:)... sounds like most of the other foreign 'interventions' the US has participated in in my lifetime! :)
"This time it's different," right?
:)

A big problem though....this is exactly the type of "mission" most ruinous to discipline.

No defined and measurable goal
No effective actions that can be taken
No way to useably measure progress for the mission.
Continuous risk, with a very long lag time for errors to crop up.
High mortality for any errors that do crop up

Nothing but continuous danger with no visible progress or goal

You are correct....but they cannot in fact build a hospital or deal with this in the way a western country does. Their way appears to be to steal and misappropriate funds the western powers send and watch the population die.

The main reason that our military shouldnt be there is tha we dont have a dog in the hunt. No allies, no national interest. In point point of fact if the whole continent of Africa sank in to the ocean it would only reduce US national expenditures. It would not hurt us one bit. We might miss diomonds from south africa and a little oil from Liberia but other than that the whole continent is nothing but a cesspool in to which our guilt filled looter politicians occasionally throw our money in to. They do this to make themselves feel better by assuaging their feelings of guilt for being born white and therby having the "original sin" of racism.

Very true.

+1

our troops should not be used for mop-ups like this,
except as trainers for locals who carry the workload.
that's my view, and I'm sticking to it. -- j

almost sort of related...
maybe it's the discipline of/in the military that might help?...

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials...

It is not the job of the 101st Airborne to help combat Ebola. There are times when the military has been used for relief such as after a typhoon or tidal wave to provide water and medical relief. Aircraft carriers can provide these very important functions but they are not equipped for the present relief!!! If the military is to be used in this particular job, it should be to keep people out of our country to stop the spread of this killer virus!!!

The specific unit Obama sent over is the 101st Airborne. These are our rapid-response troops that handle situations too big for a special ops team. But their primary mission and specialty is combat - not humanitarian relief or disease control - see http://www.army.mil/info/organization/un....

Yes, there are specific units of each wing of the military which specialize in different aspects. My point was that of all the teams he could have sent, he picked a COMBAT-oriented team that would probably be better suited in a COMBAT role.

Wow...thanks for the "chart"... :(

Obvious perhaps.

Obvious does not equate to correct or sensible however.

More basic than that.

Every single service member gets required training in how to survive in a hostile environment (NBC). In this respect, they have more effective training to protect themselves around Ebola than health care workers in general do. And the services keep the required supplies on hand for limited duration use. Key words LIMITED DURATION.

That does not however, mean the military should be used for this ... period. It is outside their mission. And frankly we have no compelling interest to use our military to do this.

Full on NBC training covers a lot more things than simply self protection in a hostile environment, and is not given to every service member. I went through it back in the day, but there were only a handful of us in my entire command and we then became training resources for everyone else. We did retraining and graded performance of the rest of the command periodically too, but not every person was trained in every facet of NBC. That is one of the things the military believes in doing, adequate training and keeping said training current.

The fact that training in epidemiology safety practices is not commonly done to health care workers is a failure in the health care industry/system. Even if they had been trained the requisite materials for their use would likely not be present in the quantities needed either. Training and supplies both cost money and time.

If speed is an issue leave the governments and their ilk out of it.

Governments are the most effective at two and only two things....

Wasting money & wasting time

great point

well that's who I'm referring to. There are diplomatic channels etc. Speed is everything right now

We have no business sending in anyone at taxpayer expense to "fight" some disease in another place. We have enough problems right here to work on. Also, to send in troops whose training is to kill people in hopes they can stop some epidemic they arent trained for is stupid

I can already think of one U.S. company that ought to step up to the plate, if they want to protect their own investment in a country other than their country of registry:

Bridgestone America, a/k/a "Firestone."

They already had to take some hard measures to carve out an island of health in a sea of disease. If they don't want to risk that disease breaking through to their plantation again, let them offer such aid, or abandon their property. And that goes for any other company who has any sort of mining or farming operation in the stricken region.

Then the bio-tech companies can certainly go get involved. There is money to be made on effective treatments, vaccines, etc on all viral diseases. They can invest their own money on this.

It is another country they do not need US permission to do so.

Even more importantly they do not need US funding to go get involved, do research, whatever they want to do.

The only countries that can grant or refuse permission are the affected ones. Not the US, the UN or anyone else.

+1

Also, missions like this will have a negative impact on recruitment for the military.

Signing up or re-enlisting to defend your country in combat is one thing, getting sent to a disease hot zone for no good national security reason is something else entirely.

Although on second thought, this would not make much difference right now since the current administration is RIFing experienced service people.

When are we going to get it through our damned heads that fighting against letting failed civilizations fail on their own is a fruitless exercise and actually harmful to us. We don't owe those victims one US death. We owe ourselves protection from them.

This is Not the job of the military. It is a misuse of American assets and a diminishing of the real reason a military exists, which is to defend the Constitution by force of arms; in other words, kill people and break things. It was never devised to substitute for a charitable organization or a medical auxiliary force. Using it in this way is like using a howitzer instead of a pistol. A waste of resources.

as well, we now have this behemoth Homeland Security. What the heck are they doing about it? The new head blew off the press' questions about it. He hasn't a clue. Too busy buying up ammo I guess

great points

the job of the US military is to protect the citizens of the US. this is NOT their job.

Strong arguments...