Citing security threat, Obama expands U.S. role fighting Ebola (Posted for my fellow BOGsters)
By Jeff Mason and James Harding Giahyue - Sep 16, 2014
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, September 16, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing
ATLANTA/MONROVIA (Reuters) -
...Obama's plan calls for sending 3,000 troops, including engineers and medical personnel; establishing a regional command and control center in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, commanded by Major General Darryl Williams, who arrived there on Tuesday; and forming a staging area in Senegal to help distribute personnel and aid on the ground. It also calls for building 17 treatment centers with 100 beds each; placing U.S. Public Health Service personnel in new field hospitals in Liberia; training thousands of healthcare workers for six months or longer; and creating an "air bridge" to get health workers and medical supplies into West Africa more quickly. The worst Ebola outbreak since the disease was identified in 1976 has already killed nearly 2,500 people and is threatening to spread elsewhere in Africa. Obama said "the world is looking to us" to take the lead against Ebola, but urged other nations also to take action because the epidemic is "spiraling out of control" and "people are literally dying in the streets..."
Obama said that if the outbreak is not stopped now, hundreds of thousands of people may become infected, "with profound political and economic and security implications for all of us."
"This is an epidemic that is not just a threat to regional security. It’s a potential threat to global security, if these countries break down, if their economies break down, if people panic. That has profound effects on all of us, even if we are not directly contracting the disease," Obama added...
Liberians hailed the word that U.S. troops were coming, recalling a military operation in 2003 that helped stabilize the country during a civil war. "This is welcome news. This is what we expected from the U.S. a long time ago," Anthony Mulbah, a student at the University of Monrovia, said in the dilapidated oceanfront capital. "The U.S. remains a strong partner to Liberia." In Liberia, a shortage of space in clinics for isolating victims means patients are being turned away, then infecting others. Ebola spreads rapidly, causes fever and uncontrolled bleeding...
The U.S. intervention comes as the pace of cash and emergency supplies dispatched to the region accelerates.
Before Tuesday, Washington had sent about 100 health officials and committed some $175 million in aid. Other nations, including Cuba, China, France and Britain; have pledged medical workers, health centers and other forms of support. Critics, including regional leaders, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Peter Piot, one of the scientists who discovered Ebola in 1976; have said international efforts so far have fallen woefully short...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/16/us-health-ebola-obama-idUSKBN0HB08S20140916
Comments on this piece when cited on another website ranged from 'Good job, Obama'; to conservatives saying to let them all die, Obama will bring the infected troops home to kill us like the Spanish flu; to factual rebuttals on every bit of conservative error and hysteria. I learned a lot, was impressed by the rebuttals. Good work!
= new reply since forum marked as read
Y’all, of course, realize that the US military doesn’t just consist of guys with guns, right? There are engineers, doctors, nurses, scientists. Heck, there already is one health center in Liberia being run by US military personnel. And, of course, if the US sends engineers, doctors and nurses in there will need to be some guys with guns to protect them. Why should we do that? Because ebola will spread. The CDC is already working with hospitals in the US on how to deal with it. It is in our interest to contain that and minimize the impact. also, troops have been training for germ warfare, exposure to this type of situation.
Why do people think ISIS needs to be contained but not Ebola? Why do people think that people who wish harm to the US are not trying to leverage the outbreak of Ebola against the US? This is why we cannot allow this to fester in anarchy. That, and we are human beings who are supposed to care about other defenseless humans beings who are suffering from this outbreak.
This will be a great opportunity for our CBN (chemical biological nuclear)Trained troops to get the real hands on Bio-warfare training. Good to have this knowledge for the future. With Synthetic Biology and the ease of modifying the genetics of organisms, we will see terrorists and even Military uses of Hemorrhagic and other diseases in our lifetimes. If ISIS or some other group got one of their members sick then he could be transported to USA or Europe and blow himself up in a crowed place. You Obama haters better use logic and not emotion with this issue.
The 1918 Flu originated in Haskell County, Kansas, spread to US Army bases, went to surrounding cities, went to US ports, and went to foreign ports and Europe. It was called the Spanish Flu because most countries, including the US, Allies, and Central Powers, had censorship to conceal bad news, so Spanish newspapers were the only source of information about the 1918 Influenza Epidemic that came from the US. It should have been called the Kansas Flu.
Folks, there are daily flights from the Unites States to these West African countries and back. Some of those arriving on the flights are your neighbors, co-workers, children’s classmates, neighborhood small business employees, etc. The United States is the largest melting pot in the world as far as people diversity goes. Even if direct flights to these countries are stopped, you cannot stop people from seeing their family members – they’ll always find a way. It is in your best interest that the United States helps to contain the disease there in West Africa than wait for it to get here. Its only a matter of time before it gets here.
There were responses to posts claiming that the Spanish Flu was why we went to WW1, and part of President Wilson's plot to kill Americans.
More posters pushed the theme that Obama wants infected troops to come back and decimate the American population in the same way.
The rebuttals show a realistic world view. We should go abroad since whatever is going on elsewhere, will be here. Because we are an immigrant culture and government must take action to protect all of us.
We hear a lot of hatred toward world cultures and connections, even from those who benefit. Isn't this how world peace is supposed to come about?
By David Ferguson - September 9, 2014
House Republicans have gutted a White House-sponsored bill that would direct funding to the fight to contain the hemorrhagic fever Ebola, which is raging out of control in multiple African countries.
The Hill blog reported that a source familiar with the budget negotiations confirmed that House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) will agree to provide only $40 million of the $88 million the Obama administration asked for in its 2015 budget.
Twenty-five million dollars of the $40 million would go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and $15 to the Biological Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) in order to speed up production of an experimental anti-Ebola drug.
The Obama administration originally asked for $58 million for BARDA, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency is tasked with coordinating the nation’s response to public health crises, including medical testing, vaccines, drug development and other products and services associated with “public health and medical consequences of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) accidents, incidents and attacks, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/09/gop-house-guts-white-houses-request-for-funds-to-fight-and-contain-ebola/
to unhappycamper:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1104866