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Disclaimer:
The following article is the sole opinion of Arthur Helms. ZWN and it's
affiliates do not influence, endorse nor are accountable for Mr. Helms
opinions.
It’s Bush’s fault. The
Cuban outbreak, the floaters
and boaters that
brought the plague to our shores and finally the Miami
outbreak are all squarely on his doorstep. He should have done more.
He should have sent in regular military. He should have taken control
of the situation, commanded the troops from the ground and served coffee
from the Red Cross vans to emergency services workers.
The preceding statement is easy to make. As Americans, we tend to look
for fault along party lines as much as possible. Bush makes a better
target than most, of course, since at this point in history a properly
executed and emotional outburst can place blame for any number of issues
squarely upon his shoulders. However, there are a few places in the
reactionary and completely politically-motivated finger pointing that
really should be looked at through a lens of logic and fact tinged only
slightly by law. I also feel it necessary to note that the President
and I have no relationship. I have never been to the White House under
any president’s invitation, I am a registered Independent and
in my previous commentary careers I have been a rather vocal opponent
of many of Mr. Bush’s policies, most notably in the fields of
illegal immigration and NAFTA.
First and foremost the Miami outbreak is just that; the Miami outbreak,
not a condition that extends past the boundaries of the state of Florida
or even that of Dade County. In a situation like this, there are only
two methods where a smart president could or would send U.S. military
forces into an active military deployment on our own soil. In the first
example, the president can deploy the United States military within
our borders. However, he would have to declare a state of marshal law
and the total suspension of civil liberties in the area to give military
commanders the authority to issue orders and edicts to state and municipal
organizations and citizens that would carry the force of law. In the
second example, the governor of Florida would have to make a direct
request to the president or Congress for military aid, again giving
up control to marshal law.
In both these examples, and even with Mayor Schlader’s ill-advised
dealings with Scot Chierbeck’s
program, Governor Crist has been able to contain the outbreak to
a relatively small area with his own state forces. And if you ask any
honest governor, they will tell you the last thing they want is to turn
over control of their state to the federal government. Although little-reported,
both FEMA and the CDC, the Center for Disease Control, have been involved
with the Miami outbreak before it was even known by that term, and the
Florida National Guard units and other such military and paramilitary
units have been receiving equipment, supplies and technical and medical
assistance from the federal government since the first floaters appeared
off the coast. In short, Bush knew full well he was damned whether he
sent federal troops into Miami or he didn’t. By not sending them,
he gets the same blame that he received for Hurricane Katrina (another
situation where it is generally put upon the state to request federal
assistance). Had he sent them in, the hew and cry would have been centered
on Cowboy George, wagging the phallus of the U.S. military to contain
a city-level outbreak that was already contained by the resources available
within the state.
Think about it in these terms. Anyone remember a little town called
Waco and a sect known as the Branch Davidians? Anybody remember what
the big rub was about? You can say then-Attorney General Janet Reno
used federal forces for the welfare of the children in that horrid cult
environment. You could even say she was acting through the ATF to remove
dangerous weapons from even more dangerous hands. However, when it comes
right down to it, the ATF should have been involved but the operation
should have been carried out by the state of Texas. Even though then-President
Clinton was well-aware of Reno’s intent and approved such action
even if tacitly, Attorney General Reno still took the brunt of the blame
for the utter disaster that was that operation.
Bush doesn’t have such a ready fall guy, and in politics it’s
always better to be chastised for inaction than blasted for action.
To illustrate my point with a more current example, I need only point
you to the mortosis checkpoint incident several weeks ago wherein a
group of heavily-armed gang members attempted to break through a cordon
of Florida National Guardsmen. Almost immediately, the cry rose that
the guards acted with too great a response level and should have made
more and better attempts to stop the arsenal-caravan without deadly
force. The story was in the news for perhaps a week or so before being
relegated to the back pages. Do you think the reaction of these so-called
“human rights” groups would have been brushed aside so easily
had those troops been regular U.S. military sent there by President
Bush? Liberal or Conservative, Republican or Democrat, regular or menthol,
you know deep down that every talking head and bleeding heart would
have kept the story afloat for weeks on end by laying the blame at the
White House’s door.
As I have said in previous columns, I feel the city and state government
have done an admirable job in the Miami outbreak. No leader wants to
deal with a mortosis outbreak on their watch, and even though there
have been some hiccups and missteps I think they have done most everything
possible to contain and defeat the current outbreak.
There’s really only one more thing I could think of that may be
accomplished more thoroughly and in a shorter time frame with the help
of the regular U.S. military than could be accomplished by the current
level of resources and manpower, though it has its own set of perils.
I will go on record now as saying it would be a prudent, nay wise, course
of action; with the city practically deserted and the claims that the
outbreak is on the down-hill slide, now would be the time to send several
thousand troops, properly briefed and equipped, into Miami. While the
current state forces keep the cordons and blockades, the federal troops
would engage in a complete house-to-house sweep, starting at one end
of the city and moving in a wave until they reached the other with no
residence, business, park or shore untouched. It’s the only way
to be sure that all traces of reanimates are removed, not just those
that may be mobile but re-killed bodies as well. We don’t know
enough about necro-mortosis yet,
and the last thing we need is to have infected tissue and even whole
bodies hidden away in basements by ill-informed though well-intentioned
families of the departed. This isn’t politics but rather simple,
common sense. And though this action too would require a declaration
of marshal law until such a sweep would be complete, in the arenas of
both logic and politics it is a far less evil to declare such a state
of emergency over ground alone than over a citizenry.
Arthur Helms is a syndicated columnist who has dealt with a host of
social and political issues. His previous syndicated column, “Logic,
Please?” offered commentary on a host of world-view issues as
seen through the cold yet bright light of plain logic, demonstrated
fact and simple common sense.
While
the academic and political elite often dismissed his commentary as “too
simplistic” for our complicated times, his books of collected
columns and hundreds of national speaking engagements each year attest
to his connection to a readership yearning for simple answers to complex
issues. Helms recently ended his syndicated column to sign on exclusively
with Zombie World News, providing a fresh, logical,
plain-English view of the plague and to bring some common sense to what
many perceive to be a senseless situation.
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