From a broad range of news sources the main global threats being reported clearly relate to The Islamic State (ISIS) and the Ebola virus. With finite resources available, which poses the biggest risk and of these two, where should Western nations commit their help?
Chris Chew is a visiting student at Oxford University’s Oxford-Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics has been contemplating this choice. He is a BMedSci student from Monash University. Commenting on the Australian response to recent world events, he posts the following:
“The decision to become involved in the US-led coalition against ISIS in Iraq appears to have been made with surprisingly little difficulty [by the Australian government]. PM Abbot has committed six F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter jets, associated support aircraft, 200 special forces troops and 400 military support staff, and has left open the option to commit combat troops for direct operations against ISIS.
All of this in the face of an estimated cost of “about a quarter of a billion [dollars] every six months”, and the prospect of a long, drawn-out conflict.
In direct contrast to this rather enthusiastic crusade has been PM Abbot’s rather lukewarm response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.
Currently, the Government’s total commitment to the humanitarian response stands at AUD$18 million, entirely in targeted aid.
It has also, despite direct pleas from Médicins Sans Frontières and the President of Sierra Leone, refused to send any health or engineering personnel to assist humanitarian efforts, citing risks to Australian health workers.
It may be argued that the rise of ISIS in the Middle East is a greater disaster than the outbreak of Ebola, but it is not obvious that it justifies such a discrepancy in response.
The UN estimates that the total civilian death toll in Iraq over the last eight months is at least 8,493, though the real number is likely to be higher.
ISIS/ISIL are likely responsible for a large proportion of these deaths, but not all.
On the other hand, the WHO estimates the number of deaths from Ebola to be 3,865 over the last seven months, but once again it is likely that this underestimates the death toll.
Both conflicts are likely to have severe, and long-lasting effects on the communities that have suffered them. The emergence of ISIS will without doubt worsen the continued instability in Iraq and Syria, but the wider economic and social impacts of Ebola will also be felt into the future.
Closer to home, Australians are likely to face threats from both Ebola and ISIS.
The risk of returning jihadists and ‘home-grown’ radicals to the Australian public has been raised almost on a daily basis, with soldiers advised to avoid wearing uniforms in public, and broader legislative powers being sought.
Yet, as a recent false alarm in Queensland reminds us, the nature of globalization means we, too, are threatened by Ebola, despite our PM’s overly calm assurances that we are ‘completely prepared’.
Read the article in full here:
blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/author/chris-chew/ And other stories reporting decisions and debates by other countries
here and
here.
Is ISIS or Ebola the greater threat? Of course there is also arguments that neither should be supported or another cause altogether but of these two where should PM Abbot (and other nations) be committing help?
What do you think? If you were prime minister where would you send support?
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