Dragon Ship...via the Royal Navy...

Soldiers & Marines that served in W. Africa are quarantined upon return... UPDATED!!!

UPDATE:  I just hit on something.  The US Army is stepping up and taking the hit on this but those Soldiers are based in Italy.  This is all part of the basing agreement and the agreement to use Italy and Spain as jump off points for the relief missions to Africa.  If they weren't quarantined when they came back then the agreement would be off.  Good on the Army for doing the right thing.  Bad on the Army for not telling the fucking truth.


via Shepherd of the Gurneys.

(Reuters) - The U.S. Army has started isolating soldiers returning from an Ebola response mission in West Africa, even though they showed no symptoms of infection and there was no incident signaling potential exposure, the Pentagon said on Monday.The decision goes well beyond previously established military protocols and came just as the White House pushed to roll back steps by U.S. states to quarantine healthcare workers returning from countries battling Ebola epidemics, even if they showed no symptoms of infection.
The Army has already isolated about a dozen soldiers at part of a U.S. military base in Vicenza, Italy. This includes Major General Darryl Williams, who oversaw the military's initial response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Williams is the head of the U.S. Army Africa, which is based at Vicenza, and the senior Army officer at the base.
"They're not allowed to leave," said Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.
Dozens more troops would be isolated in the coming days as they rotate out of West Africa, where the U.S. military has been building Ebola treatment facilities to help health authorities treat Ebola victims, the Pentagon said.
"There was no single triggering event. This is really a decision that's made out of an abundance of caution," Warren said.
The Army is the only service to implement such a move. The only personnel who have rotated out of the operation so far have been from the Army, Warren said.
But a U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that discussions were under way about taking similar action across the U.S. armed forces.

Rant time.

So a fucking princess of a nurse can sue because she worked directly with Ebola patients and lives in the New York/New Jersey megalopolis....and the governors of those states want to protect their people from an outbreak....

But service members that had no direct contact are being quarantined???

Yeah.  We're seeing complete and utter bullshit on the Ebola issue.

SIDENOTE:  Remember the post where I said that this would take SPMAGTF-CR Africa out of action for at least 21 days after mission completion, longer if a member got sick?  Well its worse than that now.  We're talking about taking the 101st Airborne Headquarters and a Brigade from that unit out of action too.  I complain about the USMC being stretched thin but have you seen the Army's taskings lately?  We're playing with the national security of the United States in many ways.  To me this is beyond crazy.  Worse?  The world is burning and we might need those forces for combat, not humanitarian missions.

They made her a "poster" girl for women in combat & ISIS beheaded her.

Thanks for the link William...

I read the stories about the fierce female fighters of the YPG....I heard people talk about how ISIS was scared shit-less to face these females.

And I knew it was all bullshit.

Now the poster girl for women in combat has been beheaded (if she was lucky all they did was behead her).  Check this out from 9 News.

A prominent female Kurdish "freedom fighter" may have been executed by beheading, according to unconfirmed reports on social media.
The young woman, who went by the nom du guerre "Rehana" became a symbol of the Kurdish resistance movement when pro-Kurdish journalist Pawan Durani tweeted a picture of her giving a peace sign.
"Rehana has killed more than 100 ISIS terrorists in Kobane," his tweet read.
There has been no independent verification of the claim, but the photo went viral, receiving more than 5000 retweets.
Female Kurdish fighters of the Yekineyen Parastina Jin (YPJ), or Women Protection Units are involved in the struggle for the key Syrian border town of Kobane.
The town of Kobane has become a crucial battleground in the war against ISIL, representing the gateway to northern Syria and the Turkish border.
This brave and unique force of women are highly trained, committed and fearless, in a fight that represents the survival of an entire people.
They believe that in their fight there is no difference between a man and a woman, but are aware they fight an enemy that routinely rapes the women it captures before butchering them or selling them into slavery.
Now there is speculation that Rehana has been captured or killed, with gruesome photos purporting to show her decapitated body circulating on social media. But the death is unconfirmed.

Notice that no one is talking about the circumstances of her capture?

I won't dig deeper into her capture and murder but I will add a cautionary note.  All these older females that are trying to "open" doors for their daughters...and yours, to join the infantry are FOOLS.

Women in the infantry is a bad idea.  Rehana died because she was young, bought the hype, was an image for a cause and was in the end hung out to dry.

If I had a daughter I wouldn't let her within 5000nm of a warzone and would worry about her going shopping.  What kind of people would want to put their mothers, daughters and sisters in that meat grinder?  I might be borderline sexist but proponents of this idea are plain sick. 

Assault Breacher Vehicle (ABV) in use by 2-12 Cav...Video by Sgt. Fred Brown

World of Tanks question.

Ok, don't know if you can see the above screen capture from a WoT game I had ... oh and yeah.  Some 12 year old kid smacked me senseless, killed my tank and talk shit while he was doing it....but how come I didn't get "high caliber"?

Just curious.  In a losing effort I had one of my better games (yep, again, I know!  but for me a 3k game is in the "awesome" range) and the whole team sucked but still!

Why no hospital ships for West Africa? What is the real mission in West Africa?

Above you see the USNS Mercy.   Simple question.  If Ebola is not the issue that I believe it to be then why aren't we seeing them activated for the mission in West Africa? 

How could it help?  You would get 1000 medical beds as soon as it arrived on scene.  You would get almost a battalions worth of medical personnel when it pulled into dock.

Instead we have the 101st Airborne being tasked.  Why?  Simple.  Because the real threat is that these countries are on the verge of falling apart.  Ebola is a killer but the old ones are coming around the corner.  Famine.  Crops are failing and when you can't farm, people turn to bushmeat.  That simply means they're going to go out hunting wildlife.  That means Ebola is going to spread even more (bushmeat is suspected as the source of this disease).  Mass migration.  People are going to move when they sense that the danger is out of control.  That means that people will cross borders which will further spread the contagion.  Last is what we're seeing now but no one is talking about.  The break down of social order.

What I would like to know is what the contingency plans are.  

How is one Air Assault Division (even if we get the entire Division there...planning so far is to send a Brigade along with Division Headquarters) going to maintain order in 3 failed African states...while at the same time delivering medical support/aid...while at the same time protecting Air Assault Troopers against disease!

Geopolitics.by....the blog.

I posted yesterday that the war in Ukraine was about to heat up.  Well this is the source of that information and I invite you to check it out.  Its called "geopolitics.by" and its makes some pretty chilling statements about the war.

I don't know if its Russian, Ukrainian or Ethiopian (well I'm pretty sure its not the latter but you get the idea).  Before you head over there check out this passage from them...

But Europeans never occurs to blame Kiev. To blame for the events of Donbass, the EU Council has identified in advance - it's "aggressive" Russia, which can not stop after the "annexation" of the Crimea.
In fact, the fate of the inhabitants of Europe Donbass care. The really only care about her Russian gas supplies.
According to the results of the summit talks in Milan ("Free Press" about them wrote ), Moscow and Kiev have agreed on the terms of gas supply in winter. As explained by the head of "Gazprom" Alexey Miller , Ukraine every month will make a prepayment for the current delivery. Russia will supply its gas at a price of $ 385 per thousand cubic meters ($ 100 discount from the current price). In addition, until the end of 2014 Kiev must pay off the debt - 3.1 billion. Dollars.
But there is no money in Kiev - not to pay for current supplies or to repay debt. Logically, if the Europeans do not want to freeze, they could lend his Ukrainian protege. This is in the correct form, said Russian President Vladimir Putin on the results of the Milan meeting. "We hope that our European partners, the Commission can and should lean on Ukraine and help solve the problem with the cash gap" - said Putin, proposed a "specific tools": bridge loans, "the transfer of the next tranche of the IMF" or "guarantees a first-class European the bank. "
But Europeans no safeguards or about credits Kiev do not want to hear. They believe that Russia is obliged to deliver gas to Ukraine in debt - in other words, free.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, 21 October, the head of the Ukrainian state Poroshenko ordered the start of the heating season across the country already this week. Actually gave "good" on the fence gas from the transit pipeline. This creates the risk that Russia will block any gas valve.
What does such a prospect for the EU, if the frost will make our European partners more objective assessments of the situation in the East of Ukraine?

Everything I read about this conflict always comes back to two issues.

*  Natural Gas
*  Ukraine being broke

From the outside looking in it appears that Europe is faced with a no win situation.  They either have to take responsibility for Ukraine, pay its debts and integrate it into the EU...something that would be extremely expensive and ruin relations with Russia not to mention what that would do the Ukrainian people...prices would skyrocket, they would have to make painful reforms to their entire society....or they finally shut up, sit down and let events play out as they may.

Oh an I say Europe for one simple reason.

I have yet to hear anyone make a case for how this is a US issue.  UN?  Maybe but lets be honest.  This is a European problem that deserves a European solution.