Bush, Bird Flu, and Martial Law. At a White House Rose Garden press conference yesterday, George W. Bush responded to a question about the danger of a bird flu pandemic by stating he wants the authority to use the military to enforce mandatory quarantine zones in areas infected by the virus. Bush wants Congress to overturn the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, originally enacted to limit the military's role in domestic law enforcement in the post-Civil War South.
Bush's vision for America coincides with what he and his neo-con cabal have implemented in their "democratic" Iraq: military checkpoints, breaking and entering into homes, the use of deadly force against civilians, and forcible relocation of civilians.
White House answer to bird flu outbreak: send in the military and declare martial law. Welcome to the Fourth Reich.
Essentially, instead of addressing the need to stockpile vaccines like Tamiflu and coordinate the activities of the Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and the U.S. Public Health Service, Bush wants to declare martial law and suspend the Constitution in the event of a bird flu outbreak. In his current state of paranoia and drunkenness, Bush has transitioned from comical faith-based to outlandish fascist-based strategies. The regular military is not keen on the idea of enforcing martial law in the event of a bird flu outbreak. They see the National Guard as being primarily responsible for bird flu emergency operations.
Bush's military option statement: "If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country, and how do you then enforce a quarantine? When -- it's one thing to shut down airplanes; it's another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu. And who best to be able to effect a quarantine? One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move."
Bush's amazing grasp of the subject of the potential pandemic: "The reporting needs to be not only on the birds that have fallen ill, but also on tracing the capacity of the virus to go from bird to person, to person. That's when it gets dangerous, when it goes bird-person-person."
Although Bush continues to admit that mistakes were made in federal Katrina preparation and recovery, the results of his inaction and incompetence have been staggering. Local officials in New Orleans and the surrounding region are reporting a much higher death count than what is being reported through official channels. A number of children and the elderly are still unaccounted for. (Bush and his cronies' "compassionate conservatism" in Katrina and Rita particularly hit hard those in nursing homes: dozens of the elderly drowned in Louisiana nursing homes from Katrina while others, fleeing Rita, were transported along with highly flammable oxygen tanks on an unsafe evacuation bus in Houston and were incinerated when the bus exploded on a Dallas highway).
And in something that would be commonplace in the old Soviet Union, Bush's neo-cons want to control the dissemination of information about the weather. A recent Commerce Department instruction to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which operates the National Weather Service, requires media members who receive briefings from the agency to be pre-approved. Only the Bush administration could politicize something like the weather. However, in an era of global warming and more violent weather patterns, the Bush regime wants to spin the weather.
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It is interesting that Bush spoke of the need for Congress to pass his enhanced, no-sunset provisions Patriot Act after calling for the overturning of Posse Comitatus. Such an act would give Bush the dictatorial powers he has, on more than one occasion, opined that he would enjoy.
It should be recalled that Congress originally passed the Patriot Act during an anthrax attack on the offices of the Senate Democratic Majority Leader and the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Although the anthrax used in the attack was traced to a strain maintained by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, the perpetrators were never found. Recently, biological hazard sensors in Washington, DC detected traces of the highly-infectious tularemia (rabbit fever) bacteria on the Washington Mall during the anti-war demonstrations held in the nation's capital, a gathering that brought together over 300,000 people from all parts of the country. An anthrax attack on Congress during Patriot Act passage, tularemia found during anti-war demonstrations, bird flu being used as an excuse to scrap Posse Comitatus and impose martial law? Cui bono? Who benefits?
