::::::::
Readiness
In reply to an invitation to today’s event highlighting Homeland Security – Celebrating Cooperation, Training and Readiness, one of the top reporters at USA Today wrote back “Not sure it’s something we’d want to staff unless there is a terrorism incident to play off of.”
An interesting reply – since this is the general tone also resonating when it comes to funding homeland security projects. The further we get in time and space from the September 11th attacks on the United States, the less “real” they become. The terrorists, on the other hand, have a different time frame. For them, years and decades are within the foreseeable horizon. For us, anything further away than the next Presidential election is the long run. How ironic is the saying, then, “in the long run, we are all dead.”
H1N1 – An Opportunity in Disguise
Three main Influenza pandemics in the last century were the Spanish Flu in 1918 which vanished within 18 months after killing tens of millions; the Asian Flu in 1957, a “moderate” pandemic that killed some two million people and the Hong Kong Flu in 1968 which killed approximately one million people. Given about two outbreaks per century, scientists are looking to see if be are now experiencing the next big pandemic.
The Swine Flu, novel influenza A (H1N1), is a virus infecting people and spreading from person to person. It was first detected in April 2009 in Mexico, its epicenter, where it has a 0.4% mortality rate. In the USA as of Monday, May 11th, there were 2,600 confirmed cases (which tested positive in a laboratory) in 44 states and the District of Columbia, including three deaths. More cases are expected since the population has little or no immunity against it according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“CDC continues to take aggressive action to respond to the outbreak.” The World Health Organization has defined H1N1 at Phase 5 – the virus has caused sustained community level outbreaks in at least two countries in one WHO region; a pandemic is considered imminent. It is now in 29 countries around the globe.
Phase 5 means that national and local actions to respond to the outbreak shift from preparedness to response at a global level.
As national authorities, communities and individuals shift from plan to action, questions asked include: What is our capacity to respond? Will there be a second or a third wave encircling the globe? Will the severity of subsequent waves differ from the first? Will spread patterns or affected groups change? Will different countries be affected differently?
H1N1 outbreak offers a chance to examine the readiness on a global scale. It also reminds us gently that we are all interconnected, the ultimate “global village.” Nature, it seems, is offering us a real-life, mutating table-top exercise, while human beings are experimenting with biological agents, trying to weaponize different diseases such as Anthrax to inflict as much harm and death as possible.
The Papal “Journey of Faith”
Another real-time event coinciding with today’s Homeland Security Preparedness event is the Papal visit to the Holy Land. Preparations for the visit took months – every corner, every religious iconic building is a target, and terrorists are ready to sacrifice their lives to send the most visible message to the Non-Believers. (We believe, but we are considered “Non-Believers” since we do not subscribe to a very peculiar interpretation of the Qur’an.) The only respect they have is to the magnitude of horror – the greater the number of dead, the more immense the effect on everyday life, the more successful the mission.
Pope Benedict XVI has “come to Jerusalem on a journey of faith.” The Pope’s Pilgrimage of Peace reminds us of the notion that human beings are inherently good. “May all [God’s] followers continue to keep their gaze fixed on [h]is absolute goodness, never losing sight of the way it is reflected in the faces of others.” We may look for goodness, for the Holy reflection in the faces of others, but at times we will only find evil in the rawest form, one which uses religion as a cover.
The Pope visited today Temple Mount, ascending via the Mugrabi Gate, the Western Wall, Heichal Shlomo adjacent to the Great Synagogue and then the Latin Patriarchate. During a Holy Mass, the Pope talked about “the interior light and peace which can bring healing and hope to even the darkest of human realities.” His Prayer on Paper reads:
God of all the ages,
on my visit to Jerusalem, the “City of Peace,”
spiritual home to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike,
I bring before you the joys, the hopes and the aspirations,
the trials, the suffering and the pain of all your people throughout the world.
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
hear the cry of the afflicted, the fearful, the bereft;
send your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East,
upon the entire human family;
stir the hearts of all who call upon your name,
to walk humbly in the path of justice and compassion.
“The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul that seeks him” (Lam 3:25)!
While the Pope aspires, on behalf of humanity, to stir the hearts of all believers, it is our responsibility to be ready, to be prepared for whatever may come.
Distancing the USA from Israel
At the top of today’s news is the following headline: “Obama’s New Middle East Diplomacy: Distancing the U.S. From Israel.”
President Obama’s Peace Plan resembles a speech from long ago:
Peace is our primary objective in the Middle East - and peace is partly our responsibility. "Seek peace, and pursue it" commands the psalmist. And that we must do. With open minds, open hearts, and the priceless asset of our American heritage, we shall seek peace in the Middle East, as elsewhere. And when history writes its verdict, let it be said that we pursued the peace with all the courage, all the strength, and all the resourcefulness at our command.
The speaker predicted “that Israel is here to stay.” He added:
For Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom; and no area of the world has ever had an overabundance of democracy and freedom.
The speech was given in New York on August 26, 1960, by Senator John F. Kennedy.
