Category Archives: International news

International news, medical news, national news

Listen carefully to Dr. Frist

It’s always heartening to read about politicians who are actual experts on critical issues of the day speak those issues with calm, with reason and with intelligence.

Bill Frist once served as a U.S. senator from Tennessee. The Republican also served as Senate majority leader for a time before he decided he’d had enough of politics. He then went back to his first calling, as a cardiovascular surgeon who’s also treated patients with infectious diseases.

Indeed, while he served in the Senate, Dr. Frist usually spent part of his time on “recess” going to remote locations in Africa and Asia to treat patients infected with HIV/AIDS.

He is an honorable man.

So we ought to heed this fellow’s assessment of the Ebola situation that’s killed thousands of people in West Africa and precisely one person in the United States of America.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/10/former-sen-william-frist-ebola-crisis-in-west-africa-could-last-into-next-spring.html/

Ebola is going to be a “crisis” in West Africa at least until next spring, Frist says.

Frist was in Dallas, site of the lone Ebola-related death, to take part in a family-planning conference. As Dallas Morning News blogger Jim Mitchell reported, he put the Ebola “scare” into its proper perspective: “Frist estimates that 23,000 people will die of the flu this year, and in America less than ’10 will die of Ebola, hopefully just one.’ And while every death is tragic, the reality is that protocols have to be strictly established and followed. ‘This is not contagious virus like flu,’ he said.”

Frist is one more reasonable voice that needs to be heard as the world searches for a way to stop this virus from spreading beyond its source in West Africa.

According to Mitchell: “While the Ebola crisis in West Africa has lasted longer than he anticipated, (Frist) wants people to know that he is confident it will not spin out of control in the United States even though it might seem that public uncertainty is trumping established science.”

I should add that media hysteria isn’t helping, either.

Pay attention to this man. He knows of what he speaks.

International news, national news

No travel ban from W. Africa

Wait for it.

President Obama’s critics on the right are going to hit the ceiling — if they haven’t already — with news that the president has declined to impose a travel ban from West Africa into the United States.

The Ebola “outbreak” has many Americans scared. Well, the disease certainly has overwhelmed medical professionals in West Africa, but hardly here.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/white-house-rejects-calls-for-ebola-travel-ban/ar-BB9nv04

Why not impose a ban?

Obama believes the advice of the top medical minds in the world that a ban won’t do any better than what’s being employed now and it could be counterproductive by forcing people to hide from authorities in West Africa, thus, allowing the disease to go untreated.

Airport screeners at Atlanta, Washington, Newark and New York are taking temperatures of passengers coming off planes arriving from Ebola-stricken places. It’s a no-touch technology that enables screeners to use laser lights to record people’s temps.

Those who have greater-than-normal temperatures are then separated and examined more carefully.

Once again, the call here is to avoid panic and undue anxiety.

Two health-care professionals in Dallas have been exposed to the virus. They are being treated by the best medical teams anywhere on Earth. Still, many in the media — as well as some in Congress — have been proclaiming some sort of imagined “epidemic” of the disease in this country.

It doesn’t exist. It well may never exist.

How about letting the medical pros do their job?

International news

Biker gangs getting into the fight

My first reaction to this story wasn’t well thought out.

Dutch officials say that biker gang members from The Netherlands who are fighting Islamic State terrorists in Syria or Iraq aren’t breaking any Dutch laws, the story goes. “Yes!” I thought. A friend of mine — himself an avid motorcycle enthusiast — believes that perhaps American biker gangs ought to join the fight “as they don’t have anything to lose, either.”

http://news.yahoo.com/netherlands-says-ok-biker-gangs-fight-islamic-state-155136559.html

I’m not so sure this is a good idea, no matter who’s doing the fighting.

It’s the bad guys who worry me and what they are demonstrably capable of doing to those who oppose them.

I know nothing about Dutch law and what that country’s constitution allows. If the Dutch say the bikers — presumably they’re some serious bad a**** — aren’t running afoul of their country’s laws, then they would be participating at their own extreme risk.

If they get caught, though, they ought to ponder what is likely to happen to them in front of the whole, wide world. So should their countrymen.

Should some Americans join them? Umm, no. I have zero appetite for watching a potentially horrifying spectacle play out if it involves an American “mercenary” who’s joined the fight against ISIL.

International news, military news

Key U.S. ally needs to join the fight

Where are the Turks?

Turkey is a critical ally of the west, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, possessing a significant military apparatus and a reputation as fearsome fighters.

Yet the Turks haven’t joined the fight against the Islamic State in a meaningful way.

http://news.yahoo.com/strikes-pound-jihadists-us-led-coalition-meets-173455057.html

The U.S.-led coalition of nations is continuing its air campaign against ISIL. The Central Command contends that the strikes are beginning to have an impact on ISIL’s advance. White House press secretary Josh Earnest cautions reporters that the air campaign is still in its early stages but that it’s beginning to hurt ISIL.

Still, the Turks — whose country borders both Syria and Iraq — hasn’t yet joined the fight.

Granted, Turkey is allowing U.S. pilots to fly through its air space en route to hitting targets in Syria and Iraq. The planes are launching from U.S. bases inside Turkey. That’s good news.

However, the Turks need to join this fight and become the ally they say they are.

Other Muslim nations have become partners in this fight. Turkey no longer can just talk a good game. It needs to suit up and start hitting the enemy … hard.

International news, military news

Iraq has 'Vietnam' feel to it

Iraq is beginning to look a little like Vietnam to me.

Why? It’s the performance of the Iraqi army in the face of a relentless enemy that brings about the comparison.

It’s making me more than a tad uncomfortable.

Iraq’s army, the one trained and equipped by the United States of America under two presidential administrations, isn’t performing worth a damn on the battlefield against the Islamic State. Sound familiar? It should.

Army chief ‘somewhat’ confident Iraq can defend Baghdad

Nearly 40 years ago the United States ended its war in Vietnam, leaving the defense of South Vietnam to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. ARVN then had to face the invaders from North Vietnam, who in early 1975 launched a massive offensive against the south. By April of that year it all ended when North Vietnamese army troops rolled into Saigon, stormed the presidential palace, hoisted the communist flag and renamed Saigon after the late Uncle Ho, Ho Chi Minh City.

Fast forward to the current day and we’re seeing the Iraqi army performing badly against ISIL.

U.S.-led airstrikes reportedly are slowing ISIL’s advance a bit, but so far it hasn’t stopped taking the fight to the Iraqi forces.

Now we hear from U.S. Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno say he is “somewhat confident” the Iraqi government will beat back ISIL. Somewhat satisfied? How confident can we be in that prediction? Not very.

I’m having a flashback at this moment and it’s making me very uneasy as this desert fight continues to play itself out.

International news

Children become Nobel focus

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Children have risen to the top of the world’s attention in this quite troubling time.

Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in furthering the rights of children around the world.

http://news.yahoo.com/malala-kailash-satyarthi-win-nobel-peace-prize-090630266.html

Every so often, the Nobel committee’s Peace Prize selections draw some criticism. I dare anyone to be critical of the choice made this year — not just regarding the honorees, but regarding the cause they have taken up.

Of the two, most of us know already about Malala. She’s now 17. Two years ago she was shot in the head by a Taliban terrorist simply for insisting that girls have the right to an education in her native Pakistan.

Malala has recovered — mostly — from that terrible wound. She’s written a best-selling book, “I Am Malala,” and has gone on with her life, promoting the cause of education for young girls who had been denied an education by the Taliban.

Malala is the youngest ever Peace Prize recipient.

Kids today … indeed.

Satyarthi is a 60-year-old Indian who for years has  been a champion for children’s rights. Since 1960 he has been fighting against sex slavery and child labor exploitation. He gave up a career as a mechanical engineer and is believed to have saved thousands of children from the horrors of slavery and exploitation.

The Associated Press noted the selection creates an interesting juxtaposition as well. The Peace Prize honorees are from neighboring countries that long have had tense relations, often doing battle across their common border on the Asian sub-continent.

As AP reported: “The Nobel Committee said it was an important point to reward both an Indian Hindu and a Pakistani Muslim for joining ‘in a common struggle for education and against extremism.’ The two will split the Nobel award of $1.1 million.”

The Nobel Committee has made an inspired choice.

International news, medical news, national news, State news

Ebola patient dies; now, let's stay calm

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Thomas Eric Duncan has died of Ebola.

He came to Dallas from Liberia carrying the virus that causes the disease. He checked into a hospital and was given the best treatment possible anywhere in the world. Still, the disease killed him.

It’s a sad end to a man’s life.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/10/08/dallas-patient-diagnosed-ebola-dies/

Now what? Do we panic? Do we quarantine the entire hospital staff? Or those who came into this man’s room?

Not at all.

Yes, I blogged recently about the difficulty of maintaining my composure when Duncan arrived in Dallas, given that I have immediate family members living in the Metroplex. My head has cleared since then.

I hope we start listening to the medical experts who are saying the same thing — over and over, repeatedly. The only way one can catch the killer disease is to come in direct contact with someone who’s infected.

CNN’s coverage of this “crisis,” as usual, has been a bit overblown — in my humble view. The network’s reporters and anchors keep harping on the crisis aspect of the disease in West Africa — and it’s real. However, I am concerned about what it’s doing to the American psyche as it relates to this disease.

Yet the network is trotting out infectious disease experts from all over creation to tell us that a single case of Ebola in one American city should not be cause to push panic buttons, or to sound sirens, or send people into undisclosed secure locations.

If this situation is going to produce any positive outcome, it might be this: We’ve got a lot of brilliant medical researchers right here in the U.S. of A. who are quite capable of finding it. If the Ebola scare has done anything at all, I am hopeful it has scared researchers into redoubling their efforts at finding a cure.

International news, medical news, military news, national news, State news

ISIL threat: real or imagined?

Here’s my fervent hope for the moment: it is for otherwise responsible members of Congress to quit saying things they cannot prove beyond any doubt — not just reasonable doubt.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., says at least 10 Islamic State fighters have been captured on our southern border.

Not so, says Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/isil-us-border-homeland-security-duncan-hunter-111722.html?hp=l8

Who’s telling the truth?

My relative lack of cynicism leads me to believe the guy in charge of protecting the homeland. That would be Secretary Johnson.

“Let’s not unduly create fear and anxiety in the American public by passing on speculation and rumor,” Johnson told CNN.

Rep. Hunter is feeding the national anxiety over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Does he have proof that these individuals were apprehended and they, indeed, are members of the monstrous terrorist organization? No. Johnson replies that his agency has seen no “credible intelligence” that ISIL is at our southern doorstep, ready to cross into the U.S. territory and begin its reign of terror on unsuspecting and innocent Americans.

There is, though, another way to look at this matter.

It is that Border Patrol, Immigration and Naturalization Service, the FBI and local police authorities are on their toes. Suppose they are capturing individuals linked to ISIL. Wouldn’t that mean they’re doing their job?

I’ll stick with Secretary Johnson’s assessment that the situation lacks “credible intelligence” to suggest ISIL is on the march in North America.

We need physical proof, folks, that this is happening. And I’m not talking about fuzzy photos that Bigfoot believers produce to “prove” the existence of a mythical creature.

Let’s deal in reality and forgo the fiction.

International news, military news, national news, political news

Name's the same: It's called 'war'

The “fair and balanced” network that keeps proclaiming its journalistic integrity is at it again.

The Fox News Channel is trotting out a military expert to gripe that the war against the Islamic State doesn’t have a name, as in Operation Destroy ISIL or Operation Kill the Bad Guys.

The expert, whose name escapes me at the moment, was complaining that the Obama administration’s campaign to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State needs a catchy name to rally the nation, to give the mission a sense of purpose, to send a message to the Middle East terrorist monsters that, by God, we mean business.

Then he went on to suggest that absent a name President Obama is engaging in some form of denial about the severity of the heinous organization with which we’re dealing in Syria and Iraq.

Sigh …

Someone has to tell me in language I understand precisely why we need to call this campaign something catchy.

I heard the Fox expert prattle on about national purpose and unity. However, if memory serves, Operation Iraqi Freedom — which is what the Bush administration called its March 2003 invasion of Iraq — didn’t exactly gin up a whole lot of national unity simply because we hung a label on it.

The only thing that produces such unity is battlefield success. Yes, the United States succeeded on the battlefield. Our forces defeated Saddam Hussein’s overhyped army with ease — just as we did in 1991 when we liberated Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm.

However, we weren’t greeted as “liberators,” as then-Vice President Cheney predicted would happen. Then that unity thing kind of fell apart as public opinion began to sour on our continued occupation of Iraq.

Did the name chosen produce the sense of mission and national esprit de corps envisioned at the time?

Hardly.

Let’s get back to debating the merits of the air campaign against ISIL. I hasten to note, incidentally, that more nations are taking part. We aren’t alone in this fight.

Thus, it would be helpful if critics here at home — such as the Fox News “experts” — would cease carping on these side issues.

They serve only as a distraction from the bigger fight.

International news, local news, military news, national news

Waiting to hear from chairman-to-be Thornberry

Lame-duck House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, R-Calif., has weighed in on President Obama’s strategy to destroy the Islamic State.

He says the president needs to rethink the bombing strategy and possibly bring in ground troops to fight ISIL terrorists face to face.

That’s fine, Chairman McKeon.

However, he’s leaving office in January. The new Armed Services Committee chairman is going to be Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, Texas. He’s my congressman. He represents the sprawling 13th Congressional District, which includes the Texas Panhandle.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/220157-house-gop-urges-obama-to-rethink-isis-strategy

What does the chairman-in-waiting think ought to happen?

Thornberry’s been fairly quiet while the Middle East has been erupting in flames. As head of one-half of Congress’s key committee on military matters — the other half does business in the Senate — he’s going to be a critical player in this on-going discussion.

Thus, Rep.Thornberry is likely to be stepping outside of his comfort zone, as I have come to understand it. He’s going to be asked regularly to appear on those Sunday news talk shows. He’ll be grilled intently by journalists who’ll want to know where he stands on this critical question of the U.S. response to the ISIL threat.

Until now, Thornberry has been content to serve as a back-bench member of the House. He doesn’t act particularly starved for attention by the news networks, although he does acquit himself well on those occasions he has appeared. (I recall one interview he had on MSNBC with Chris Matthews. I reminded Thornberry that I once met Matthews “before he was ‘Chris Matthews.'”)

I appreciate where Chairman McKeon is coming from on this issue of ISIL and our response to it. Sadly, he’s rapidly become “old news.” I’m waiting for the new guy — Mac Thornberry — to step up.