Why the GOP Wants Generals to Wage War on Ebola

Who's winning, who's losing, and why.
Oct. 28 2014 12:16 PM

General Hospital

Why the GOP insists on finding a military solution for fighting Ebola.

White House Ebola Response Coordinator Ron Klain.
Ebola czar Ron Klain, not a general. Above, Klain at the White House on Oct. 22, 2014, in Washington.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Republicans have a simple plan to deal with Ebola. First, ban travel from infected countries to the United States. Second, slap a three-week quarantine on any American returning from those countries. Medical organizations and federal health officials say these ideas are counterproductive, but that’s OK. Republicans don’t listen to doctors. They listen to generals.

William Saletan William Saletan

Will Saletan writes about politics, science, technology, and other stuff for Slate. He’s the author of Bearing Right.

Republicans have an unshakeable faith in military leaders. In 2001, Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, blew the chance to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden at Tora Bora. That allowed Bin Laden to plot against the United States for another decade. Three years after Franks’ mistake, President Bush gave Franks the Medal of Freedom. In 2002, Bush’s Secretary of State, Gen. Colin Powell, assured Americans and the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Powell’s presentation served as the basis for the Iraq war. The WMD never showed up, but Powell served out his term.

Being an Ebola doctor in West Africa can be more dangerous than being a soldier in Afghanistan. From 2001 to 2014, the total number of American military casualties in Afghanistan was 2,350. That’s an average of 14 per month. During the current Ebola outbreak, from March to August, the disease killed more than 120 health care workers in West Africa. That’s at least 20 per month. Nevertheless, Americans worship the heroism of soldiers, not doctors. In Gallup surveys, only 35 percent of Americans say they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the medical system. The percentage who express that level of confidence in the military is twice as high.

Advertisement

The gap is even bigger among Republicans, particularly since Ebola arrived in the United States. In a CBS News poll taken Oct. 15-16, Democrats were evenly divided on the performance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: 49 percent rated the CDC’s performance good or excellent, while 49 percent rated it fair or poor. Republicans, however, gave the agency a clear thumbs down: 64 percent rated the CDC fair or poor; only 35 percent rated it good or excellent. When respondents were asked about the armed forces, the partisan split went the other way: 89 percent of Republicans expressed a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the military, compared with 65 percent of Democrats.

This broad, deep political support, particularly among the party faithful, undergirds the Republican response to Ebola. Essentially, the GOP has militarized the issue: Seal the borders, impose a “no-fly zone” on West Africa, and quarantine anyone who shows up at our airports. Those brave doctors returning from Liberia? Lock ’em up. And if the doctors say we’re wrongheaded, tell people that the real authority on Ebola is our generals.

On Oct. 7, Gen. John F. Kelly, the Marine Corps general in charge of the U.S. Southern Command, told a crowd at the National Defense University that “there is no way we can keep Ebola [contained] in West Africa.” If Ebola breaks out in Central America, the general predicted, “there will be mass migration into the United States.” Kelly said he’d been told by a U.S. embassy staffer that some guys who’d been seen waiting to enter Nicaragua from Costa Rica were Liberian and that they “could have made it to New York City and still be within the incubation period for Ebola.” He offered no evidence that the men had Ebola. In fact, the number of verified Ebola cases in Central America was zero. But conservative websites pounced on his statements, reporting that he had said “the real threat of a domestic Ebola outbreak” was a “flood of Ebola-carrying border jumpers.”

  Slate Plus
Behind the Scenes
Oct. 29 2014 3:45 PM The Great Writing Vs. Talking Debate Is it harder to be a good writer or a good talker?