IMO, invading some African countries, searching for sick people and enforcing quarantine would be more useful than getting involved in a new war in Syria/Iraq.
That sounds like an excellent plan for containment. Send tens of thousands of troops over to Africa to corral people, bringing them in close contact, then send the troops back to their home countries, nothing could possibly go wrong.
Send tens of thousands of troops over to Africa to corral people,
How now?
You might want to read an article or two about the proposed Liberia mission -- and about what is actually being proposed as a role for the U.S. troops there; and why this proposal has gotten the support of the World Health Organization, among others -- rather than just put out whatever fanciful speculations that might pop into your head.
This is probably posted with good intentions, but invading a country is not the best way to increase confidence in a crumbling healthcare systems and it would create its own set of chaos. For previous well meaning attempts, see "Restore hope".
No, it really wouldn't. Not even a little bit. Why? Because "invading some African countries" would destroy our relationship with other countries, give the usual aggressors an excuse to continue to pursue their own invasions and probably not actually even help anyone. You don't really even have to invade, it's not like these "African countries" would mind a horde of doctors and health care workers to help them out of this horrible situation.
Well, the US is sending 3,000 containment troops to West Africa [1]. Just having access to their special equipment, trained personnel, and other resources will hopefully make a huge difference. Any solution to this will probably come from co-operation and coordination between many governments.
The problem is that the military does not have the kind of medical containment systems on a scale that they need. They just aren't equipped for this type of mission. Battlefield triage and hospitals won't help in this situation.
>> Battlefield triage and hospitals won't help in this situation.
Have you seen the facilities they have over there now? I think battlefield hospitals are a huge step up. Logistics is also a core function of the military, so once a plan is in place they will bring in whatever that plan calls for and get stuff done.
Where the military doesn't work is when politics is involved and the mission is not so clear.
Yes, an unprovoked military incursion into a foreign country is usually a great way to win the population's hearts and minds and ensure its full cooperation. It could not possibly lead to any kind of resistance or guerilla warfare or additional support for Jihadists and other kinds of extremists around the world.
Yes, an unprovoked military incursion into a foreign country is usually a great way to win the population's hearts and minds and ensure its full cooperation.
It's not about winning hearts and minds. It's about containment.
Containment IS about hearts and minds. If you have the trust of the people- if they trust that Ebola is real, that healthcare workers are not out to get them, that they can go to a hospital and receive care- then this outbreak might be containable.
Actually you can, you just need to use enough force and nobody is willing to do that. Ebola could become a threat to the point where the healthy start shooting people trying to escape quarantined areas or simply burning them down.
At the most extreme you could just firebomb or nuke the areas infected. That would be excessive force, but it would solve the problem.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to build trust because the population isn't educated, they don't trust the government from before, and there is no infrastructure for wide-spread dissemination of information.
> You can't win with force alone.
You can.
I think that the part of the problem is that they try to take care of the sick, but they don't have resources, the equipment, the personnel, the education... nothing. The sick can walk out (if they can), anybody can walk in, other people try to "liberate" them, etc. It's mess. Compare their conditions with how ebola-infected people are handled in the west (isolation and containment facilities).
What do to instead: just write off the infected, however cruel that may seem, and transfer them to a closed isolation facility, guarded by military. Heck, I don't think that anything else would be feasible even in any western country if suddenly a few thousand people got infected.
