[joesmo]

I think you bring up some good points and I don't mean to discount the moral dilemma here, but in reality such moral considerations are hardly ever considered. I don't think the article is suggesting invasion, but if that was the best solution, I don't see a problem with it if it prevents an epidemic or worse, a world wide pandemic(especially if it mutates into airborne transmission). After all, the US has invaded many other countries for absolutely no reason. It'd be hard to justify not invading at this point given our history if this was indeed thought to be the optimal solution. We've invaded at least three countries illegally and started major wars but we ate considering the ethical implications of stopping a pandemic? I suppose such moral questions become quite easy once moral decisions have been discounted in favor of immoral ones repeatedly in the past.

[techdragon]

And given the level of equipment and training the military have with regard to doing their job while wearing full Nuclear/Biological/Chemical protection. I would honestly prefer that if the situation escalates and we see confirmation of airborne transmission, the situation be dealt with by prompt deployment of fully NBC trained military medical units and sufficient security forces to ensure that whatever those doctors say is law within the quarantine.

I do my best not to be a knee jerk reaction person, but an airborne ebola strain, is beyond question a deadly deadly threat. Ebola has an incubation period, there is a period of time where you are infectious, before its obvious, and if airborne your very presence places anyone in the room with you now has 50/50 odds of living. This isn't SARS, this isn't Spanish Flu. This is quite possibly the closest we can get to a disease threat strait out of a zombie movie. I don't feel we should violate the human rights of everyone in that region, but this is one of those things where its squarely a "The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few or the one." scenario. So if the army doctor says "that guy has ebola, stop him from running away", I kinda feel (presuming an airborne ebola) that the situation may (depending on how far away he's getting, indoor or outdoor, etc) warrant lethal force.

[justin66]

> And given the level of equipment and training the military have with regard to doing their job while wearing full Nuclear/Biological/Chemical protection. I would honestly prefer that if the situation escalates and we see confirmation of airborne transmission, the situation be dealt with by prompt deployment of fully NBC trained military medical units and sufficient security forces to ensure that whatever those doctors say is law within the quarantine.

I don't think the people speculating here understand how bloody military quarantine imposed by a foreign power could be - however well intentioned - compared to the mere 2,200 people who have died of the disease so far.

Send in a U.S. Marine division of 20,000 people (or maybe make it a "coalition" and send in a few hundred European troops as well to, ahem, share the burden) and tell them that they need to direct some people from one place to another, keep some people penned up, keep all these people fed, keep them from doing anything unfriendly to the nice doctors in the space suits, and everyone who resists - resistance here includes rioting or just not being able to follow instructions because, you know, the troops don't speak the language - needs to be taken into custody with that legendary marine gentleness while being treated as a potentially lethal disease carrier. Keep the troops mindful that if they err on the side of laxity they could get a disease that might cause them to die bleeding from their bodily orifices.

Multiple massacres should be the expected outcome of such an operation. The projected cost of the disease needs to pretty horrible before it becomes worth contemplating such a high-risk, low-reward action and we'd want to exhaust all other means of supplying these countries' civil authorities with what they need before we took such a step. We haven't done that yet.

[andygates]

It isn't SARS, it isn't Spanish Flu... it isn't airborne. And the way it's composed, it isn't a simple mutation away from being airborne.

Guns down.

[joe_the_user]

It's just ugly to see an eagerness to think about invasions when not even simple supplies are not coming through.

Liberian President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to Barack Obama: "I am being honest with you when I say that at this rate, we will never break the transmission chain and the virus will overwhelm us"

"The dilemma" of invasion and whatnot is beside the point. The Liberian state is desperate. Johnson Sirleaf also recently fired 10 government ministers who had fled the country. Any nation with resources that wants to take over? The Liberian state would eager for the help. Things are that bad.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/world/africa/liberian-pres...

[techdragon]

This is more than just a supply issue.

http://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/update...

  "One of the patients hospitalised at the HGR Boende had managed to escape before being recovered by the services deployed to the field."

That is why if this situation escalates we will need people with guns, both medical and security personal with full Biological Warfare training and equipment. We are staring at a disease where scared infected people, are trying to ESCAPE and become extremely dangerous disease vectors, risking the spread of the disease to anywhere from dozens to hundreds, to thousands. When that is what is going on, I don't think the word we should use is "invasion", its something other than that. Best I've got to describe it, is a martial law quarantine, enforced by UN armed forces and medical personnel provided by the nations who have the capable personnel and equipment.

[joe_the_user]

Uh, that's exactly the supply issue. I have read a number of reports of that incident.

The guy escape because he was starving - he went immediately to the market to buy food. If he had food in the isolation ward, that wouldn't have happened (or would be a good deal less likely).

And uh, the idea of shooting people infected with Ebola shouldn't be first or second resort considering you would be straying their infected blood over a significant area. Not to mention guaranteeing no else would want to be treated, etc.

[techdragon]

Yes, the man was starving, but thats also another thing the military forces are good at, supply chains. Also, the idea of having armed security forces, is less about shooting people with regular ebola, I do try to point out in my other comment that I'm in favour of armed forces when talking about a hypothetical airborne ebola strain.

[joesmo]

You misunderstood. I'm not saying that invasion should happen or that it is even a proper choice at this time, only weighing in on the morality of it in light of American invasion history if at some point it happens to be the best choice.

[gbhn]

Agreed. There's no 'invasion' when you're being invited in on a humanitarian mission. People need help.

[x0x0]

I'm sure the folks we point guns at will agree. No, better -- they'll welcome us with open arms and throw flowers at us!

(In case you're dense, just like the last time we tried to bomb a country into freedumb.)

[oldmanjay]

you seem to have never been taught the lesson that clever wordplay doesn't prove your arguments

[rwallace]

I will suggest that given the historical data of "the US invaded many other countries, and it generally turned out to be a really bad idea," the correct conclusion is not "so let's go ahead and invade a few more countries," particularly when there is plenty of specific reason here to believe such action would make things worse not better.

One of Liberia's biggest newspapers recently ran an editorial claiming the Ebola epidemic was deliberately created by the US government. If that's the sort of paranoia that exists now, what do you think it's going to be like if thousands of Americans with filter masks and machine guns start flooding into the country? In addition to all the usual bad results, you're going to get a lot of people hiding and running - carrying the virus with them.