Bird flu--it's expected to be a pandemic and to kill a large chunk of the population. This will begin when it becomes able to spread from person to person, which can be prevented or delayed by minimizing human contact with poultry and killing possibly infected birds. The disease is in West Africa, where people are refusing to stop trading poultry as we request.

Do we not have a military for national defense? Isn't a huge outbreak of a fatal disease a horrible threat to our nation? Isn't it comparable, if not outright more important and immediate, to foreign relations and terrorism? How many people will die if it breaks out in the next few years? The next few months? How many people die in a terrorist attack, in a nuclear explosion?

Our government has a responsibility to do whatever is necessary to protect its citizens--us. We have a military for instances when force is required. As West African nations have refused or been unable to comply with the methods of disease control to prevent widespread death and chaos, is it not the duty of our government to force their compliance? Why are we setting up democracies in Middle Eastern nations when there is a far more pressing crises directly related to us? Why are our armies invading random dictatorships and fundamentalist-controlled nations? Shouldn't they be in countries from whence viral horror is about to spring forth? Shouldn't we be helping these nations to enforce disease control, or forcing these nations to do so?

Shouldn't we, as the United States, be doing whatever is necessary to protect US citizens from a wave of fatal new disease? Shouldn't we, as NATO, be doing the same thing? Shouldn't we, as the United Nations, be forcing compliance for the good of the world and all mankind?

But I hear no one suggesting this, just lamenting the actions of others.

This is not the time to worry about what we have the "right" to do to other nations, it is the time for action. "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Is a more perfect Union one racked by disease? Is justice the death of thousands or millions because of politics? Is domestic tranquility chaos, death, and destruction? Is common defense the allowing of new strains of deadly viruses to enter our nation and run rampant among our population? Is general welfare general death and illness? Are the blessings of liberty economic collapse, fear, and death?

Is not the sworn duty and purpose of the government perfectly expressed by taking whatever measures are necessary to prevent a pandemic of bird flu? Should not our resources be going to researching treatment, prevention, antiviral agents, even cures? Should not our military be going to force those who would unleash the virus to cease the actions that will do so?

Or is our government, after all, incapable of anything but getting reelected? Is all that is possible being done to protect Americans from plague and death? I see news stories about humorous political failures and meaningless criminal cases, but shouldn't they be about how Congress is refusing to allocate all the resources possible to stopping the bird flu? I see news stories about the war in Iraq, and I see protests demanding the soldiers be brought back--but shouldn't we be asking not "When will our soldiers come home?" but "When will our soldiers be sent to do something useful?"? "When will our soldiers be sent to protect us? To prevent our deaths?" Which should be given top priority, the prevention of a car bomb or the prevention of a worldwide, uncombatable plague? Terrorism is a threat. Domestic issues are important. But what is the most urgent issue, the most pressing, the most threatening--the most deadly?

Is it not the new plague hurtling towards us from across the sea?

The bird flu thing is overrated. It has not mutated yet and only people who live in close contact with chickens tend to catch it. Not a lot of opportunity for mutation because there's not a lot of cases. At any rate, a military action is out of scope. Really they just need to change the living situation of poultry farmers and get them into homes where they do not literally sleep amongst chickens. Sleeping amongst livestock is the root of most diseases.
But why just worry about bird flu? AIDS is a bigger problem right now. Note that it doesn't spread over here as much.
The truth is we are just as likely to get a pandemic in the form of any random flu strain mutating. It can't be predicted. It is a good idea to get infrastructure ready for an outbreak anyway, but we don't need to get into other countries business. And if we did, humanitarian aid would be more useful in both solving the problems and maintaining our relations than military crap.
If you really want to stop disease spreading widely in the developing world, try getting everyone you know to cut funding from Right to Life, an organization that routinely lobbies to keep the US from aiding countries that take part in any kind of population control if they can even imagine abortion will be even thought of as an option. The result of their action is less advocacy of contraceptives and crushing over-reproduction traditions and the continued overpopulation of the third world.
Overpopulation is the main spreader of disease. So a pandemic will be less destructive here than there, though it can take its toll on a big city or two. But face it. We don't know where the next big plague will really come from. We keep people out who have tropical diseases with normal security measures. The bird flu thing is more media sensationalism than real problem. We should use the opportunity to improve our infrastructure, but let's not get hasty.

__________________
"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

High fever

headache

sweating

nausea

uncontrolable urge to crap on someones windshield