army troops into the Ebola Zone;
no, they want to geometrically multiply the soldiers' risk of exposure by
forcing them into direct contact with
Ebola-contagious Africans.
American
soldiers are trained to go into harm's way, and they have been doing so with
enormous courage and frequency in the seemingly endless series of combat
operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Mid-Eastern countries over the past
two decades. But they are trained to do
so as armed war fighters, not as some kind of uniformed medical missionaries.
No
matter how elaborately the Administration's spokesmen may spin the facts, it is
indisputable that sending American soldiers into the very epicenter of the
Ebola Epidemic will enhance their prospects of exposure to, and possibly
contracting, this deadly virus. After
all the risks and tribulations they have gone through in fighting terrorist and
Islamist armies -- under outrageous constraints and restrictive rules of
engagement imposed by a politicized Pentagon and its armchair generals -- the
last thing our soldiers need is to be exposed to the risk of a deadly virus for
no military purpose.
And,
as recently emphasized by those dealing with the Ebola patients in Dallas, "in
the Ebola world there is no room for error." See http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/in-ebola-world-no-room-for-error-111867.html#ixzz3GAryh9w0. What if the Defense Department is wrong when
it says the Army detachment will not be exposed to infectious Ebola patients in
Africa? What if some of the non-patient
Liberians they do deal directly with, unbeknownst to them, do have Ebola? What if, as a result of such misjudgments,
Army personnel do contract Ebola? Then
the disease will be set loose within the U.S. Army.
In that
event, imagine the understandable fear and anxiety of the wives or husbands of
the soldiers dispatched to Ebola Country.
And their children. All thanks to
a "politically correct" decision by Obama and his leftist cohorts to
callously dispatch the 101st Airborne on a non-military mission that
is a gross and dangerous abuse of military resources and capabilities.
Wholly
apart from the unwarranted and ill-considered exposure of our soldiers to
enhanced risk of Ebola, the deployment of thousands of U.S. soldiers on a
non-military mission of disease containment and prevention in a foreign country
is, as forcefully stated by retired Lieutenant General William Boykin (the former
Commander of Delta Force) an "absolute misuse of the U.S. military." As General Boykin elaborated: "This is a terrible misuse of the U.S. military, and it comes at a terrible time when not only is the military really stretched thin, such that the U.S. military can not take on another mission, it comes at a time when we are reducing the military’s funding and the military’s numbers.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/boykin-sending-military-to-fight-ebola-misuse-of-soldiers/#oHWTObVbrhcaG2QK.99
The ultimate
mission of the Armed Forces, and especially the Army, is to fight and win wars
against foreign enemies in defense of the United States. At a time when the U.S. is faced with
increasing and genuine national security threats in multiple theaters – in Iraq,
Syria, Iran, Ukraine, as well as in the East and South China Seas, see http://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2014/01/cauldron-of-east-asia-crises-in-east.html
– the demands on our military resources are particularly intense and
expanding. At the same time, the force
strength has been reduced by the Obama administration, to the point where there
is already a critical problem of over-extension.
Why,
in such circumstances, would the Administration decide to squander precious
military resources on a non-military mission in distant African countries of no
strategic or tactical consequence? No persuasive rationale is apparent.
But
it gets worse. Even while Obama is
misallocating our limited and shrinking military resources on an ill-conceived
medical mission more suited to international charities than the Screaming
Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division, his Secretary of Defense has
doubled down on the stupidity. The bumbling
and hapless DoD Secretary, Chuck Hagel, has just announced that fighting the
tiresome international fraud now known as Climate Change – because calling it
Global Warming has since been exposed as a misnomer –presents an "immediate threat
to national security" which the Defense Department must address across all
of its operations.
So
the next time you hear Obama's DoD bureaucrats and politicized generals bemoan
the lack of resources to conduct effective military operations in the
battlefields of Iraq, Syria, or other areas where ISIS or Al Qaeda are
terrorizing the innocent, just remember:
The resources that could be used for such critical and genuine military
missions are being squandered on the bogus Campaign against Global Warming or
on charitable medical missions more suitable to the Red Cross or the Sisters of
Mercy.
In the
perpetually popular Star Trek saga, the grumpy but lovable ship's physician,
Dr. McCoy (aka "Bones"), would always reply to non-medical
assignments imposed on him by Captain James T. Kirk by grousing, "Dammit,
Jim, I'm a doctor, not a [physicist, or an engineer, or a navigator]!," --
depending on the particular inappropriate task that Kirk dumped on him.
Where,
one wonders, is the honest and upstanding member of the Army General Staff who
has enough conviction and concern for his troops to advise Obama, "Dammit,
Mr. President, this is an Army, not an order of medical missionaries!"?
Regrettably,
however, contemporary generals on active duty whose loyalty to their troops and
to the integrity of the military's mission exceeds their concern for job security and promotion are seemingly nowhere to be found, in this day and
age of the "Rainbow Generals."
See http://splashingrocks.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-rainbow-generals.html.
Like
the distinguished retired General Boykin, quoted above, they should be
protesting this latest Obama administration abuse of the Armed Forces in the
strongest possible terms. Their duty of
loyalty to their troops and to the Army's mission demands no less. But just as occurred when the general staff
shamefully suppressed their previously adamant opposition to the Obama
Administration's injection of homosexuality into the barracks, the troops can
once again expect only abject capitulation to Obama's political agenda from
their feckless general officers.
Addendum: The ink was barely dry on this posting when it was reported that, in addition to the deployments mentioned above, President Obama is now preparing to send elements of the National Guard to enhance the U.S. military's Ebola mission in Liberia. In short, the Administration is preparing to "double down" on its grotesque misuse of U.S. military resources and its unjustified exposure of thousands of U.S. soldiers and now Guardsmen to enhanced risk of contracting Ebola. See http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/obama-may-send-national-guard-liberia-fight-ebola-sources-n227336.
Addendum: The ink was barely dry on this posting when it was reported that, in addition to the deployments mentioned above, President Obama is now preparing to send elements of the National Guard to enhance the U.S. military's Ebola mission in Liberia. In short, the Administration is preparing to "double down" on its grotesque misuse of U.S. military resources and its unjustified exposure of thousands of U.S. soldiers and now Guardsmen to enhanced risk of contracting Ebola. See http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/obama-may-send-national-guard-liberia-fight-ebola-sources-n227336.