When UN Peacekeepers Cause Disaster

Picture this: soldiers from a foreign army are stationed near the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Sewage running from their base has long polluted the waterway, but the authorities never paid attention. One day a new rotation of soldiers arrives, carrying a deadly bacteria never before seen in the U. S. It enters the water. People get sick, then die. The infection spreads from St. Louis to Memphis to New Orleans, explodes along the Gulf Coast, and from there to every state in the union. Overwhelmed health responders watch in horror as family after family succumbs. Within a year, five percent of Americans have fallen seriously ill and thousands have died. The president tells a terrified and exhausted nation that it will cost more than the annual national budget to control the disease. Yet no court can hold the soldiers accountable for negligence, or even get them to acknowledge their role in causing the outbreak. “It doesn't matter,” an army spokesman says.