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  1. #1
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default AIDS as a Security Threat

    But what was once seen as a humanitarian catastrophe is viewed increasingly as a security threat—an important reason behind the $15 billion Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief that President Bush announced in January 2003. A study of 112 countries by Susan Peterson, a political scientist at the College of William and Mary, and Stephen Shellman, a political scientist at the University of Georgia, found that countries with severe AIDS epidemics had correspondingly high levels of human-rights abuse and civil conflict. “Does AIDS make war or civil strife more likely?” asks Peterson. “The answer is yes.”

    Even in countries that don’t collapse, AIDS deaths can threaten security in the form of AIDS orphans, who are desperate, disenfranchised, vulnerable to radicalization, and projected to reach 25 million worldwide by 2010. “Where do you think the breeding ground for terrorism will be?” asks General Charles Wald, the former operational head of European Command, which also oversees U.S. military operations in most of Africa. At a recent conference, Wald listed the biggest threats to U.S. security. After terrorism and weapons of mass destruction came AIDS.

    High on the list of the Pentagon’s concerns about AIDS is its impact on African militaries; for many, it has become the biggest killer. Young, often far from home, and with cash in their pockets, soldiers who must live under fire cultivate a sense of invulnerability that can kill them when they come back to the barracks. The epidemic accounts for seven out of ten military deaths in South Africa and kills more Ugandan soldiers than any other cause, including a brutal twenty-year insurgency and two wars in Congo. AIDS deaths have reduced Malawi’s forces by 40 percent. Mozambique can’t train police officers fast enough to replace those dying of the disease. “As we fight the enemy, the HIV is also fighting us,” John Amosa, a forty-five-year-old AIDS-afflicted Ugandan sergeant, told me. “We have two front lines.”
    More at Containment Strategy

    good piece on why AIDs is not simply a health or social problem

    best

    Tom

  2. #2
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Default

    Tom,outstanding article and there are wider implications to the whole idea of disease as a national threat. Hospital ER's are seeing cases of disease thought to have been wiped out in the US years ago, the source of which are usually illegal immigrants coming across the border to receive free health care. All this paid for by the US taxpayer, so it is a double hit re-emergence of the disease plus the economic cost (attack)!

    Tom, I was getting worried about you again when I read the part about a "dildo" being used as a weapon against disease??

  3. #3
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default That was a training AID

    hmmm

    ya know my wife watched Broke Back Mountain on Showtime the other night. I did not--I swear--as HBO ran all episodes on Band of Brothers continuously beginning at noon and there was no doubt as to what I would watch.

    But from that particular movie, the later recounted a scene where Heath Ledger's character is taken to task by his wife about years of fishing trips with the other cowboy that never produced any fish. The wife told me about this and said, "Next time you go to Oklahoma to deer hunt, you better bring a deer home..."

    No pressure there...

    best

    Tom

  4. #4
    i pwnd ur ooda loop selil's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
    The wife told me about this and said, "Next time you go to Oklahoma to deer hunt, you better bring a deer home..."

    My nephew just took a nice 8 pointer down near Hugo with his bow.

  5. #5
    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    My nephew just took a nice 8 pointer down near Hugo with his bow.
    Our farm is up the toll road from hugo south of Muskogee; so far no joy although I have let spikes and yearlings walk. I watched Bambi's dad at 500 yards chasing does for 2 hours but with a bow I could only watch. One more effort is coming up before the end of the season.

    that's why its called hunting--especially with stick and string..

    best

    Tom

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    Default AIDS effects

    In Kenya, there are 100,000 AIDS orphans that the state cannot support. They become targets for radical islamic HA groups that indoctrinate these individuals, while simultaneously providing for their basic needs. The Saudis continue to pour A LOT of money into Wahabbi schools in east Africa that are full of AIDS orphans.

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