Yeah, I've never really understood that part either.
I agree that in african countires where the infection rate is creeping towards 40 percent of the entire population, then it IS a national crisis - on every level.
In the US it is a tragedy for those that have it (my fiancee's best friend just recently died of AIDS) but not in any way whatsoever a threat (or even a mild inconvenience) to national security.
What bugs me is how it's called a epidemic - or even more grotesqely a "pandemic"
The flu in 1918 was an epidemic, the Black Death in Europe was a epidemic - AIDS in the US is an infectious disease, but not an epidemic. Epidemic means that the disease infects a large proportion of the population (and pandemic means an epidemic over a large geographic area). In some African nations, it is entirely accurate at this point to decribe HIV/AIDS as having reached epidemic proportions, but certainly not in the US or in Western Europe.
How many of you know, or have even personally met someone with HIV/AIDS. If it was en epidemic, everyone on this board would know people with HIV/AIDS.