During the Middle Ages,
particularly during the periods of bubonic plague, armies would often catapult
the disease ridden corpses of troops and peasants into walled cities in the
process of sacking them. This ingenious tactic allowed the besieging army to
sit back, relax, and watch a city eat itself from the inside out. The work was
done for the attackers, and they enjoyed the riches and supplies of a ghost
town after the disease ran its course within the walls. History is bound to
repeat itself, as humans are relatively static creatures. The armies of the
Middle Ages may have lacked drones and nuclear capability, but they were no
less inclined to use their circumstances to their advantage than anyone in 2014
would be.
The Middle
East has been a warzone for a very long time, fostering the growth of several
radical Jihadist organizations that seek to unite the region under a banner of
extremely literal interpretations of Muslim law, often oppressing the people
they wish to unite in the process. Most recently, the Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria (ISIS) has begun a major campaign to rebuild the ancient system of
Islamic ruling called a caliphate. ISIS, while operating mainly out of Syria,
is attempting to move into Iraq and is drawing the international community into
the conflict by torturing and beheading foreign nationals. So far, two
Americans have suffered gruesome deaths at the hands of the Islamic State, and
no one really knows what to do about it.
Simultaneously,
the Ebola virus has been ravaging Africa, and health workers there simply do
not have the necessary means to treat them. The virus is spreading rapidly,
even managing to make its way into the United States, and shows no signs of
slowing down. People from other countries are very wary to send their own
health workers, and the understaffed hospitals of Africa are not equipped
enough to handle thousands of patients. Whole villages are being infected at
once, and panic and fear are spreading as the virus itself does. The
international community is, once again, stumped as to how to fix this problem.
Why not solve both problems at once?
The Ebola virus is extremely contagious.
It begins to spread when symptoms of physical illness begin to appear on the
infected. Like the AIDS virus, Ebola is spread through any and all bodily
fluids. Africa is filled with displaced people, those who have lost their
villages, families, and lives to the genocide and tribal warfare that has
ravaged the continent for centuries. These people have no place to call home,
nothing to love, nothing to live for, nothing to lose.
If American troops were to be sent
into Africa, in countries such as Sierra Leone and Liberia, they could corral
these Displaced People – completely Ebola free – and quarantine them completely
from everything but each other. If we were to infect all of these host bodies
(maybe 50-100, if need be Africa certainly has more displaced people), and tell
them all that they were to be heroes for their homelands, for their ancestors,
for everything that they lost, they would be more than happy to carry their
fatal disease with them into the deserts of Syria. They would be brought in a
sealed container from Africa and simply let loose into the hearts of cities
that we believe are ISIS strongholds. Since we don’t know who exactly is a
member of ISIS, why not let Ebola find them for us? Sure, innocent men, women,
and children will die horribly painful deaths, spouting blood from their noses
and eyes, vomiting incessantly with body temperatures above 100 degrees, but
isn’t it for the greater good?
Better yet, if the United States
Army were to actually bring some uninfected Displaced Persons back stateside
and lock them up in hermetically sealed, acrylic medical shipping containers
called Ebola Domes, they could then be infected with the virus and used as
human guinea pigs until a cure or more effective treatment is found. Their
lifeless bodies (an obvious result of the disease, sadly) will be burned in a
furnace 100 meters below sea level to make sure no trace of the virus will be
released, and if anyone were to care about these Displace People they would
rest assured that they were treated with respect after their death.
When ISIS is reduced to a pile of
disease ridden corpses (what would we do with these bodies, who could
potentially infect other civilians after the fact? Who cares – it’s not like
they would be in America), we simply pull out of the operation, and go back to
our normal lives. A better treatment for the disease would have been created
with the brave souls of Africa and any threat to America would have been
neutralized. We could, if the federal budget allows for it, create a “Displaced
People” monument, perhaps a statue in a small park in New York or a plaque on
some sidewalk in Washington (State).
To propose this idea without
crediting a man who contributed immensely to it would be morally wrong. He is a
doctor and a student of philosophy, and was once mistaken for a king because of
his godlike presence. He once stated that “the inner machinations of [his] mind
are an enigma,” and he was correct in saying so. No other human being could
posit the ideas that this man creates on a daily basis, at 3 a.m. when he
arises from his golden slumber for a snack. His name will remain unsaid out of
respect for the mind of the man. He enjoys his anonymity. The quote of pure
genius that inspired me to propose this, to satisfy your curiosity, was – “WE
SHOULD TAKE [Ebola], and PUSH IT SOMEWHERE ELSE!”
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