President Obama has declared that the US armed forces will now be involved in the effort to contain the ebola virus, which is proliferating throughout West Africa, leaving corpses scattered across streets.
While the army may have a significant reservoir of medical expertise, its job is not, and never has been, to contain foreign epidemics.
In fact, armies tend to do just the opposite:
The American military experience in World War I and the influenza pandemic were closely intertwined. The war fostered influenza in the crowded conditions of military camps in the United States and in the trenches of the Western Front in Europe. The virus traveled with military personnel from camp to camp and across the Atlantic, and at the height of the American military involvement in the war, September through November 1918, influenza and pneumonia sickened 20% to 40% of U.S. Army and Navy personnel. These high morbidity rates interfered with induction and training schedules in the United States and rendered hundreds of thousands of military personnel non-effective. During the American Expeditionary Forces’ campaign at Meuse-Argonne, the epidemic diverted urgently needed resources from combat support to transporting and caring for the sick and the dead. Influenza and pneumonia killed more American soldiers and sailors during the war than did enemy weapons.
I can’t think of a better way to introduce ebola to North America than to send military personnel into the heart of the epidemic, and then back home to bases on US soil.
Nobody really knows how transmissible this virus is at this point; given the many infections and deaths among healthcare workers it must be fairly contagious. This use of our army strikes me as dangerous, of questionable value and carrying considerable risk. You also have to wonder what it will do to recruitment efforts.
