JED BABBIN: JOINT CHIEFS WISER THAN OBAMA ON EBOLA QUARANTINE
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/30/babbin-a-better-defense-than-obamas/
By Jed Babbin – – Thursday, October 30, 2014
The leaders of our uniformed military — the Joint Chiefs of Staff — have committed an act of common sense that exposes President Obama’s Ebola policy for its comprehensive lack of that commodity. According to a recent report on Fox News, they have called for all troops returning from the Ebola “hot zone” to be quarantined for 21 days.
On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced that returning troops would be quarantined for the length of Ebola’s incubation period and asked the Joint Chiefs to propose a way to do it.
That not only conflicts with Mr. Obama’s refusal to impose any limitation on coming to this country for people who have possibly been exposed to Ebola, but it also conflicts directly with the pressure the president has put on the governors of New York and New Jersey for doing for Ebola-exposed health workers exactly what the Joint Chiefs proposed and Mr. Hagel has now ordered.
By sending troops to the Ebola zone in West Africa, Mr. Obama wrongly decided to put them in harm’s way against an enemy they can’t fight with bullets, rockets and bombs. Ebola is a disease that our best medical experts only begin to understand.
That many of the troops will be exposed to Ebola is certain, and some — despite the training they receive and the protective gear they may wear — are likely to be infected. On their return, the Pentagon faces a clear duty: to protect the rest of our forces from the disease, as well as the families and friends of the troops. The only way to do that is by quarantining those who are exposed and to provide the best treatment medical science can provide if any suffer the disease.
However, that contrasts in obvious and severe ways with the president’s actions. So far, Mr. Obama’s response to the Ebola crisis has been purely political, not substantive. He has refused to stop the flow of people coming in from the Ebola “hot zone” nations, saying that such a travel ban will somehow lessen the flow of aid to those countries. It would do no such thing, but it would be inconvenient for Mr. Obama, owing to his open-borders policy and plans to create some sort of immigration amnesty by executive fiat after the Nov. 4 election.
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