Smoking a bowl in pipe room this morning after letting PMon out, turned TV on news. Sending our young Men and Women in uniform to fight Ebola is just plain WRONG. Sorry No politics just sad to think about that.
Apology Beforehand
- Thread starter tbradsim1
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Yes, I've been disturbed by this too. Talk about mission creep. This is an odd displacement. If it were Peace Corps
volunteers or another cadre of folks who are specifically committed to humanitarian missions, it would make more
sense. The military may do an excellent job, but whether it is a job that they should do is dubious, to say the least.
As with you, this is not a political response from me. It is just thinking that this is a mismatch between the military
and the needed training and readiness. That we have to address ebola goes without saying. It is nibbling at the U.S.
and the world.
volunteers or another cadre of folks who are specifically committed to humanitarian missions, it would make more
sense. The military may do an excellent job, but whether it is a job that they should do is dubious, to say the least.
As with you, this is not a political response from me. It is just thinking that this is a mismatch between the military
and the needed training and readiness. That we have to address ebola goes without saying. It is nibbling at the U.S.
and the world.
We are the world police already, now the worlds doctor? Jeez...why can't these countries take care of themselves.
Amen Bradley. I get more and more confused every day on exactly what the fighting men and women are supposed to be doing.
I forgot to add I called my Congressman in D.C. This morning and talked to an aide, he promised me he would relay my displeasure and send me a letter , I asked how did the veterans feel about this and said they all don't like it. Again no politics just wondering where my Country is heading, don't like the direction.
I went to my senior state senator's (Claire McCaskill) facebook page and left my opinion.
tinner
tinner
I am also unsure as to whether this is a good decision, but not because of a perceived mismatch between training and mission. While they haven't given a lot of specifics about the units deploying, there is no large body of personnel organized and trained for this other than certain units of the military. The CDC (which has been on the ground from the beginning) doesn't have anywhere near the resources and something like the Peace Corps is far, far from prepared for somethring like this.
Bear in mind that, at the top of the list of our national security concerns is biowarfare, and Ebola is one of the most feared agents in a potential enemy's arsenal. For that reason, the military has been training special units to cope with biowarfare attacks. Since a biowarfare attack is identical in any practical sense to a natural outbreak, those units are really the only such bodies of men and women available who have the training and resources to handle something like this! No other country except maybe Russia or China have invested as much as we have for this kind of scenario. These troops may well prove to be the best possible first responders on earth to this kind of situation.
Plus, this will undoubtedly prove to be an unprecedented opportunity to test out responses and develop better protocols. It may well turn out that someday we face a bio attack in the U.S. and find that countless lives have been saved due to the lessons learned in the real-world deployment/test bed that was the Ebola outbreak of 2014. I don't see this as in anyway an example of s being the worlds policeman - this isn't a conventional war and the enemy isn't even from our own species. Stopping outbreaks like this are a direct national security issue, as we are as threatened by disease outbreaks just like everyone else -- disease threatens us all equally, and it is especially important to contain epidemics of diseases like Ebola because every day the virus spreads is another few billion opportunities for it to pick up new characteristics and mutate. If that stuff goes "airborne" (as the media describes aerosolization) then Ebola could become a "slate wiper in humans," to borrow a quote from one of the first scientist to devote his career to studying this strain of hemorrhagic fever.
I agree there are some political elements to this that make me uncomfortable, but for the reasons I just outlined I am not sure that I oppose it either.
Bear in mind that, at the top of the list of our national security concerns is biowarfare, and Ebola is one of the most feared agents in a potential enemy's arsenal. For that reason, the military has been training special units to cope with biowarfare attacks. Since a biowarfare attack is identical in any practical sense to a natural outbreak, those units are really the only such bodies of men and women available who have the training and resources to handle something like this! No other country except maybe Russia or China have invested as much as we have for this kind of scenario. These troops may well prove to be the best possible first responders on earth to this kind of situation.
Plus, this will undoubtedly prove to be an unprecedented opportunity to test out responses and develop better protocols. It may well turn out that someday we face a bio attack in the U.S. and find that countless lives have been saved due to the lessons learned in the real-world deployment/test bed that was the Ebola outbreak of 2014. I don't see this as in anyway an example of s being the worlds policeman - this isn't a conventional war and the enemy isn't even from our own species. Stopping outbreaks like this are a direct national security issue, as we are as threatened by disease outbreaks just like everyone else -- disease threatens us all equally, and it is especially important to contain epidemics of diseases like Ebola because every day the virus spreads is another few billion opportunities for it to pick up new characteristics and mutate. If that stuff goes "airborne" (as the media describes aerosolization) then Ebola could become a "slate wiper in humans," to borrow a quote from one of the first scientist to devote his career to studying this strain of hemorrhagic fever.
I agree there are some political elements to this that make me uncomfortable, but for the reasons I just outlined I am not sure that I oppose it either.
You are not paranoid, nor fringie with this thinking. That is a very real threat.
When Clancy wrote about that guy dive bombing a plane into the Congress people were entertained but blew it off... until 9/11.
Clancy ALSO wrote about just such a scenario as the one described... Just sayin.
(and No I don't think Clancy was a prognosticator or anything, just an astute observer of the warlike nature of mankind)
As a person with 15 months left in uniform, it is just sad it has to be MY brothers and sisters put in harms way to develop this knowledge and create these first responders.
I parallel it in my mind with the pending repairs that need to be done to the containment structures at Chernobyl. Someone's got to go in there... but those who do are F'd.
And because this is a real threat. It SHOULD be weighed into the discussion about our borders, since they are like seives now.
my 2 cents.
When Clancy wrote about that guy dive bombing a plane into the Congress people were entertained but blew it off... until 9/11.
Clancy ALSO wrote about just such a scenario as the one described... Just sayin.
(and No I don't think Clancy was a prognosticator or anything, just an astute observer of the warlike nature of mankind)
As a person with 15 months left in uniform, it is just sad it has to be MY brothers and sisters put in harms way to develop this knowledge and create these first responders.
I parallel it in my mind with the pending repairs that need to be done to the containment structures at Chernobyl. Someone's got to go in there... but those who do are F'd.
And because this is a real threat. It SHOULD be weighed into the discussion about our borders, since they are like seives now.
my 2 cents.
When you can kill a few days doing nothing but reading (1300+ pages in print), take a look at Tom Clancy's Executive Orders. This is the book that had the plane crashing into the Capital (written in the mid 90s predating 9-11). He presents an Ebola epidemic in the US as a bioterrorism threat that kills thousands in horrible ways. No troops needed except National Guard for keeping quarantines in place and keeping the peace. He ALSO presents a scenario in which Iran and Iraq become one country much like Syria and Iraq seem to be fusing into now. But nowhere in the book do troops go outside of the country and fight Ebola. If the Corps of Engineers is just constructing hospitals and infrastructure to handle the cases that is one thing; if they are there to treat the West Africans that is something entirely different...
Ebola? This sucker ain't done yet!
Ebola? This sucker ain't done yet!
That too is an excellent and pretty creepy book for me since it takes place in the suburbs of Washington, DC where I live.
I agree, our military should be kicking ISIS in the tail, not dealing with Ebola. ISIS thinks they're unstoppable right now, but I'm pretty sure if our military showed up, ISIS would be running scared with their tails between their legs.
Doc makes some valid points. I for one still in the service, luckily no where near the outbreak areas. It worries me a bit as some of the others have pointed out bit and pieces of this stuff too. It just reminds me of the black plague that swept through killing millions. I'm hoping it gets contained pretty fast.
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