Do you get the force of connection here?
Consider. The UK sent a force to Sierra Leone. We have heard jack squat from them since their arrival.
Consider. The US has sent the 101st to Liberia. We have heard jack squat from them.
If we're seeing this type of stuff from open source materials then those in charge have much better visibility. Remember. Our UN Representative just left that region and is now back.
I'm calling it. Africa is going to be a battlefield. A disease has removed the thorny issue of what to do with the indigenous people and now the race for resources is on.
The only question is whether China feels confident enough to stop a power play by the US and Western European powers.
1) You possibly didn't notice that that precise article you linked is the same one you're commenting on?
2) The British are pissing on a forest fire in Sierra Leone, because former British colony; we're pissing on a forest fire in Liberia, because colony of former US slaves freed and returned to Africa.
3) Considering how much worse the disease epidemic is going to get in the next 6 months in both countries, sending troops there now is like sending firemen into the World Trade Center after the jet impact to "secure the resources of the building".
If you haven't seen that movie, it ends poorly for the firemen. Precisely as it will for the troops.
4) Considering what will inevitably happen there when Ebola gets to 50% of the population of any of those three countries (if not long before), and perpetually afterwards, sending troops later on to "secure resources" will be the rough equivalent of sending troops to Chernobyl to secure its "resources".
5) With all due respect to those who think otherwise, this isn't a "war for resources", any more than Iraq was a "war for oil". (Gas is how much per gallon now, vs. in 2008, or 2002?)
It's a president who's never served, hates the US military, and views them as nothing but disposable pawns, useful only to buff his reputation, and appear like we're "doing something", when in fact we're doing worse than nothing.(Benghazi ring a bell? The Bin Laden Raid? Who ignored one, and hogged all the credit for the other??)
The Entire Military Effort In West Africa Is An Empty And Worthless P.R. Gesture. Period.
6) You haven't heard anything, because they're building shitty little temp hospitals, no one has attacked them, and none of our guys have contracted Ebola yet, mirabile dictu. The media is loathe to actually go to a plague zone, because it's full of icky sick people; and TV news directors know that SeaBees putting in concrete slabs or spreading plastic sheeting makes poor TV news visuals. Color me shocked.
Ponder all that, and get back to me.
But thanks for giving me another post for the day.
There may yet be a resource war, in Africa or other places. At that point, good and formidable as they are, 3000 air assault troops from the 101st with SeaBee support are NOT going to conquer Africa, nor are 700 Brit medical and technical troops.
Ask me in a year or two, after Ebola has wiped out tens or hundreds of thousands to millions or a billion Africans, if there's still an Internet, and I'm still here to ask.
When the Titanic is sinking, and the water is up to the deck railings, only a raving lunatic jackass would be worried about looting the staterooms.
What we have here is the monumental incompetence of President Obola in charge. Nothing else to see here. Move along.
If you go to the Fort Campbell website, there are PAO releases about what the 101st has been doing as recent as Tuesday. So the idea we've "heard nothing" depends on not trying to hear anything...
ReplyDeleteWell, let's not confuse mendaciousness for incompetence -- the people who tell Obama what to do have their reasons.
ReplyDeletePretending to be (merely) stupid is professional demeanor.
Resources for a particular brand of Islam which, by the way, is the major religion of two out of the three infected countries. Eebama is taking care of his own.
ReplyDeleteWashing the bodies of the deceased is a trait of that most peculiar religion. Most of those infected had been washing, or were in attendance whilst the ritual was performed. If I were to hazard a guess those individuals who are going to be transported here for treatment will be from that particular sect of that most peculiar religion.
Of course, one might say that the military is there to protect the CDC's rights on their disease since they own the patents to it. Why else would they send nurses trained as data collectors and Intel officers to the region if it were not for keeping track of their product?
"What we have here is the monumental incompetence of President Obola in charge. Nothing else to see here. Move along."
ReplyDeleteSeveral decades ago, I found myself in the apartment of a Sixties radical, a child of privilege. It was not a social visit.
I found, among other things that caused him to become a fugitive, an entry in his diary:
"My life's desire is to tear down the sky."
My fear is: What passes for incompetence (unrestricted air travel, no effort to keep the American public safe) is actually evil intent.
Anonymous: "tear down the sky.' How romantic. How sixties. Is that with us still in some unswept corner of this century? Maybe so. I knew a lot of those people then. But this is now. They weren't into running anything. So it cannot be them to whom you ascribe "evil intent." They never had the stuff to become important enough outside their own sphere to bring evil intent to bear on the scale needed here. Yes, gross and reckless negligence and incompetence can pass for purposeful wrong doing, but you give those who exhibit such neglect in their daily lives and official capacities too much credit. Simple stupidity and dull, biased preferences and indifference can account for all of it. And that's the horror of it. Passive idiocy of enough people, without evil intent by any, will do just fine in a situation like this one.
ReplyDelete