Leading from behind the curve on Ebola

By Michael Gerson - September 15 2014 - washingtonpost.com

The nation of Liberia — founded by liberated American slaves with support from Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and James Monroe — is not unacquainted with suffering. Two civil wars in the period from 1989 to 2003 and decades of economic mismanagement caused an 80 percent decline in per capita GDP — perhaps worse than any country since World War II. Warlords reduced Liberia’s infrastructure to rubble. In the 15 years following 1991, there was no electricity in the country except for private generators.

When I last visited in 2012, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Africa’s first female president) was leading a tentative recovery. She talked of action plans on reconstruction, development and health infrastructure. All are now in ruins. Sirleaf recently sent a letter to President Obama saying that Ebola threatens to “overwhelm us.” Her defense minister warns that Liberia’s “national existence” is at stake. Sirleaf just sacked 10 senior government officials who have fled the country and refused to return — hardly a reassuring development in a frightened nation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-the-us-is-leading-from-behind-the-curve-on-ebola/2014/09/15/6876f208-3d17-11e4-b0ea-8141703bbf6f_story.html