Minister Al-X

Reason #10a Why a Military Mind Is a Progressive Mind: Health Care is a National security Issue.

You know, if my 21 year old self could see me openly advocating for a General to run for Senate, I'd probably want to spit on me. But this is because in my youth I misunderstood the military, and especially the military mind. Whereas I used to see rigid men, who I assumed to be dumb cogs in a brutal system, I now see extremely well educated and mentally flexible individuals, with strong intellectual backgrounds, and a fierce loyalty to their country, which they serve as selflessly as possible.

I was also trapped in a pre-Cold War mindstate, that equated security with having the biggest, the baddest, and the most, weapons. But, now the Soviets are gone, America has risen to a position of unparalleled military might, and so the threats that we face today come from new, and sometimes much more dangerous, areas. These new, asymmetric threats (see this for definition), come from smaller nations and non-state actors such as Transnational Criminal Organizations or Terrorists, and require new defense strategies.

In a very ironic (at least to me) twist- it is now the security argument which holds the most promise in pushing for a national health program.

As Anthony Zinni has noted: We will eventually see a weapon of mass destruction used in a terrorist act. And, I would say we had better start thinking about how we're going to be prepared for the threat, because we're woefully unprepared for that event, and that's inevitable.

And as this study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)- a semi-governmental non-partisan defense think tank- points out:

The US and its allies also need to rethink internal security planning, public health, response, and defense efforts to deal with the broad range of CBRN threats. This requires us to refocus homeland defense on attacks using each type of CBRN weapons, and covert means of delivery.

Within the United States, we need to examine the full range of options for defense and response, make hard trade offs between them, and develop an integrated mix of federal programs to deal with them. The most urgent effort, however, should be in dealing with biological attacks, simply because they combine high potential lethality with greater ease of acquisition and use. This means developing new detection, characterization, and warning systems where these can be proved to be cost-effective. It also means rethinking the national stockpile of vaccines and medical goods, and our investment in public health services and surplus medical capacity.

Today Reuters reports that the best defense against an Anthrax attack is to respond quickly with Antibiotics, rather than vaccinating people against it before hand.

As Ron Brookmeyer, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, notes:
"Strengthening the public health infrastructure to improve early detection and rapid response is going to be a better use of resources to improve disease surveillance and to get drugs out to people quicker than a mass pre-attack vaccine program"

Strong defense equals a strong public health system. I mean we have a lot bigger cahnce, I believe, of getting hit with a biological agent than a nuclear one- so why are we investing in Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems that don't work instead of building up a dual-use public health system?

Who'd a thunk that a progressive issue could be so closely aligned with the military? Not my 21 year old self, that's for certain

posted by Anonymous @ 4:30 PM