Reminder – healthcare workers in Liberia are now on strike.

Pres Obama signs Exec Order authorizing use of Reservists to assist in US Military mission building Ebola treatment centers in West Africa.

— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) October 16, 2014

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On the same day that White House spokesperson, Josh Earnest, states the official U.S. position is to continue allowing inbound flights from the Ebola hot zone of West Africa without change or impediment, the administration announces it will enforce mandatory quarantines’ for returning U.S. troops.
Yeah, go make sense of that….

The pentagon will quarantine returning U.S. soldiers, but will allow unimpeded access for West African citizens who choose to travel to the United States. You just can’t make this stuff up.
Washington (CNN) — In an unprecedented move to protect U.S. troops that might be exposed to Ebola, U.S. military commanders are being given the authority to quarantine troops for 21 days at a Defense Department facility where they will be monitored for signs of the disease and treated if they do contract the virus, a Defense Department memo explained.
The memo, which was obtained by CNN, spells out the details of the military’s plan for the first time. (more…)

(Reuters) – At Fort Campbell in Kentucky, spouses of U.S. soldiers headed to Liberia seem to be lingering just a bit longer than usual after pre-deployment briefings, hungry for information about Ebola.
For these families, the virus is raising a different kind of anxiety than the one they have weathered during 13 years of ground war in Afghanistan and Iraq. They want to know how the military can keep soldiers safe from the epidemic, a new addition to the Army’s long list of threats.

“Ebola is a different problem set that the division hasn’t (faced) before,” said Major General Gary Volesky, who will soon head to Liberia along with soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division. (more…)

A man walks into a clinic (CareNow) in Frisco Texas with Ebola symptoms and reported direct contact with Patient Zero, Thomas Eric Duncan. • Clinic on lockdown. • Dallas Health and CDC in Hazmat suits respond.  • CDC says this patient is not one of 48 contacts being tracked.  • Report the patient is a police officer who was in Eric Duncan’s apartment.   • Pictures of hospital arrival.   • Sheriff Deputy Michael Monnig (CBS did an earlier profile on Monnig – here)

(Initial Media Report) A person in Frisco who may be showing Ebola symptoms and claims to have had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who died of the virus Wednesday in Dallas, is being investigated, the city says.
At 12:32 p.m., Frisco dispatch received a call from CareNow in the 300 block of Main Street, regarding a patient who claims to have had contact with Dallas “patient zero” according to Dana Baird the public information officer for the City of Frisco. (more…)

DALLAS (AP) — The first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States died Wednesday morning in a Dallas hospital Wednesday, a hospital spokesman said.
Thomas Eric Duncan was pronounced dead at 7:51 a.m. at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, where he was admitted Sept. 28 and has been kept in isolation, according to spokesman Wendell Watson.

Duncan’s condition was changed on Saturday from serious to critical.
Duncan carried the deadly virus with him from his home in Liberia, though he showed no signs when he left for the United States. He arrived in Dallas Sept. 20 and fell sick a few days later. (more…)

In addition to the Ebola outbreak confirmed in Dallas Texas, health officials in both Kentucky and Washington DC are now reporting they have each isolated patients from West Africa who are exhibiting Ebola Symptoms.

WASHINGTON DC – A possible case of Ebola is being investigated at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., on Friday. “We’ve admitted a patient in stable condition following travel to Nigeria who is presenting symptoms that could possibly be Ebola,” university spokeswoman Kerry-Ann Hamilton told The Hill. She added that the patient has not tested positive. The patient is reportedly under quarantine. (link)
Meanwhile In Kentucky – […] Two patients have been hospitalized with Ebola-like symptoms, according to Fayette County Health Department officials. The locals doctors have quarantined the possible Kentucky Ebola patients as a precaution, noting the potential public threat caused by the release of Texas Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan. (link)

What we had suspected was the case is now confirmed by the New York Times.  Patient Zero, Thomas Duncan, came to the U.S. knowing he was exposed to Ebola and seeking treatment.

MONROVIA, Liberia — A man who flew to Dallas and was later found to have the Ebola virus was identified by senior Liberian government officials on Wednesday as Thomas Eric Duncan, a resident of Monrovia in his mid-40s.

Mr. Duncan, the first person to develop symptoms outside Africa during the current epidemic, had direct contact with a woman stricken by Ebola on Sept. 15, just four days before he left Liberia for the United States, the woman’s parents and Mr. Duncan’s neighbors said.
In a pattern often seen here in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, the family of the woman, Marthalene Williams, 19, took her by taxi to a hospital with Mr. Duncan’s help on Sept. 15 after failing to get an ambulance, said her parents, Emmanuel and Amie Williams. She was convulsing and seven months pregnant, they said.
Turned away from a hospital for lack of space in its Ebola treatment ward, the family said it took Ms. Williams back home in the evening, and that she died hours later, around 3 a.m. (more…)

DALLAS – Officials with the Center of Disease Control have confirmed the first case of Ebola in the U.S. in Dallas. The CDC will host a press conference at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday to address the issue.
Officials at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital say the patient is being kept in isolation until preliminary results came back Tuesday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 12 other people in the U.S. have been tested for Ebola since July 27. Those tests came back negative.
Hospital officials said in a statement that the latest patient’s symptoms and recent travel indicated a possible case of Ebola. The virus has killed more than 3,000 people in West Africa and infected a handful of Americans who traveled to that region. (more…)

Having recently given safe haven to the leadership of Muslim Brotherhood terrorists exiled from Qatar, Turkey’s President Erdogan delivered a speech at the United Nations in defense of the Sunni extremists ISIS and The Brotherhood – while simultaneously attacking Egypt and Fattah El-Sisi.

Let there be no doubt the NATO member Turkey is not only willing to stand on the sidelines, but is, in actuality, supporting the Sunni extremists with direct support (financial and military).  Erdogan is also supporting with non-action, such as refusing to allow coalition forces to use NATO bases in Turkey.   The reasoning is not complex Erdogan is supporting his ideological ally ISIS against his arch nemesis, Syria’s Bashir Assad.
To deflect attention away from his actual support of ISIS Erdogan chooses another target for his attack.
Defending his friend, jailed and former Egyptian President – Muslim Brotherhood leader – Mohammed Morsi, President Erdogan removed the sheep’s cloak, yet most of the western media avoid peering into the dark eyes of the wolf laying underneath.
Perhaps the media avoid because it is too brutal a reality to admit, or perhaps because Western media suffers from a severe case of willful blindness, you will find few news outlets actually getting to the heart of the reasoning for Turkey’s unwillingness to support the removal of The Islamic State of Iraq and Syrian, ISIS.
Erdogan supports the overall ISIS objective. President Erdogan hates Bashir Assad beyond all else; and the Sunni ISIS methods, while concerning, are, in his mind, effective. (more…)

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron does an effective job describing the danger of “extremism“, not just “violent extremism“, all extremism. (Cameron Speech Here)
However, anyone interested in actually following, researching and analyzing international action against radical Islamist extremism, must also note that Egypt’s President Fatah El-Sisi is about two years ahead in confronting the extremist ideology.

Almost everything both Obama and Cameron have stated in the past month can be viewed curiously against their unwillingness to hold such public views while El-Sisi was pushing back against extremism, and doing something about it.

~ At the root of all extremism lies the fertilizer of hatred ~

Hatred is an outcome of evil manifested.   Readers and visitors to the Treehouse community know full well we have watched Egypt intently. We continue to share that no international leader has done more to confront ALL the tentacles of radicalism than Fattah El-Sisi.
Yet he has also been the recipient of marginalization – at best, from both Obama and Cameron; and significant western political admonishment.   Through the past two years Sisi has consistently carried out a challenging mission to provide secular stability not only to Egypt, but as a direct consequence, also to the entire region. (more…)