Boston Globe
by George J. Annas

10/08/05

Whenever the world is not to his liking, President Bush has a tendency to turn to the military to make it better. The most prominent example is the country's response to 9/11, complete with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. After Hurricane Katrina, Bush belatedly called on the military to assist in securing New Orleans, and has since suggested that Congress should consider empowering the military to be the 'first responders' in any national disaster. On Tuesday, the president suggested that the United States should confront the risk of a bird flu pandemic by giving him the power to use the US military to quarantine 'part[s] of the country' experiencing an 'outbreak.' So we have moved quickly in the past month, at least metaphorically, from the global war on terror to a proposed war on hurricanes, to a proposed war on the bird flu. Of all these proposals, the use of the military to attempt to contain a flu pandemic on US soil is the most dangerous...

http://tinyurl.com/dem58


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp