Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Ebola Czar....reporting to whom?

So Ron Klain has been appointed the ebola czar.  We have a National Institutes of Health, a Center of for Disease Control, and a Department of Health and Human Services, but I guess when there isn't strong enough leadership in the existing bureaucracy a new bureaucrat is deemed necessary.

Ron Klain is a former chief of staff to both vice president Gore and vice-president Joe Biden.  Not sure how that qualifies him.  He has no medical background.  I've heard his appointment defended with the argument that his role is implementation and he's very good at that.  OK.  How is he going to know what to implement?  He will coordinate efforts at multiple agencies-- CDC, NIH, and potentially State Department and even the military.  Does he not need to know what efforts need to be coordinated?
I hope he surrounds himself with knowledgeable people and does get the job done.  Just seems like a medical person at one of the already established organizations ought to have been able to do it.  I guess they are busy with other things.

Even more curious is the fact that Klain will report, not to the president as one would expect, but to National Security Advisor Susan Rice.  Yes, the Susan Rice who claimed on all the Sunday talk shows that the Benghazi attack was a spontaneous demonstration in response to a video and that there was no evidence that it was a terrorist attack.  It was not spontaneous.  It was not in response to a video and it was clearly an organized, terrorist attack.  Inexplicably, the media never held her or the administration accountable for misleading the American people.  Yes, that Susan Rice.  One might also ask what does ebola have to do with national security.  Yes, I think one might ask that question.

Ultimately, the administration says Ron Klain will report also to the Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco.  Does anyone else find it odd that ebola is being treated as a national security issue?  It's a health issue.  The Department of Homeland Security was originally established, according to their own website, to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, to reduce America's vulnerability to terrorism, and to minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do occur. (their wording)

How is the ebola virus related to terrorism and national security?  And why is Obama treating it this way?  Is he trying to minimize the very real security threats to the United States?  Is he trying to take our eyes off the ongoing threat of radical Islamism?

I find the whole situation very puzzling, including the use of American troops to fight ebola in West Africa.  We should help West Africa in every way we can.  But is this a good use of the military?  Is our president so reluctant to acknowledge the true purpose of the military that he wants to focus our soldiers on a nonmilitary mission?  And call a health threat a national security issue?

The Obama administration continues to keep me wondering....

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