Central Perk: 12 oct. 2014

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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

McCain Calls for Ground Troops in Syria and an Ebola Czar; Secret Friends

Posted: 12 Oct 2014 08:32 PM PDT

I am seriously starting to wonder if Senator John McCain has lost his mind.

In 2009, the Senator complained "Obama has more czars than the Romanovs." Today, John McCain, Czar Hater, Calls For Ebola Czar.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) believes President Barack Obama should appoint a "czar" to lead America's response to Ebola.

"From spending time here in Arizona, my constituents are not comforted. There has to be more reassurance given to them. I would say that we don't know exactly who's in charge. There has to be some kind of czar," McCain said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

Other Republicans have also seemingly changed their minds on the issue. Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who once introduced the "Czar Accountability and Reform Act" to cut off funding for czars, said earlier this month that Obama needed to appoint such an official to help unify the government's response to Ebola.

Why Don't We Have an Ebola Czar?

The correct answer should be "We don't have an ebola czar because we do not need one. If created, the position would never go away once created, and we have too many czars already".

Instead, let's assume ebola control belongs in the hands of the surgeon general. With that assumption, we do not have an ebola czar because the NRA put the kibosh on Obama's Surgeon Gen. nominee, Regina Benjamin.

I am not here to debate the merits or lack thereof of Regina Benjamin. I do not know her medical qualifications. I will say that her 2012 tweet calling guns "a health care issue" seems quite reasonable. And for that tweet, her appointment has been blocked.

Ebola vs. Firearm Homicides

The Center for Disease Control reports there were 11,068 firearm homicides in 2011. In 2014 there has been 1 ebola death.

Regardless of one's position on handgun control, here's a simple question: what's the bigger health-care issue?

Yet, instead of a Surgeon General, McCain wants an ebola Czar, even though he whined Obama has too many czars.

If you were looking for proof McCain has lost his marbles, you now have it.

McCain Calls for Ground Troops in Syria

Looking for more proof McCain has lost his marbles? If so, please consider McCain urges ground troops to defeat Isis: 'They're winning, and we're not'

Senator John McCain has warned that the Islamic State (Isis) is winning in Iraq and Syria, and that the United States needs to deploy ground troops if it is to stave off defeat.

Senator John McCain has warned that the Islamic State (Isis) is winning in Iraq and Syria, and that the United States needs to deploy ground troops if it is to stave off defeat.

The Arizona Republican urged a "fundamental re-evaluation" of US strategy on Sunday, as the extremist group, which is the target of US-led international air strikes, continued to advance into the Kurdish town of Kobani in Syria, near the border with Turkey, and towards the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

"They're winning, and we're not," McCain told CNN. "The Iraqis are not winning. The Peshmerga, the Kurds are not winning."

Secret Friends

Here's an interesting snip from the same article...

James Baker, a secretary of state under the first President Bush, told NBC he would not be surprised if Iran was secretly helping the US against Isis, a common foe. Henry Kissinger, another former secretary of state, told the same programme Iran was a potential US ally.

Rice, however, said Iran remained outside the US-led coalition against Isis. "We're not in coordination or direct consultation with the Iranians," she said.

Fundamental Reevaluation

I agree with McCain that the US needs a fundamental reevaluation of US foreign policy.

But instead of ground troops, this is what I propose ...

First, let's scrap the failed idea of "nation building".
Second, we need an assessment of who our friends and enemies really are.
Third, we should think three times before we send US troops in harm's way.
Fourth, if we do send US troops in harm's way we should have an honest discussion of how much it will cost, how we will pay for it, and why it's necessary.
Fifth, we should defend our borders, not every border in the world (typically based on whether the region has oil or not).

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Seth's Blog : We have Ebola

We have Ebola

It's tragic but not surprising to watch the marketing of another epidemic unfold.

It starts with, "We" don't have Ebola, "they" do. They live somewhere else, or look different or speak another language. Our kneejerk reaction is that "they" need to be isolated from us (more than 55% of Americans favor a travel ban for everyone, not just the sick). Even fifty years ago, a travel ban was difficult, now it's impossible. The world is porous, there are more connections than ever, and we've seen this before.

Tuberculosis. Polio. AIDS. Fear runs rampant, amplified by the media, a rising cycle of misinformation, demonization and panic. Fear of the other. Pushing us apart and paralyzing us.

The thing is:

We are they.

They are us.

Education—clear, fact-based and actionable education—is the single most effective thing we can do during the early stages of a contagion. Diseases (and ideas) spread because of the social structures we have created, and we can re-engineer those interactions to dramatically change the R0 of a virus. Ebola doesn't 'know' that large funerals are traditional, but it certainly takes advantage of them to spread. Ideas don't 'know' that bad news travels fast, and that the internet makes ideas travel faster, but they take advantage of this to spread.

Cable TV voices that induce panic to make their ratings go up are directly complicit in amplifying the very reactions that magnify the impact of the virus. Attention-seeking media voices take us down. All of us.

It's tempting to panic, or to turn away, or to lock up or isolate everyone who makes us nervous. But we can (and must) do better than that. Panic, like terror, is also a virus, one that spreads.

We have an urgent and tragic medical problem, no doubt, but we also have a marketing problem.