Posted on 09/16/2014 6:44:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
Africa is rapidly becoming an environment rich in both targets and threats.
In Nigeria, the fundamentalist terror group Boko Haram has seized vast swaths of territory and declared the foundation of an African Islamic caliphate. The group known for kidnapping, killing, and enslaving children has embarked on a crusade to destroy the ancient Christian communities in the territory it controls and has imposed Sharia law on locals.
In Libya, the Islamist militias which arose after Gaddafi fell have captured the country’s capital. On Tuesday, new mysterious airstrikes were reportedly carried out against positions occupied by the Islamist militia, Libyan Dawn. The last time similar airstrikes were executed in Libya, they were revealed to be the work of the UAE and Egypt. Neither Abu Dhabi nor Cairo bothered to inform Washington of their plan to open hostilities in North Africa, and it is just as likely that these latest strikes came as a surprise to the administration, too.
And in sub-Saharan Africa, an outbreak of Ebola is rapidly becoming the worst of its kind in human history. Last week, the World Health Organization warned the epidemic is growing “exponentially” worse. Since December, over 3,700 people have been infected and there have been more than 2,200 deaths reportedly due to this disease. The United Nations predicts that there may be up to 20,000 confirmed cases of Ebola before the outbreak is contained.
Of these crises, guess which one the United States is committing 3,000 American Defense Department personnel to fight?
“Under pressure to do more to confront the Ebola outbreak sweeping across West Africa, President Obama on Tuesday is to announce an expansion of military and medical resources to combat the spread of the deadly virus, administration officials said,” The New York Times reported.
The president will go beyond the 25-bed portable hospital that Pentagon officials said they would establish in Liberia, one of the three West African countries ravaged by the disease, officials said. Mr. Obama will offer to help President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia in the construction of as many as 17 Ebola treatment centers in the region, with about 1,700 treatment beds.
…
Officials said the military expected to send as many as 3,000 people to Africa to take charge of responding got the Ebola outbreak.
“The total cost of the program is estimated at $763 million over six months,” USA Today reported. “The administration has asked Congress for an additional $88 million for the anti-Ebola program, officials said. And the Department of Defense, which is heading up the program, has requested the re-programming of $500 million.”
This unprecedented outbreak requires an unprecedented response to combat, and it is commendable that the president is willing to commit resources to contain this epidemic. A rapidly mutating Ebola outbreak will not remain contained to Africa for long.
It is odd, however, that the president is so willing to commit American defense personnel to a non-combat operation with limited repercussions for America’s national security when there are so many conflicts on that continent and nearby which are far more pressing. Will Obama deliver a speech to the nation in which he carefully explains why committing nearly twice the number of troops to combat Ebola in Africa is a circumspect mission which is critical to American security, or will he simply order their deployment without a care to the politics of the matter? One suspects the latter will be the more likely outcome.
Yet another troop commitment calculated to expend American lives based on the misapprehension that forces are to serve as a sort of Global Advertisement for How Nice the President Can Be, rather than, quite simply, to maintain American national security in a dangerous world.
Obama wants to be sure that everyone is looking at him “wanting to save the world.”
And who cares if our American kids die horribly from a virulent and terrifying disease which has nothing to do with them, or us.
Okay, let me get this straight.
The Emperor is sending 3,000 troops into an area of an active pandemic. And they are going to setting up and support multiple field hospitals.
If that is correct this means they are hospital support personnel - everything it takes to set up a hospital less medical personnel. BTW - these are the same ones that we would need to set up similar field hospitals within the US if the pandemic spreads into North America.
One more thought - who is going to protect these dispersed 3,000 American personnel from local, and “previously unknown”, Islamic Terrorist groups?
This piece of political posturing isn’t going to have a happy ending.
Let’s see, this POS is sending troops to Africa but will not put any on our border to protect against the invasion from Mexico. And what the the Joint Chiefs doing? The CJCS has his nose so far up Obama’s but, he hasn’t seen the light of day in years.
Another opportunity for soetoro to murder Americans.
They'll run headlong into the militia. Meanwhile, the ebola that returning troops will bring home is most likely to attack poor and urban areas that are the base of the Democrat Party.
I guess AQ was having a hard time recruiting volunteer 'suicide carriers.' It's a nasty disease.
We’ve spent billions of dollars in that hellhole attempting to ‘create jobs’. Give ‘em the money to protect themselves. This will create jobs.
Of course Africans aren’t stupid.
They don’t want jobs in Ebola zones. That’s for stupid Americans with a President who’s an effing idiot.
errrh .... uhhhhhhh
World War Z?
Here in the US back in 1975, the USAF and US Army veterinary technicians were used to stem a VVND outbreak in California (Newcastle’s Disease). The USAF Veterinary service was instrumental in stemming the Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis outbreak in 1971. These were here in the CONUS. I have reservations about the US heading for this area as nothing good will come of it. Many are Muslims and the others just hate us.
what better way to weaken our military than giving them a 50% fatality disease. More of Obama’s master plan in action.
Heh... even toys had SSNs back then.
1700 beds for potentially 22 million infected victims
what could go wrong
If one wants to destroy a country he hates, having soldiers catch ebola and bring it back here is a good idea.
No one joins the military--one must assume--to fight for foreign interests; and certainly no one joins to volunteer to become a carrier of a terrible pathogen. Putting our youth in this sort of harm's way, is just one more unconscionable example of how far we have drifted from common sense.
William Flax
Exactly. Unbelievable.
Isn’t there anyone or anything that can stop this?? B O doesn’t follow the Constitution....he does what the REAL destroyers behind the scenes tell him to do but shouldn’t this be a crisis decision or does the CIF have all the power to do so with no recourse by the congress?? I’m ignert but this is way over the top, imho........;(
“Super cops”
There’s absolutely no charge for our policing and doctoring. We bring lots of expensive stuff with us, and chances are good that we’re bringing home something special for our loved ones.
Body bags with our kids in them is “what happens”!
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