Complete but Rough Version
1. Environment, 2. Health, 2.1. Agent Orange, 3. Operations in Hot Zones, 3.1. Congo, 3.2. Venezuela, 3.3. South Korea, 3.4. Mali, 4. BioChem. Previous Week 190414-Polemic.
Other topics: Ticks, Insects, Measles, Propaganda, Humanitarian Aid, Overlapping Categories, Transportation, Melting Permafrost, Alaska, Ebola, Vaccines, Syria, ISIS/ ISIL
-1. Environment: Military bases are usually part of the economic ecology of a region. What happens in a military base is prepared to adapt to environmental change but not the region it is embedded in. Would power, food, non military work force, housing, schooling, off base employment be lost, and would that mean the base is also lost. Guest Opinion: Utah Can No Longer Ignore the Dangers of Climate Change, Commentary: Veterans Ask Romney: How Will You Protect Us from Climate Change. How Climate Change Is Fuelling the U.S. Border Crisis. Climate Change: Our Greatest National Security Threat.
-2. Health: Ground forces are trained and equipped for lethal environments, but what about insect borne diseases, Entomological Warfare, DARPA Is Making Insects That Can Deliver Bioweapons, Bullets That Don't Miss, Weaponized Insects and More: Innovations From DARPA, America’s Secret Lab, Scientists Worry U.S. Military Might Try to Weaponize Insects. .... Tick Borne Disease. Moreover health and environment are not as distinguishable categories as one would think Tick, Tick, Tick: Alaska Braces for Invading Parasites, Climate Change Could Push Tropical Diseases to Alaska, Alaska Hits Earliest 70 Degree Readings on Record, One of Alaska’s Warmest Springs on Record Is Causing a Dangerous Thaw, 190303-Polemic-1. This may seem to be the stuff of science fiction, but then so were radios, airplanes, atomic bombs, radar, submarines, rapid fire weapons, rockets, magnetic rail guns, armored vehicles, robots (drones), computers (AI), parachutes, satellites.
-2.1. Veterans Engaged in Uphill Battle Against VA over Agent Orange Benefits Find Hope in Recent Movement on Issue, Listicle. 190210-Polemic-2.1.
-3. Operations in Hot Zones:
-3.1. Vaccine Preventable Diseases Surge in Crisis Hit Venezuela. 190421-VCP-Venezuela.
-3.2. Why Defeating ISIS with Military Might Is Starry Eyed Idealism + Amb Jeffrey on ISIS’s Territorial Defeat and next Steps in Syria and the D-ISIS Campaign + What Comes After ISIS + ISIS Is Far from Defeated + The Dangerous Dregs of ISIS$ = ISIL Claims its First DR Congo Attack –2– declaring the Central Africa Province of the caliphate. Not a surprise to analysts, but probably a surprise to policy makers. If a group, or one of its factions, (ISIS/ ISIL –2–), is defeated militarily where better to go than a place that has a sellable resource, is already in chaos with distrust of the national government and world at large, has an environmental or health hazard that makes military operations difficult, is embedded in a population that is innocent (i.e. living shields), use guerrilla tactics on military and soft targets and already has media attention. See 3.3↓. <ADDED 190421-180513-1.1>.
-A. WOTR has a recent article on the tenacity if terrorist insurgencies, based on the Algerian insurrection which was the background for Albert Camus’ novel The Plague -2- -3-. Algeria is also the setting of Black Death Kills Al Qaeda Operatives in Algeria, which support the narrative of bioterrorism by Muslim extremists.
-3.3. South Korea: Fear of Biological Agent Strikes Busan as US Troops Continue Biosurveillance Project. There is a long history of claims of US bioweapons during the Korean War so unsurprising this fostering of distrust would spill over into South Korea, <ADDED 181125-181118-VCP-China>8, 180422-1, 180311-6. This propaganda may also have contributed to resistance to medical aid for Ebola -3.2↑, The U.S. Created Ebola as a Biological Weapon (According to North Korea) 2014 –2– –3–s24 –4–, 190303-Polemic-3.4. Biological Weapons, Bioterrorism, and Vaccines.
-A. S. Korea to Propose Cooperation with N. Korea to Prevent African Swine Fever Outbreak. The latest zoodemic (animal pandemic) of ASF originated in China and has spread worldwide, with dire economic effects (destroying livelihoods) but so far does not directly infect humans. Main avenue of spread if via human transportation of tainted meat and animals to other countries. <ADDED 190414-181118-VCP-China>3.
-B. In Korean DMZ, Wildlife Thrives. Some Conservationists Worry Peace Could Disrupt It, 190303-Polemic-3.4.
-3.4. Mali: Donkeys Deliver Vaccines in Mali as Diseases Spike with Violence, [Map]. Motorcycles, which health workers used to reach remote villages, have been banned to reduce militant activity, forcing them to use traditional Means. I'm Going to Die: Survivor Recounts Mali Ethnic Massacre. Global Health Engagement: A Military Medicine Core Competency, 2019 Posture Statement to Congress, U.S. Africa Command. 190421-VCP.
-3.5. Mounting Concern over Cholera Health Crisis in Yemen, 190414-Polemic-3.2. Trump Vetoes Measure Ending US Support for Saudi Led War in Yemen.
-4. BioChem: House Members Question the Reliability of New Bioweapons Detection System$. Measles Outbreak Drains Resources We May Need for a Future Epidemic or Bioterrorist Attack, hoarding resources now because of future needs implies several questionable assumptions and general ignorance about epidemiology, preventative medicine and public health. For instance a best time to use a bioweapon is during a disease outbreak as more people would have weakend immunity and an outbreak may hide a bio attack longer. DHS Considers Naming Fentanyl a Weapon of Mass Destruction.
Narrative Version
-1. Environment: Military bases are usually part of the economic ecology of a region. What happens however in a military base is prepared to adapt to environmental change but not the region it is embedded in. Would power, food, non military work force, housing, schooling, off base employment be lost, and would that mean the base is also lost.
-2. Health: Ground forces are trained and equipped for lethal environments, but what about insect borne diseases that can gnaw through the seals and seams of protective gear, Ticks in Alaska. Agent Orange.
-3. Operations in Hot Zones:
-3.1. Venezuela.
-3.2. ISIL in the DR Congo is probably only a surprise to those with a policy that ISIS is defeated. The DRC is a great terrorist operating area: it has a sellable resource, is already in chaos with distrust of the national government and world at large, has an environmental or health hazard that makes military operations difficult, is embedded in a population that is innocent (i.e. living shields), available military and soft targets for guerrilla tactics, and media attention.
-3.3. South Korea: Fear of Biological Agent Strikes Busan as US Troops Continue Biosurveillance Project, is a continuation of the long history of claims of US bioweapons during the Korean War.
-3.4. Mali: Donkeys Deliver Vaccines in Mali as Diseases Spike with Violence, [Map].
-3.5. Mounting Concern over Cholera Health Crisis in Yemen.
-4. BioChem: Some have a questionable opionion that Measles Outbreak Drains Resources We May Need for a Future Epidemic or Bioterrorist Attack.
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