Sometimes, it's impossible even for a lethargic liberal marxist to keep
silence.
Some 700 or so years ago - the less developed inhabitants of what is now
US-America still did not know they had certain unwhatsoeverable rights,
and how that would change their lifes, if any - just another horde of
barbarians in just another invasion assaulted mesopotamia. burning,
killing, torturing, looting and, even without radioactive ammunition,
thoroughly devastating the country's environment and infrastructure.
Gave them bad PR - so why would they not send a few doctors along, for
the reasons you give us and a good image with the embedded press?
Instead, those mongol neocons used their vessels for the next fit of
demockercy proliferation, trying to clear shinto fascist roguish Japan
of WMDs, when Der Weltgeist finally blew his breath and they were
scattered - sic semper tyrannis, eh? - and yes, it's always a good idea
to send some remedy along with the pest. Provides for the human touchdown.
Joerg
Forgive the cross-posting of the message. This occurred to me as a good idea and I wanted to send it to both Lists to get feedback on it.
How to create the medical infrastructure to respond to terrorism and also improve the US image abroad?
The US could establish a large fleet of hospital ships. (I think we have one at the moment.) Doctors and nurses would receive significant tuition reimbursement in exchange for service on these ships.
These ships would be sent all over the world to treat diseases in less developed nations. The benefits would be:
(1) good PR for the US,
(2) increased knowledge of tropical diseases that our immigration policies will eventually bring to the US,
(3) economies of scale in drug research for those diseases, and importantly,
(4) the ability to respond to a bioterror attack in the United States.
At present, the CDC has admitted that it has no infrastructure to deal with bio- or radiological terrorism. Having a fleet of hospital ships would allow the US to respond quickly to such attacks in US coastal cities.
If there were a terrorist attack in Philadelphia, for example, our hospital ships could be quickly called upon to serve the area, thereby preventing the collapse of the healthcare system.
The obvious drawback is the cost, but there seem to be many pluses to this idea. Feedback? Tweaks?
Regards, Eric Yost trying to think outside the ship
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