US Military Intervention Not a Cure for Ebola, Experts Warn

Limits to What US Troops Can Actually Do

Though many officials see US military intervention as a panacea, there are some things massive military overspending can’t cure. Ebola is one of those things, experts warn.

It may sound obvious, but experts are actually feeling the need to warn that sending thousands of US ground troops to Liberia to build a few Ebola treatment centers doesn’t mean Ebola’s going to stop being a thing.

Not that building the treatment centers isn’t a nice thing to do, in and of itself, but with the US intervention almost entirely logistical in nature, and with almost no medical personnel involved, there are serious limits to what can be expected of the operation.

Indeed, the Pentagon’s harsh quarantine standards for US troops may actually end up making the intervention counter-productive, according to some experts, who say that if their standards are adopted elsewhere it could serious limit the amount of actual doctors and nurses able to get to West Africa.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.