The Pentagon Will Use 30 Person "Quick-Strike Team" To Deal With Domestic Ebola Patients

 

President Obama may have been busy golfing this weekend, and his brand new Ebola Czar may have had more pressing matters to attend than the White House's Saturday evening meeting on the US "response to domestic Ebola cases" (because clearly the Ebola Czar is superfluous at such Ebola-related events), but that doesn't mean that the administration will once again be caught with its pants down the next time an Ebola index patient is unveiled on US soil. Nope.

In taking a page right out of America's response to the Ebola pandemic in... West Africa, where the US has dispatched several thousands troops to do, something, unclear what, earlier today, it was revealed that the U.S. military is forming a 30-person "quick-strike team", which according to CNN is "equipped to provide direct treatment to Ebola patients inside the United States, a Defense Department official told CNN's Barbara Starr on Sunday."

From CNN:

The team will be under orders to deploy within 72 hours at any time over the next month, the official said.  The Department of Health and Human Services requested the military team, and the Pentagon has given verbal approval, the official said.

The team will include five doctors, 20 nurses and five trainers, Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said in a statement.

The Pentagon has been working to determine what assistance it could offer the civilian health care sector following a White House meeting last week during which President Barack Obama said he wanted a more aggressive response, according to two Defense officials.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered chief of the Northern Command, Gen. Chuck Jacoby, "to prepare and train a 30-person expeditionary medical support team that could, if required, provide short-notice assistance to civilian medical professionals in the United States," Kirby said.

Jacoby is already working with the military on the joint team, Kirby said, and once formed, it will head to Fort Sam Houston in Texas for up to seven days of training in infection control and personal protective equipment. The training, provided by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, will begin "within the next week or so," Kirby said.

The team will remain in "prepare-to-deploy" status for 30 days, he said. It will be able to respond anywhere in the U.S. if "deemed prudent by our public health professionals," he said.

To summarize: the Pentagon, as in the US army, will provide direct treatment to Ebola patients.

So just how exactly is the US army's crack 30-person "SWAT" team which has a whopping 5 doctors, more competent to deal to deal with what is, at last check, a medical situation than, say, America's medical professionals? Or is, in the parlance of our times, where an "Iraq military advisor" really means crack commando fighting Syrian troops on the ground on behalf of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, "direct treatment" merely a euphemism for something far less enjoyable?

For the partial answer to some of these questions, please read "Public Health Emergency Declared In Connecticut Over Ebola: Civil Rights Suspended Indefinitely, and also "Obama Mobilizes National Guard, Army Reserves To Fight Ebola" - they serve as a good starting point for where all of this is ultimately headed.

Credit to Zero Hedge

Top Scientist: This Version Of Ebola Looks Like ‘A Very Different Bug’

Barack Obama and the head of the CDC need to quit saying that we know exactly how Ebola spreads.  Because the truth is that there is much about this virus that we simply do not know.  For example, a top Ebola scientist that is working in the heart of the outbreak in Liberia says that this version of Ebola looks like it could be "a very different bug" from past versions.  Other leading scientists are echoing his concerns.  And yet Barack Obama and Thomas Frieden continue to publicly proclaim that we know precisely how this virus behaves.  Not only is that bad science, but it could also potentially result in the unnecessary deaths of a very large number of people.  For example, Obama has refused to implement an Ebola travel banbecause he is greatly underestimating the seriousness of this virus.  This decision could turn out to be incredibly costly.  If what you will read about below is true, we could be dealing with some sort of "super Ebola" that nobody has ever seen before.

Peter Jahrling of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease is on the front lines fighting this disease in Liberia.  He is one of the top authorities in the world on Ebola, and what his team has been seeing under the microscope is incredibly sobering...

Now U.S. scientist Peter Jahrling of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease believes the current Ebola outbreak may be caused by an infectionthat spreads more easily than it did before.

Dr Jahrling explained that his team, who are working in the epicentre of the crisis in the Liberian capital of Monrovia, are seeing that the viral loads in Ebola patients are much higher than they are used to seeing.

He told Vox.com: 'We are using tests now that weren't using in the past, but there seems to be a belief that the virus load is higher in these patients [today] than what we have seen before. If true, that's a very different bug.

'I have a field team in Monrovia. They are running [tests]. They are telling me that viral loads are coming up very quickly and really high, higher than they are used to seeing.

'It may be that the virus burns hotter and quicker.'

Other top scientists are making similar observations.

The following comes from a recent article posted on Washington's Blog...

The head of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota – Dr. Michael Osterholm – is a prominent public health scientist and a nationally recognized biosecurity expert.

Dr. Osterholm just gave a talk shown on C-Span explaining that a top Ebola virologist – the Head of Special Pathogens at Canada’s health agency, Gary Kobinger – has found that the current strain of Ebola appears to be much worse than any strain seen before … and that the current virus may be more likely to spread through aerosols than strains which scientists have previously encountered.

I have posted video of that talk on C-Span below...

But even if we were dealing with the exact same strain of Ebola, that does not mean that our leaders are telling us the truth when they say that it is not an airborne virus.

Just check out the following quotes from top scientists about the spread of Ebola from a recent Los Angeles Times article…

Dr. C.J. Peters, who battled a 1989 outbreak of the virus among research monkeys housed in Virginia and who later led the CDC’s most far-reaching study of Ebola’s transmissibility in humans, said he would not rule out the possibility that it spreads through the air in tight quarters.

“We just don’t have the data to exclude it,” said Peters, who continues to research viral diseases at the University of Texas in Galveston.

Dr. Philip K. Russell, a virologist who oversaw Ebola research while heading the U.S. Army’s Medical Research and Development Command, and who later led the government’s massive stockpiling of smallpox vaccine after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, also said much was still to be learned. “Being dogmatic is, I think, ill-advised, because there are too many unknowns here.“

And I have written about this before, but so many people don't know about this that it bears repeating.  The following is an excerpt from a news story about a study that was conducted back in 2012 that demonstrated that the Ebola virus can be transferred from one animal to another animal without any physical contact whatsoever...

When news broke that the Ebola virus had resurfaced in Uganda, investigators in Canada were making headlines of their own with research indicating the deadly virus may spread between species, through the air.

The team, comprised of researchers from the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease, the University of Manitoba, and the Public Health Agency of Canada, observed transmission of Ebola from pigs to monkeys. They first inoculated a number of piglets with the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus. Ebola-Zaire is the deadliest strain, with mortality rates up to 90 percent. The piglets were then placed in a room with four cynomolgus macaques, a species of monkey commonly used in laboratories. The animals were separated by wire cages to prevent direct contact between the species.

Within a few days, the inoculated piglets showed clinical signs of infection indicative of Ebola infection. In pigs, Ebola generally causes respiratory illness and increased temperature. Nine days after infection, all piglets appeared to have recovered from the disease.

Within eight days of exposure, two of the four monkeys showed signs of Ebola infection. Four days later, the remaining two monkeys were sick too. It is possible that the first two monkeys infected the other two, but transmission between non-human primates has never before been observed in a lab setting.

So when Barack Obama and Thomas Frieden get up and tell us that they know with 100% certainty that Ebola is not airborne, they are lying to you.

There is so much about this outbreak that we simply do not know.

Our public officials should be honest about that.

Instead, it seems like they are flying by the seats of their pants and just saying whatever they think will keep everyone calm.

We are potentially facing the greatest health crisis of this generation, and bad science and false assurances are not going to help anyone.

Sadly, Barack Obama just continues to make bad decision after bad decision.  This includes his very foolish decision to send thousands of U.S. troops right into the heart of the Ebola death zone.

It is being reported that these troops are only going to get just four hours of Ebola training, and the Pentagon is saying that they "will only need gloves and masks" to protect themselves...

Troops from the 101st Airborne Division leading the military response to Ebola in West Africa will only need gloves and masks to protect themselves from the deadly virus, so said Gen. David Rodriguez at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday.

“They don’t need the whole suit – as such – because they’re not going to be in contact with any of the people,” the commander of U.S. troops in Africa said.

Soldiers from the 101^st Airborne will primarily be building hospitals, ultimately leading what could be a contingent of 4,000 American service members. They’ll be housed either in tent cities at military airfields or in Liberian Ministry of Defense facilities, Rodriguez said.

Soldiers’ health will be monitored through surveys and taking their temperature on their way in and out of camps. If a service member does get sick, Rodriguez said they will be flown home immediately for treatment.

Who is going to be held accountable when these young men and women start coming home sick?

So far the federal response to this Ebola crisis has been a parade of incompetence.

And yet we continue to be told that "everything is under control".

I don't know about you, but I have a bad feeling about all of this.

Credit to Economic Collapse

U.S. NATO ‘Ally’ Turkey Making Its Support For ISIS Blatantly Obvious

It really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Turkey’s current government – headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan – seeks a Caliphate, is in league with the Muslim Brotherhood, and supports ISIS. Despite this, the mainstream media and western politicians continue to allow Turkey to fly under the radar.

Now we have another in a long line of anecdotal examples that demonstrate Turkey wants Assad gone, wants the Brotherhood to fill the vacuum and wants to keep ISIS around, at least as long as Assad is in power.

Turkey would not agree to any U.S. arms transfers to Kurdish fighters who are battling Islamic militants in Syria, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying Sunday, as the extremist group fired more mortar rounds near the Syrian-Turkish border.

Turkey views the main Syrian Kurdish group, the PYD — and its military wing which is fighting the Islamic State militants — as an extension of the PKK, which has waged a 30-year insurgency in Turkey and is designated a terrorist group by the United States and NATO.

The United States has said recently that it has engaged in intelligence sharing with Kurdish fighters and officials have not ruled out future arms transfers to the Kurdish fighters.

“The PYD is for us, equal to the PKK. It is a terror organization,” Erdogan told a group of reporters on his return from a visit to Afghanistan.

“It would be wrong for the United States — with whom we are friends and allies in NATO — to expect us to say ‘yes’ to such a support to a terrorist organization,” Erdogan said. His comments were reported by the state-run Anadolu agency on Sunday.

Turkey’s opposition to arms transfers to the Kurdish forces is hampering the U.S.-led coalitions’ efforts to fight the extremists and further complicating relations between Turkey and the United States. The countries are involved in negotiations about Ankara’s role with the U.S. and NATO allies fighting the Islamic State group, which is attempting to capture the strategic town Kobani on the Syrian-Turkish border.

Turkey is demanded that the coalition widen its campaign against the militants by providing greater aid to Syrian rebels, who are battling both the IS and President Bashar Assad’s forces.Turkey has so far provided sanctuary to an estimated 200,000 Syrians fleeing Kobani, and recently agreed to train and equip moderate Syrian rebel fighters trying to remove Assad from power.

Turkey’s desire to see ISIS prevail over the Kurds couldn’t be anymore obvious. For quite some time now, Turkish tanks have been sitting on the border with Syria, watching human rights abuses, acts of heinous terrorism, beheadings and other forms of genocide transpire from a front row seat and have done nothing. When Kurds engaged in protests and civil disobedience over Turkey’s inaction, Turkey bombed the Kurds.

Now, as the U.S. attempts to arm the Kurds, Turkey is resisting at a time when Kurds are reportedly having some success in Kobane.

Despite this, members in both Houses of Congress continue to wear no clothes while arrogantly voting to arm Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood rebels to remove Assad. It’s flawed logic to think that Erdogan will finally fight ISIS if Assad is removed. Whether he does or not is immaterial. What will fill the vacuum will be far worse.

Again, why does Turkey remain a NATO ally when it supports the most barbaric terrorist outfit in modern history?

Credit to Shoebat

Vladimir Putin Responds To Obama’s “Hostile” Acts: Warns of Nuclear Consequences

When the leadership of North Korea or Iran suggests a nuclear attack against the United States the threat is usually dismissed as mere posturing by extremist regimes.

But when the President of a global military super power like Russia makes such a threat, then perhaps it’s time to start paying attention.

In an interview with Serbia’s Politika newspaper Vladimir Putin did not mince words about his feelings surrounding the recent sanctions against his country’s economy and monetary system. He believes the actions of Europe and the United States to be hostile acts and he warns that Russia is prepared to go all the way if the hostilities continue.

It’s futile for the U.S. and its allies to “blackmail” Russia over the Ukraine crisis, President Vladimir Putin said in a newspaper interviewtoday.

Russia’s partners should remember the risks involved in disputes between nuclear powers, Putin said.

He accused Barack Obama of adopting a “hostile” approach in naming Russia as a threat to the world in the U.S. president’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 24.

“We hope that our partners will realize the futility of attempts to blackmail Russia and remember what consequences discord between major nuclear powers could bring for strategic stability,” Putin told Serbia’s Politika newspaper on the eve of his visit to the Balkan nation today.

Putin said that Obama had identified Russian aggression in Europe as one of the three “major threats facing humanity,” alongside the Ebola virus and Islamic State.

“Together with the sanctions against entire sectors of oureconomy, this approach can be called nothing but hostile,” Putin said.

Attempts to pressure Russia with “unilateral and illegitimate restrictive measures” will impede efforts to settle the crisis, he said.

“How can we talk about de-escalation in Ukraine while the decisions on new sanctions are introduced almost simultaneously with the agreements on the peace process?” he said. “If the main goal is to isolate our country, it’s an absurd and illusory goal.”

Bloomberg via Zero Hedge

Did Vladimir Putin just threaten Western powers with nuclear war if the perceived hostilities continue?

If he didn’t have several thousand nukes ready to deploy at the push of a button we might ignore him. But this is the President of Russia, and unlike some Western leaders who talk a big game, we are fairly certain that Putin is prepared to stand by his rhetoric.

He has just deployed nuclear weapons systems into Crimea, so you can forget about that territory ever going back to the Ukrainians. Thus, the question is how far are President Obama and our European allies willing to go? And what exactly is the intention of the sanctions? If it’s to make Russia give Crimea back, then someone is living in a dream world. If it’s to punish Russia, then we can see based on Putin’s most recent comments what the end game of that strategy will eventually lead to.

In his documentary Strategic Relocation well known survival expert Joel Skousen discusses the real possibility of a nuclear war between Russia and the United States. He, like many others, see the writing on the wall. We didn’t build all these nuclear weapons just to sit there and look at them. And, as should be obvious, the East and West have completely different ideologies and visions for what the world is supposed to look like. Both sides are actively working to minimize or destroy the influence of the other.

It’s machinations like these that have led to great wars throughout human history.

It took decades of buildups, standoffs, posturing and threats before a bullet from the gun of Gavrilo Princip eventually triggered an unprecedented death spiral in the summer of 1914. Today, one hundred years later, the chess game remains in full swing and it should be clear that it is only a matter of time before the next Princip event triggers a global apocalypse on a scale that most can’t even imagine.

Of course, we could be totally overreacting. Vladimir Putin threatening a nuclear destabilization is probably just all bark and no bite.

Credit to Common Sense

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