Health workers remove the body of Prince Nyentee, a 29-year-old man whom local residents said died of Ebola virus in Monrovia (September 11, 2014)
The ongoing Ebola crisis in West Africa is an absolutely horrifying humanitarian catastrophe, and one that has the potential to become
much, much worse. But while the Western response has been "
dangerously inadequate" to date, it wouldn't cost much to turn things around: The United Nations says that
it needs $1 billion to contain the disaster.
There are lots of ways to put that amount of money in context, but here's a particularly salient one. Right now, the United States is spending $7.5 million dollars a day to support military operations in Iraq, at an annual cost of $2.7 billion per year. But if, as Joe Biden put it, we chase ISIS "to the gates of hell," we'll wind up paying far more.
Just how much? One expert says that ramped-up air operations could take our costs up to $100 million to $200 million a week, or $5 to $10 billion a year. But that only accounts for air strikes in Iraq. Another expert points out that if our reach expands—as military endeavors are wont to do—by engaging in air attacks in Syria, say, or paying other countries to join us, we could easily get up to a price tag of $15 to $20 billion per year, for what may be a multi-year venture. And none of this covers the possibility of ground troops. Add them in and the sky's the limit.
All this to hunt down a "ragtag collection of militants using secondhand weapons" that poses a very uncertain threat to the U.S. ISIS are barbarians—there's no disputing that—and the world would be a far better place with them gone. But their ability to target Western nations directly is limited at best.
Ebola, on the other hand, only needs to catch a single plane flight to cause far more terror and devastation than a handful of terrorists ever could. But even if you're of the opinion that we must spare no expense in stopping ISIS, there's no reason why we can't also focus on halting the spread of Ebola. As one of those defense experts notes, even $10 billion a year is "a round-off error" when it comes to our military budget.
But $1 billion—a rounding error on a rounding error—could save lots and lots of lives in Africa. It could also prevent the disease from reaching our own shores. We owe it to our fellow human beings to help them in a time of desperate need, and it's also just good sense to take preventive action that could protect this country, too. It's long past time for the West to act and put a stop to this dread virus, and it's long past time for the United States to lead.