Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Is U.S. Defense Secretary Esper Failing In His Job When It Comes To The Coronavirus?



Craig Hooper, Forbes: Defense Secretary Esper Is Failing In Fight Against Coronavirus In U.S. Military

The Pentagon’s inability to provide decisive, clear guidance on the novel coronavirus pandemic is shaking confidence in Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

As the coronavirus and the diseases it causes, COVID-19, spread throughout America’s national security enterprise, concerns are rising that the former Raytheon executive is poorly equipped to grasp the operational and strategic challenges of this emerging biological threat. The slow-motion failure of Pentagon senior leadership became increasingly apparent Tuesday with the leaking to the press of a four-page letter by Captain Brett Crozier, the commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). The letter pleads for guidance and support amid an outbreak aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, where 150 to 200 new cases had been identified among the crew of over 4,000 in the past few days. Later in the day, Acting U.S. Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said the service was working to evacuate most of the sailors from the ship.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: It is still too early to past judgment.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another person if they were SecDef would have had 0 cases?

Or fewer?

How can they prove what if?

The criticism of pundits, politicians and presstitutes, who have moving goal posts are not to be listened to.

"The Pentagon’s inability to provide decisive, clear guidance on the novel coronavirus pandemic ..."

There is nothing novel about a corona virus pandemic. The corona virus is not novel. It has been around thousands if not millions of years. If corona was totally wiped out on planet earth it would only emerge again de novo due to random genetic mutations. Nature will fill ever niche

"The most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all coronaviruses has been estimated to have existed as recently as 8000 BCE, though some models place the MRCA as far back as 55 million years or more, implying long term coevolution with bats." - wiki

There are diseases from antiquity that we only know from descriptions that could either have been flu or corona or something else. They have similar symptoms. There could have easily been corona virus outbreaks in the past.


How much to weight “Protecting our troops" or "national security mission" is a political one. Esper needs guidance from the president and Congress. Congress should not be involved, but since they want to impeach at the drop of a hat, there it is. What hasn't Congress wanted to impeach Trump over?

To me Hooper calling Esper indecisive is the pot calling the kettle black.

What is up with this resume?

"I served as an executive for naval shipbuilder Austal USA, helping deliver the Littoral Combat Ship and Expeditionary Fast Transport to the U.S. Navy. "

" earned a doctorate in Immunology and Infectious Disease from Harvard University."

I think it is typical. Once you get past a certain threshold on the pyramid, no matter how intelligent or not intelligent you are and no matter if you make the right or wrong decision just noise or events will lead people to 2nd guess you, opportunistically take you out, or just dump you even though they could not do better.

So people stay 3 or 4 years and then move on.

G said...

Gas pump got the virus

G said...

No gas no virus