Somali pirates seize the U.S.-flagged cargo ship Maersk Alabama, the captain surrenders himself to the pirates to ensure his crew's safety, the Merchant Marine crew takes back control of its hijacked ship, and then U.S. Navy Seals make a mid-ocean assault and rescue the ship's captain: If I had this much testosterone in me I'd be in a coma.
It's not wise to romanticize any of this, but my mind is spun up in a vortex of awe and sweet jingoistic bliss over what has transpired. ... OK, now that I've had my man-moment, the consequences must be addressed.
Piracy has been an age-old practice that even I've come in contact with - though only after the fact. While in the Navy, my ship was ordered to escort a submarine through the Strait of Malacca.
This was prompted by an incident where some Malaccan pirates decided to open fire on a U.S. submarine. The strait is too shallow in places for submarines to submerge beneath the passing shipping traffic, and subs are generally not outfitted to engage in any kind of surface warfare.
Centuries ago, pirates were hung when captured. An old legal dictionary says, as cited by The Wall Street Journal: "A piracy attempted on the Ocean, if the Pirates are overcome, the Takers may immediately inflict a Punishment by hanging them up at the Main-yard End; though this is understood where no legal judgment may be obtained."
The rationale was that they were too dangerous to transport back to a home country. That and pirates were more apt to kill. Felony murder, as it were.
(Nowadays, United States Code prescribes life imprisonment for foreign-born pirates. More reasonable when murder is not an aggravating factor.)
Somali pirates are much less prone to murder than pirates centuries ago, but it has happened. And in a pseudo-victimized, face-saving rant they are vowing revenge for the deaths of their three dead "colleagues" or "compatriots" or "cohorts" (I'm not sure what their preferred relational appellation is), stating that "the French and the Americans will regret starting this killing.
"We do not kill (last year two people were killed by Somali pirates), but take only ransom. We shall do something to anyone we see as French or American from now (on)," to quote from a Reuters report. (The pirate was referring also to an earlier incident with French commandos.)
Usually Somali pirates are handed over to Kenyan authorities to adjudicate, but Kenya is in no position to mete out justice or governance for another country - even if that other country (Somalia) has no government of its own.
We are at a crossroads. Much like the United States was with the Barbary pirates.
Do we pay "tribute" or do we fight? Thomas Jefferson opted to fight. And he was right in doing so.
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Seals are aquatic mammals of the Phocidae family. SEALs are Naval Special Warfare operators. It's an acronym. You can look it up.
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The problem with a Jeffersonian approach is that these pirates are rogue entities. The Barbary pirates back in the day were state sponsored and the Treaty of Tripoli ended the violence. Unfortunately, the Somali government has no authority over these modern day Buccaneers. I think we need to give some more aid (dollars and guns) to the Somali government so they can get their country under control and enforce their own law against their own pirates.
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Mid-Ocean assault? When did that happen? Three shots doth hardly a mid-ocean assault make, methinks. Talk about romanticizing about a situation...knucklehead.
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"History has told us not to negotiate with thugs," yeah if you've been in a coma for the last 8 years. If you've been conscious and have not been praying to George Bush cardboard cut-outs, you would know that history has taught us to fear blowback. Just before Bush left office, Condoleezza Rice demanded our troops fight the pirates on land against the advise of our Generals who said we will not be able to distinguish them from civilians. I'm not sure how many Somalians are radical Islamists, but religious fanaticism aside, they will fight back if we're killing them. Imagine if another country's military came to the US to fight our National Guard and ended up killing civilians. Whether they'd be killing civilians or not, we'd all fight back, right? Common sense. Oh and Eric, Somalia is a failed state, and if blowback occurs, the last thing we should be doing is give their "government" guns. While we should and do need to give them aid, the question is how do we get it in there when it's too dangerous to bring in peace workers? We must do something though. "A hungry man is an angry man," history has taught us this.
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Eric, I suppose you're too young to remember this but delivering food aid is what eventually led to the Battle of Mogadishu. Say what? Dictionary.com defines an assault as "a sudden, violent attack." Mid-ocean means in the ocean. SO it was a mid-ocean assault. Knucklehead. And Kris, you compare the Somali (people from Somalis are not called Somalians, genius - glad to see that college education's working out for you) pirates to the National Guard then scold Eric that Somalia's a failed states. Let me break it down for you. The National Guard are government-sponsored military organizations. The Somali pirates are criminal gangs trying to make a profit. Let me know if you need more clarification. Based on you three rocket scientists it looks to me like an awful lot of college tuition is being wasted these days.
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Veteran Alum, o.k., you're right that I incorrectly said "Somalians" rather than "Somalis," thanks for the clarification. You went too far, however, in inferring that I "compare the Somali pirates with the National Guard." I did no such thing. I was merely illustrating what blowback would be to another country if they were to come on to our soil. The substance of my post still stands. Also, all you add to the conversation are corrections and insults, no new ideas. So you're not much of a rocket scientist either, are you? Maybe I speak too soon though... How do you propose, taking into consideration lessons learned from the Battle of Mogadishu, we get food aid to the Somalis? By the way, thank you for your service.
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I don't propose getting food aid into Somalia. The only way to do it would be for US troops to guard the food stocks so they couldn't be stolen by warlords and a) we saw how well that worked and b) we don't have the troops. My solution is twofold. First, take out the Somali pirate hideouts. It can be done. The blowback would be minimal because no matter how pissed off Somalis get at us there isn't much they can do to us. Second, I wouldn't allow any shipping line or country that pays ransom to the Somali pirates to dock in the US. If they want to encourage piracy that's their business but we don't have to trade with them. Third, I'd arm US-flagged vessels. It occurs to me Blackwater isn't busy at the moment.
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I guess I meant threefold.
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I guess I'm not terribly convinced that a) our military can tell pirates apart from civilians (as our Generals have said), b) all Somali pirates can be found in conveniently distinguishable "pirate hideouts" rather than integrated in with all the other Somalis. A lesson we should take from this if we don't want more piracy is that maybe the poorest areas of the world are too poor. I think underestimating blowback is a weakness of the US. We have enemies, we don't need more. Whatever we do, it has to be clean. I don't see why we can't use our airforce for this one. It might take longer, but at least we'd know that Somalis on water with guns are pirates. Less casualties, less human loss, less bad publicity on the US, less enemies. Plus, Afghanistan borders the Arabian Sea too, so isn't our airforce there already?
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Afghanistan is landlocked, retard.
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Veteran Alum - Blackwater isn't too busy right since the State Department finally realized that they're essentially a pack of murdering thugs -- and are now persona non-gratis in Iraq. By the way, they've since changed their name to Xe to avoid the stigma. However, I personally believe private military companies (PMCs), if properly regulated and overseen, could have a real impact on deterring piracy against US vessels in the Indian Ocean. These pirates aren’t ideologues – they’re in it for the money. If they get their noses bloodied a couple times attacking a US-flagged vessel, they'll figure out that the risks of attacking a US vessel outweigh the rewards and they’ll go after easier pickings. Granted, this is just shifting the problem -- the only way piracy has ever been eliminated is to take operations ashore.
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Cadet, I take exception to that characterization of Blackwater. I have trained and worked with them several times over the course of my career and have found them to be very professional. The State Department wanted to renew their contract but the Iraqi government said no. Blackwater never lost a single State Department principal - this was their job. In any event, perhaps a "trigger happy" reputation would have a deterring effect on piracy. Instead of flying a Jolly Roger, Xe could bring back the Blackwater bear claw imagery and fly that to let would-be pirates know that the ship was being protected by a "pack of murdering thugs."
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VeteranAlum - I ran across both BW and Triple Canopy folks in my naval career, and quite frankly that's how I formed my opinion. Trigger happy is putting it a bit mildly... the Nisour Square shootings in Sep '07 killed 17 innocent Iraqis. BW may have done an excellent job in protecting State Department officials -- but killing the local populace doesn't exactly further State's primary mission of diplomacy. Companies exist which have done the maritime security mission on a limited scale – there’s a Brit security firm which stations security guards (mainly Gurkhas) on cruise ships as they transit the Strait of Malacca. (If you’ve ever ran across a Gurkha, it definitely forces you to rethink your definition of intimidating!) My contention is that there are specialized PMCs out there who could do this job, but it requires a level of restraint and foresight that I think BW lacks as an institution.
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The 'Black Hawk Down' story in Mogadishu wasn't so much a result of giving food aid as it was a result of that food supply being controlled by violent tribal warlords. If we want the Somalia to no longer be a failed state, we need to give some serious support to their government. It is also important to understand why these pirates are doing what they are doing. They are not greedy or looking for adventure, but rather they are turning to piracy because their families are starving to death. Killing more people will not solve the problem in Somalia.
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Eric, if you think that the government of Somalia has any real control over the warlords and other factions of their society, you must not have read the news in the last handful of years. The Somalian government is on the opposite end of the spectrum from, say, Mugabe's corrupt Zimbabwean dictatorship - it's about as dangerously close to anarchy as a country can get. The largest influx of foreign funds into Somalia right now is the insurance payments to the pirates - and the cause of this problem is that insurance companies continue to pay the ransoms to the pirates. Piracy is only lucrative so long as the people you attack play along - clearly, it's time for the world to stop playing along. As to how to solve things in Somalia . . .sending aid to the government (like we've been doing since we left in the mid 90s) clearly hasn't had the desired effect. We've been throwing money at an awful lot of African governments with little to no actual progress to show for it. . .
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The Battle of Mogadishu happened because the mission there shifted from distributing food aid to hunting warlords. Pirates’ families aren’t starving to death. Quite the opposite. According to a story by the BBC (as well as other places), the pirates are quite well off. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7650415.stm. They ARE greedy and they ARE criminals. Your desire to justify criminal behavior is repugnant. You’re essentially saying that if someone is poor, it’s perfectly OK for him to steal from others. The men and women who built the ships, own the ships, fuel the ships, load the ships, do the paperwork to move the ships, sail the ships and unload the ships all work hard. By what right do these pirates have to profit from their labor?
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BW shot 17 innocent Iraqis? Nobody is innocent over there. Anyway, I propose the Team America song be made our new national anthem. To hear that before every baseball game and while our basketball team is on the podium at the Olympics...man that would be great. It's so awesome that pirates are making a comeback. I can't wait for a group of people to invade a country riding on elephants.
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Hannibal was a couple thousand years ago, Sean. . .
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Kyle, I never said any such thing. My point is that the current problems are a result of the Somali government having no control over their people and the renegade warlords. I think the solution to this should be a strong UN/NATO backing of the Somali government so they can enforce the law and end piracy themselves. Our current tepid support isn't getting anywhere. Chip, I can rationalize their criminal behavior, but in no way do I justify it. Yes they are criminals, but they are not doing it out of greed, they are doing it out of desperation. Scores of Somalis have died today because they were too poor to afford sustenance. I'm sure the men at the top of the pirate organization are rich and build big houses, but the 20 year old guy on the boat with the gun is there because there is no other way for him to get money. The solution is to restore order on land, not to kill a bunch of people at sea.
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The solution to piracy in Somalia is to kill a bunch of people on land.
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So, Eric, can I put you on the record as desiring a third nation-building effort running simultaneous with our current two in Iraq and Afghanistan? What you've called for is identical to what we're doing in those two countries right now. And if you think "UN/NATO" means the majority of forces won't be US. . . I'm afraid you're sadly mistaken.
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