They'll have to eradicate it in Pakistan and Afghanistan first, and around there people don't really trust foreigners who come around promising free polio vaccines because that was the CIA's cover when they came looking for Bin Laden.
There was a polio outbreak in China in 2011 that was traced back to Pakistan. Prior to that outbreak, the last case of polio in China had been in 1999.
The outbreak was contained after 21 confirmed infections plus another 23 suspected. The Chinese public health system mobilized 1000 health workers, spent $26 million, and vaccinated 44 million people.
If we can't get rid of polio in Pakistan and Afghanistan, then this will just keep happening.
Those areas did not trust foreigners with needles to begin with. The CIA vaccination gambit was undeniably stupid, but it wasn't a root cause, it made a bad problem worse.
The root cause is that those are areas with very high levels of tribal paranoia, religious fundamentalism, and outright violence.
I agree the people who signed off on this decision should be brought to trial, but I am not to sure that they intended the outcome that occurred. This is still no excuse for a decision that will kill 10,000s of innocent children.
We prosecute people for negligence for way less impactful decisions. Whoever signed off on that decision either weighed the consequences of their actions and decided that was worth it or they were so incompetent that they didn't even think about it. Considering they're responsible for one of the premiere spy networks on the planet, I'm going to guess they're pretty intelligent. So that leaves one option.
It is hard to know without a full trial. This is the one thing that should happen, but if torture can be swept under the rug with nobody being held responsible I am not too hopeful :(
Oh, if only things were so black and white what an uncomplicated world we'd be living in. Unfortunately the reality you describe is not the reality we live in.
True enough, but I'm not fully on board with moral relativism either. "The West" (if not the CIA) is on the side of good, and AQ/The Taliban/ISIS obviously is not.
