Sunday, October 5, 2014

The 'National Security Priority' That Isn't Being Taken Seriously

Just five days ago, the first case of Ebola in the United States was found in Dallas, Texas. Thomas Duncan, a  man coming from Liberia, landed in Dallas on September 20th; ten days later he was diagnosed with Ebola. The question everyone is asking is: How did he get in to the United States? This man was given a questionnaire on the flight to the U.S. and one of the questions asked whether he had been in contact or near someone with Ebola; the man answered no and was then let into the country with no further testing or screening. The real problem I have with this situation is that a plane coming from the infected area of West Africa was even allowed to fly to the United States.
Thomas Duncan
President Obama claimed that Ebola was a "national security priority", and yet he is allowing people to fly into the country who have been in the infected areas. Why hasn't he stopped all flights to the U.S. from these countries? He has the power to do so. Is Obama in denial about how serious this really is? In fact, on September 16th just four days before the man from Liberia arrived in the United States President Obama declared that the chances of Ebola reaching the U.S. was "extremely low". Then Thomas Duncan arrived and everything became more serious.
I can't help but wonder what Obama will do next; he already made the mistake of allowing planes to fly in to the United States, will he finally realize that he needs to stop all flights? Knowing that Obama could have taken precautionary measures to ensure that Ebola did not reach the United States and he didn't makes me feel as though he is one of the reasons that Ebola has made it here to the states.
Do you think that Obama did the right thing by allowing planes to fly into the U.S. or should he have never allowed that to happen?

1 comment:

  1. Hi Ariana!

    Certainly this qualifies as a "hot-button" current issue in the USA. But I am wondering whether you are addressing it as critically as you could? For example:

    1) Is it realistic to simply shut down flights from an entire part of the world? Is that possible in today's interconnected world?

    2) Is the ebola threat really that grave? Granted, it is a horrible disease, but are Americans really in so much danger?

    3) Do you take the President at his word? Meaning, do you really believe he is that concerned about Ebola spreading or could it be that he believes this issue might harm his fellow Democrats in the November election?

    Think about analyzing the photo as well as a quote from one of your linked articles.

    P.S. Please turn off "Word verification for comments" :)

    ReplyDelete