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Submitted by Erico Tavares of Sinclair & Co.

Sun Tzu and the Cost of War

What if military strategy was timeless?

Sun Tzu was a Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher, and is credited to have written “The Art of War”, a seminal treatise on managing conflict and warfare. It is uncertain when he actually lived, but some traditional historians date his lifetime to 544–496 BC.

The Art of War discusses military strategy within the wider context of public administration, politics and planning. Organized in thirteen chapters, the text outlines theories of battle, but also advocates diplomacy and cultivating relationships with other nations as essential to the health of a state. For centuries, it has been regarded as the definite reading for strategists and warriors of all types.

Sun Tzu’s work remains highly influential to this day. An internet search with his name produces over 10 million hits; in recent years there have been several best-selling translations and books applying the strategies to different fields, including negotiation, leadership and business.

So influential in fact that certain authors claim China’s leaders follow a modern adaptation of his principles as they seek to transform their country into a world superpower in the 21 century. Exactly at a time when the Western Establishment seems to be very busy brushing them aside.

Sun Tzu in Action

Sun Tzu observed, analyzed and distilled what works and what doesn’t at war, and eventually developed an approach which transcended the battlefield. He emphasized the need to have a strategy planned well in advance of any campaign based on a detailed assessment of both adversaries’ strengths and weaknesses: “If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.”

Open warfare should only be pursued as a last resort. In fact, Sun Tzu regarded winning without fighting as the pinnacle of military achievement. However, when there was no other choice, then the fighting should be as swift as possible: “There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.” That applies to the loser of course but also the victor, which is forced to expend substantial resources and in the end may not get much spoils to show for it, while becoming vulnerable himself to other attacks.

Sun Tzu also warned us against relying too much on technological superiority: “Even the finest sword plunged into salt water will eventually rust.” Such superiority may win battles but not necessarily the war, especially in the presence of asymmetric equalizers. And it is very costly.

His principles remain relevant to this day not only because they were organized during a time of substantial human conflict in an advanced civilization – they are also deeply rooted in natural law. Even the mighty lion chooses its prey carefully, aiming for the weakest of the bunch in the most economical way possible.

The Cost of War

Stephen Daggett, Specialist in Defense Policy and Budgets at the Congressional Research Service (considered to be the Congress’ think tank), authored a report in June 2010 outlining the cost of all the major wars the US has been involved in. His estimates, as well as a recent update on the cost of all the Post 9/11 wars by Professor Neta C. Crawford at Boston University, are presented in the following table:

Source: Congressional Research Service (June 2010), Boston University (June 2014).

(a) US$ billion, in constant 2011 dollars, except for Post 9/11 which is in current dollars.

(b) Union and Confederacy added together.

(c) Includes $1 trillion in future obligations for care of Veterans through 2054.

One important fact stands out from this table. Not only are the Post 9/11 entanglements the longest of any war the US has been involved in, they are also the most expensive – even more than World War II, when the US was fighting on two major fronts against heavily industrialized powers. Rather than achieving victory quickly as advocated by Sun Tzu, the US has been involved in very costly wars for well over a decade now.

When it comes to ensuring global security it can get lonely at the top. None of the traditional US allies have the military capabilities and even the ambition to project power at the same level. As an example, the US has 19 commissioned aircraft carriers, followed by France at #2 with only four. Russia and China only have one each.

These days US politicians generally endorse this militaristic approach to governing world affairs. This might be understandable as the geopolitical landscape has become incredibly complex and uncertain since 9/11. However, after years of waging war, conflict is now expanding as opposed to receding, particularly in the all-important Middle East where openly anti-West radical groups are conquering large territories. As such, a material US disentanglement over the foreseeable future looks increasingly less likely.

Sun Tzu had something to say about this: “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” Seen in this light, has the Post 9/11 military strategy made the US a victorious warrior?

While all of this is taking place, the US’ ideological foes can afford the luxury of sitting back and employing a more measured approach: “To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” Indeed, nothing breaks morale more than the prospect of never ending foreign wars.

Meanwhile, the debts keep piling up. The Pentagon’s continued ability to project power might become increasingly dependent not on its brave soldiers but on its creditors. Sun Tzu would agree.

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Earlier this week, a bunch of guys from DJIGlobal had a brilliant idea: let’s take the infamous “camera on a stick” from Go Pro(laroid), stick it on a drone, and dump the whole thing above the magma caldera of Iceland’s most recent active volcanic eruption at Bardarbunga, while filming every step of the way.

The resulting video is stunning, even if the camera melted in the process.

Here, in DJI’s own words:

DJI’s first video in a series called “DJI Feats” takes you to the remote wilderness of an erupting Icelandic volcano, where Phantom 2 quadcopters are used to capture viewpoints of an exploding magma caldera too dangerous to be approached by manned aircraft.

The video was so impressive, none other than Charlie Rose covered the process:

 

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Submitted by David Stockman of ContraCorner

September Jobs: Some Numbers Bubblevision Didn’t Mention

The September establishment survey showed a 248k job gain, but that was the seasonally maladjusted, preliminarily guesstimated version which will be revised in October and November, and then re-benchmarked several more times in the coming years. So let’s take a pass on the enthusiasm with respect to this fleeting monthly delta and consider a couple of trend points evident in this morning’s release—-data points which aren’t going to get revised away and which actually provide some fundamental insight about the actual “employment situation” and the true condition of the US economy.

My favorite number is right at the top of the BLS table and it’s 155.9 million. That is the civilian labor force number for September and it compares to 154.9 million reported for October 2008 way back when the financial crisis was just erupting. The reason that rather tepid gain of 1 million labor force participants over the course of six years is important is that during the same period the working age civilian population (over 16 years) rose from 234.6 million to 248.4 million—-or by 14 million in round terms.

That’s right, the labor force grew by only 7% of the gain in adult population. That explains, of course, why the labor force participation rate of 66.0% back at the time of the crisis has plunged to a 36-year low of 62.7% in September. Or to put it another way, the employment-to-population ratio of 59.0% last month compared to just under 62% six years ago and 64.2% in the year 2000.

Needless to say, that huge 500 basis point decline in the true jobs ratio is dramatically more important than the monthly jobs delta—even if the later did trigger a run-the-stops burst by the robo traders within seconds of the release. The fact is, the plummeting rate of employment among the adult population means that the effective rate of taxation on labor hours worked has risen sharply, and will continue to do so as the baby boom ages.

So you don’t have to be a raving supply-sider to realize that a rising tax rate on labor—expressed as either current taxes or future debt service— as far as the eye can see is not a formula for the kind of perpetual earnings growth that is being capitalized by today’s bubblicious stock markets; and that’s especially true in a world crawling with cheap workers and massive excess production capacity stimulated by 14 years of financial repression and ultra-cheap capital by the world’s central banks.

Indeed, the single most important number in today’s report is 102 million, which is the rounded sum of adults either not in the labor force or unemployed, and it amounts to 41% of the adult population. Stated differently, that’s the number of adults who do not contribute to current production and must be supported either by family breadwinners or the state—-and nowadays especially the latter.

Indeed, when these trends for prime age workers (25-54 years) are viewed, the case is even more compelling. The employment ratio for that group is at 1982 levels——a  ratio that prevailed when the female labor force participation rate was still climbing strongly. On a sex-adjusted basis, the prime age employment ratio has never been as low as it has remained since the end of the Great Recession.

Among other things, these dismal employment ratio numbers tells you why the Wall Street patter about PE multiples being at or below historical norms is so wrong-headed. The capitalization rate for the American economy should be falling because the dependency burden faced by workers and entrepreneurs is soaring at rates never before witnessed. Going back to September 2000, for example, there were only 76 million adults not in the labor force or unemployed, and that represented just 35.8% of the adult population of 213 million.

This means there has been a 26 million gain in the number of adults not working—-even part-time—during that 14 year period. About 10 million of that gain is accounted for by retired workers on social security—-a figure which has risen from 28.5 million to 38.5 million during the interim. But where are the other 16 million?  The answer is on disability (+4.5 million), food stamps (+25 million), survivors and dependents benefits, other forms of public aid, living in parents’ basements on student loans or not, or on the streets.

There should be no mistake about the implications of these baleful trends as once again reinforced in today’s “jobs Friday” report. They do not represent merely a social problem or the fact that Washington’s fiscal calamity is going to get steadily worse in the years ahead. They also embody an endemic economic problem and staggering challenge to the Keynesian money printing regime now incumbent in Washington.

In the first place, the massive monetary experiment since 2000—which has seen the Fed’s balance sheet grow from $500 billion to $4.5 trillion or by 9X—-has not caused macro-economic performance to improve. The employment ratio has plunged; full-time breadwinner jobs have actually shrunk; total labor hours employed have been stagnant; real GDP has grown at only 1.8% annually for 14 years—compared to 4% annually between 1956 and 1970; and real net capital investment is 20% below its turn of the century level.

So what is really embodied in today’s report is more evidence that America’s dependency ratio is still rising and that the already crushing burden of the welfare state will weigh ever more heavily on an economy that is visibly failing as measured by any of the fundamental trends of performance. Indeed, it is well to recall that even today—after what the clueless occupant of the White House claims as 10 million new jobs when 90% of that number, in fact, represents “born again” jobs relative to the 2007 peak—-there are 110 million Americans living in households receiving means-tested benefits and 158 million in households that receive transfer payments of all types.

Yet as the burden of taxation and public debt resulting from these trends weigh ever more heavily, it leaves the mad money printers resident in the Eccles Building stranded in an impossible corner.

Unless they wish to destroy the monetary system and keep money market rates at zero forever, they will have to normalize interest rates. And rising interest rates—eventually 300-400 basis points at minimum— on top of rising taxes do not amount to a formula for booming growth. Or even any meaningful economic growth at all.

In that context, capitalizing S&P earnings at 20X reported profits on the eve of the coming storm is a fool’s errand. And you can look it up. What really counts for growth and stock market value beyond the day trader’s horizon is all right there in the September jobs report—-even if they didn’t mention it on bubblevision.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/Z0JHX1 Tyler Durden

While one can’t help but snicker when the administration of a Nobel Peace Prize winner has launched at least 7 offensive wars, mosty against Muslim countries with virtually none obtaining prior approval from Congress, until now Obama at least showed the sense to realize that maintaining proper “made for propaganda media” optics matters, even if his underlying actions were the very definition of hypocrisy. And then something snapped. As reported by Yahoo News, the White House has acknowledged for the first time that strict standards President Obama imposed last year to prevent civilian deaths from U.S. drone strikes will not apply to U.S. military operations in Syria and Iraq.

Now, we showed last weekend that Syrian “rebels”, those people the US is supposedly helping, are furious at US bombing of their own people, but we wonder just how they will feel when they realize that according to the most powerful representative of the “free world” they are actually, well, subhuman and not worthy of the same civil rights as people in every other part of the globe (bombed by US drones).

According to Yahoo News, a White House statement confirmed the looser policy came in response to questions about reports that as many as a dozen civilians, including women and young children, were killed when a Tomahawk missile struck the village of Kafr Daryan in Syria’s Idlib province on the morning of Sept. 23.

it has a “looser policy standards” when it comes to preventing  civilian deaths from U.S. drone strikes in U.S. military operations in Syria and Iraq. 

came in response to questions about reports that as many as a dozen civilians, including women and young children, were killed when a Tomahawk missile struck the village of Kafr Daryan in Syria’s Idlib province on the morning of Sept. 23.

And if being equated with monkeys wasn’t enough of an insult, the US also used its masterpiece fabrication, the “Khorasans” as the justification to do to Syrians what last year’s false flag war campaign accused Syria’s Assad of doing.

So this is what the US government is not telling you:

The village has been described by Syrian rebel commanders as a reported stronghold of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front where U.S officials believed members of the so-called Khorasan group were plotting attacks against international aircraft.

 

But at a briefing for members and staffers of the House Foreign Affairs Committee late last week, Syrian rebel commanders described women and children being hauled from the rubble after an errant cruise missile destroyed a home for displaced civilians. Images of badly injured children also appeared on YouTube, helping to fuel anti-U.S. protests in a number of Syrian villages last week.

 

“They were carrying bodies out of the rubble. … I saw seven or eight ambulances coming out of there,” said Abu Abdo Salabman, a political member of one of the Free Syria Army factions, who attended the briefing for Foreign Affairs Committee members and staff. “We believe this was a big mistake.”

And this is what US “assistance” looks like:

But the bottom line is this: Caitlin Hayden, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said that a much-publicized White House policy that President Obama announced last year barring U.S. drone strikes unless there is a “near certainty” there will be no civilian casualties — “the highest standard we can meet,” he said at the time — does not cover the current U.S. airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.

The “near certainty” standard was intended to apply “only when we take direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the time,” Hayden said in an email. “That description — outside areas of active hostilities — simply does not fit what we are seeing on the ground in Iraq and Syria right now.”

 

Hayden added that U.S. military operations against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) in Syria, “like all U.S. military operations, are being conducted consistently with the laws of armed conflict, proportionality and distinction.”

 

The laws of armed conflict prohibit the deliberate targeting of civilian areas and require armed forces to take precautions to prevent inadvertent civilian deaths as much as possible.

 

But one former Obama administration official said the new White House statement raises questions about how the U.S. intends to proceed in the conflict in Syria and Iraq, and under what legal authorities.

Wait, someone actually wondered under what legal authority the Obama administration is killing innocent people? How dare they: don’t they know Obama has a Nobel peace prize, so none of his actions are subject to any scrutiny: surely the president himself is his own best moral censor.

But putting the bullshit aside, the bottom line here is quite simple: in order to help Qatar traverse Syria with its own Gazprom-bypassing natgas pipeline to Europe, and wipe out the same ISIS it created, and which has caused so many headaches for the Saudis, which in exchange for getting the US to bomb ISIS agreed to dump crude, split up OPEC once again, send the price of oil plunging and cause a Russian budget crisis… Obama not only has zero qualms to kill innocent women and children, but in doing so he has made it clear that Iraq and Syria’s woman and children are not even worth of being called human.

In fact, as one other charismatic dictator several decades ago claimed, they are “subhuman” and thus exempt from any innocent civilian deaths policy.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1rHJogq Tyler Durden

As The Wall Street Journal's Jeremy Page writes, In the recommended-reading section of Beijing's Wangfujing bookstore, staff members have no doubt which foreign leader customers are most interested in: President Vladimir Putin, or "Putin the Great" as some Chinese call him.

Books on Mr. Putin have been flying off shelves since the crisis in Ukraine began, far outselling those on other world leaders, sales staff say. One book, "Putin Biography: He is Born for Russia," made the list of top 10 nonfiction best sellers at the Beijing News newspaper in September.

 

China's fascination with Mr. Putin is more than literary, marking a shift in the post-Cold War order and in Chinese politics. After decades of mutual suspicion—and one short border conflict—Beijing and Moscow are drawing closer as they simultaneously challenge the U.S.-led security architecture that has prevailed since the Soviet collapse, diplomats and analysts say.

 

The former rivals for leadership of the Communist world also increasingly share a brand of anti-Western nationalism that could color President Xi Jinping's view of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Beijing accuses Western governments of stirring unrest there, much as Mr. Putin blamed the West for the pro-democracy protests in Kiev that began late last year.

 

Russia has begun portraying the Hong Kong protests, too, as U.S.-inspired. Russian state-controlled television channels this week claimed that Hong Kong protest leaders had received American training.

Support for Putin is extremely widespread in China…

The Pew Research Center says China is one of the few countries where popular support for Russia has risen since Moscow's confrontation with the West over Ukraine—rising to 66% in July from 47% a year earlier.

 

A poll by In Touch Today, an online news service run by China's Tencent Holdings Ltd., put Mr. Putin's approval rating at 92% after Russia annexed Crimea in March.

"Putin and Xi Jinping are quite similar," says Yu Bin, an expert on China-Russia relations at Wittenberg University in Ohio. The leaders are from the same generation—they are both 61—and both want to re-establish their countries as world powers and challenge Western dominance following periods of perceived national humiliation.

"Putin's personality is impressive—as a man, as a leader. Chinese people find that attractive. He defends Russia's interests," says Zhao Huasheng, an expert on China-Russia relations at Shanghai's Fudan University. "Russia and China can learn a lot from each other."

 

It is partly realpolitik. Russia needs China's market and capital, especially as Western sanctions over Ukraine bite, the analysts say, while Beijing sees Moscow as a source of diplomatic support and vital energy resources.

 

The countries concluded a long-awaited deal in May for Russia to supply $400 billion of gas to China over 30 years. They have forged agreements to build a railway bridge over their common border and an ice-free port in Russia's far east. They have also unveiled plans to set up ground stations on each other's land for their satellite global-positioning navigation systems.

 

Also driving the realignment is rapport between Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi, whose leadership increasingly resembles his Russian counterpart's charismatic nationalist authoritarianism.

Various Chinese authors have written extensive best-sellers on the Russian President:

Liu Xiaohu, the 28-year-old author of another biography, "Putin's Iron Fist," which came out this year, says many young Chinese feel frustrated by what they see as their government's failure to respond to past foreign provocations, such as the U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999.

 

"It's not that Chinese people instinctively want or need a strong leader: It's that the country needs one at this period of time," he says.

 

Zheng Wenyang, the 30-year-old author of "He is Born for Russia," says the biography, which came out in 2012, has sold far more copies than his earlier works on Barack Obama, Margaret Thatcher and Nelson Mandela.

 

He says Mr. Putin's popularity, while inflated by glowing reports in Chinese state media, feeds off a deeply held conviction in Chinese society: "If a leader is weak and allows himself to be bullied, then people won't respect him."

 

Russia's pushback against Western-leaning governments in Georgia in 2008 and more recently Ukraine has been popular in China. Some say Beijing should draw lessons from those experiences as it jostles for control over waters in the East and South China seas with the U.S., Japan, Philippines and Vietnam.

 

"Putin is a bold and decisive leader of a great power, who's good at achieving victory in a dangerous situation," said Maj. Gen. Wang Haiyun, a former military attaché to Moscow, in an interview with the Chinese website of the Global Times newspaper.

 

"These features are worthy of our praise and learning. Russia has been a great world power for hundreds of years and a superpower in the bi-polar order: It's much more skilled than us at playing great power games."

Finally, not everyone is excited about the newly found kinship between the two nations…

Some Chinese experts argue that China risks damaging its relationships with the U.S. and the European Union, still its biggest trading partners. Moscow's and Beijing's interests aren't always aligned.

 

New tensions could arise over China's expanding influence in Central Asian lands that once were part of the Soviet Union, and over Russian arms sales to India and Vietnam, neighbors of China that have boundary disputes with it.

 

Still, some analysts say that by staying out of the way in Ukraine, Beijing has ensured that Moscow will remain neutral over China's flaring territorial disputes in Asia. And for the moment, both sides have an interest in playing up the merits of their governance models.

Read More Here…
*  *  *
The bottom line – if you're going to be isolated from the world, you would do a lot worse than have China as your friend… and both Moscow and Washington know that only too well.

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By EconMatters

 

 

To say that the Federal Reserve is behind the curve is an understatement now that we have broken the 6% barrier, of course all the participants who want continued free money will point to all kinds of excuses for maintaining recession era rates to juice everything from stock buybacks to yield carry trades.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,

If there is a major Ebola pandemic in America, all of the liberties and the freedoms that you currently enjoy would be gone.  If government officials believe that you have the virus, federal law allows them to round you up and detain you "for such time and in such manner as may be reasonably necessary."  In addition, the CDC already has the authority to quarantine healthy Americans if they reasonably believe that they may become sick.  During an outbreak, the government can force you to remain isolated in your own home, or the government may forcibly take you to a treatment facility, a tent city, a sports stadium, an old military base or a camp.  You would not have any choice in the matter.  And you would be forced to endure any medical procedure mandated by the government.  That includes shots, vaccines and the drawing of blood.  During such a scenario, you can scream about your "rights" all that you want, but it won't do any good.

In case you are tempted to think that I am making this up, I want you to read what federal law actually says.  The following is 42 U.S.C. 264(d).  I have added bold for emphasis…

(1) Regulations prescribed under this section may provide for the apprehension and examination of any individual reasonably believed to be infected with a communicable disease in a qualifying stage and (A) to be moving or about to move from a State to another State; or (B) to be a probable source of infection to individuals who, while infected with such disease in a qualifying stage, will be moving from a State to another State. Such regulations may provide that if upon examination any such individual is found to be infected, he may be detained for such time and in such manner as may be reasonably necessary. For purposes of this subsection, the term “State” includes, in addition to the several States, only the District of Columbia.

 

(2) For purposes of this subsection, the term “qualifying stage”, with respect to a communicable disease, means that such disease—

 

(A) is in a communicable stage; or

 

(B) is in a precommunicable stage, if the disease would be likely to cause a public health emergency if transmitted to other individuals.

In addition, as I discussed above, the CDC already has the authority to isolate people that are not sick to see if they do become sick.  The following is what the CDC website says about this…

Quarantine is used to separate and restrict the movement of well persons who may have been exposed to a communicable disease to see if they become ill. These people may have been exposed to a disease and do not know it, or they may have the disease but do not show symptoms. Quarantine can also help limit the spread of communicable disease.

On a very basic level, we are already starting to see this happen in Texas.  Obviously Thomas Eric Duncan has already been "isolated", and now his family has been placed under mandatory quarantine and ordered not to leave their home for 21 days…

Texas health officials have placed the Dallas family of a Liberian national infected with Ebola under quarantine and ordered them not to leave their home or have any contact with outsiders for 21 days without approval of the local or state health department.

 

The "control order" also requires the family of Thomas Eric Duncan to be available to provide blood samples and agree to any testing required by public health officials. Officials said Thursday that the four or five family members could face criminal charges for violating the order, which was delivered to them in writing Wednesday evening.

 

Police have been stationed at the apartment complex to ensure residents' safety, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings told a news briefing Thursday afternoon.

If we could all just stay in our homes during a national Ebola emergency, that wouldn't be so bad.

But if thousands (or even millions) of cases start popping up it simply will not be possible for law enforcement authorities to monitor so many homes.

This is a point that Mike Adams of Natural News made exceptionally well…

When just one family is suspected of carrying Ebola, they can be easily monitored in a "volunteer home isolation" scenario. But what happens when it's 100 families? 500? 1,000? At that point, there aren't enough state or federal workers to keep an eye on these people, and the quarantine effort will almost certainly shift to forced relocation into quarantine camps.

 

Those camps will, of course, be called something nice-sounding like "Community Health Centers." No one in government or media will call them camps, even though they are camps. The word "camp" brings up echoes of "concentration camps" and the government definitely wants to avoid that association.

 

If one particular town or city is hit especially hard with the virus, there is a likelihood of the entire town being quarantined. No one in, no one out. Everybody will be ordered to "shelter in place" in their own homes for at least 21 days while health workers wearing hazmat suits go door to door, identifying Ebola victims and "relocating" them to the "Community Health Centers."

If that sounds like "martial law" to you, that is because it would essentially be martial law.

For the moment, public health authorities are pledging that nothing like this will ever happen because they have everything completely under control.

Others are not so sure.

For example, on Thursday a doctor from Missouri named Gil Mobley checked in for a flight at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport dressed in a mask, goggles, gloves, boots and a protective white jumpsuit.  On the back of the jumpsuit, he had written the following words:  "CDC is lying!"

Mobley believes that we are not being told the truth about the spread of Ebola.  And he is convinced that as Ebola continues to spread exponentially, that we will eventually "be importing clusters of Ebola on a daily basis"…

“Once this disease consumes every third world country, as surely it will, because they lack the same basic infrastructure as Sierra Leone and Liberia, at that point, we will be importing clusters of Ebola on a daily basis,” Mobley predicted.

 

“That will overwhelm any advanced country’s ability to contain the clusters in isolation and quarantine. That spells bad news.”

 

Mobley, a Medical College of Georgia graduate who had an overnight layover after flying to Atlanta from Guatemala on Wednesday, said that he feels that the CDC is “asleep at the wheel” when it comes to screening passengers arriving in the United States from other countries.

 

“Yesterday, I came through international customs at the Atlanta airport,” the doctor told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The only question they asked arriving passengers is if they had tobacco or alcohol.”

Earlier on Thursday, there were reports of people being tested for Ebola in Hawaii, Kentucky and Utah.  None of those tests has produced a confirmed case of Ebola as I write this article.

Many Americans are still treating this Ebola crisis as if it was just one big joke.

But Ebola is no joking matter.  This is a very, very serious disease.

Just consider the experience of one British health worker that witnessed a young brother and sister both die one day apart…

'The next morning I came in and saw him lying as I had left him, on the bed.

 

'He wasn't breathing. I remember going up to him and looking at his face, his lips were drawn back in a grimace, and his eyes were vacant, lying in a pool of his own diarrhea.

 

'I lifted his hand to try, just to confirm things and his whole body turned rigid and cold.

 

'I put him in a body bag as his sister looked on.

 

'She seemed more baffled than anything, not really understanding what was happening. I carried his corpse outside with the others.

 

'The little girl, she deteriorated the next day. Overnight, the following night she had intravenous fluids and the line came out and she bled.

 

'I came in the following morning and she was covered in blood. She still had a very puzzled expression on her face and she wasn't breathing.

 

'So I put her in a bag and left her next to her brother. She was a beautiful little girl.'

Hopefully our medical authorities are correct and this virus will not spread easily in this country.

But at this point even some of our top politicians are wondering if we are truly getting accurate information.  For example, check out what U.S. Senator Rand Paul had to say on the Laura Ingraham Show just recently…

“I really think that it is being dominated by political correctness and I think because of political correctness we’re not really making sound, rational, scientific decisions on this.” Paul said referring to statements issued by the CDC last week that assured there was little risk of an outbreak occurring in the US.

 

“We should not underestimate the transmissibility of this,” said Paul, a doctor himself, adding that medical workers have been contracting the virus even though they are taking precautions and covering themselves with gowns and masks.

 

“My suspicion is that it’s a lot more transmissible than that if people who are taking every precaution are getting it. There are people getting it who simply helped people get in or out of a taxicab.” Paul said.

Let's pray that this crisis fizzles out, because if it doesn't, we could truly be looking at the greatest health crisis that any of us have ever seen.

And along with countless numbers of people getting sick and dying, we would also have to deal with government-imposed medical martial law.

The stakes are extremely high, and so let us hope that this crisis does not escalate any further.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1vnpkh3 Tyler Durden