Don't forget Iraq. At least we had a reason to go to Afghanistan.

...

You make it sound so easy for the US to go in and invest billions in another country... just because Monkey Bush did it with the hardy-har-har GWOT, doesn't mean it's now a new standard in foreign policy and national responsibility to Teh Wurld. Do we really need an international Chia pet to care for? Turns out our own garden is suckin' pretty bad right now. Stay in our own yard for a bit, maybe?

If we were to "help" Africa... I envision it would involve just as many body bags as Iraq.

Well, there is the whole issue of colonialism. Of course, that was Europe, so if you are looking for the US part in all of this:

- The US is the world's biggest market for blood diamonds
- The CIA backed coups and assassinations of African leaders, including Patrice Lumumba, funding for FNLA and UNITA in Angola, the backing of murderous tyrants like Mobutu in exchange for favorable deals for American businesses...

---------- Post added at 09:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:03 AM ----------

See above. In fact, it is impossible to understand the bloodiest conflicts in African history without talking about US involvement.

You can't understand the first and second Congo wars, and the Rwandan genocide, without understanding the role of the CIA in propping up Mobutu as the leader of the Congo, the backing of UNITA, the Angolan rebels who controlled the northern railroads crucial to transporting minerals from the Congo to the coast, and later the support for Rwandan leaders like Kagame, who was actually trained in Fort Leavenworth.

Do you (or anyone else with the "fix Somalia" mantra) have any realistic an logistically sound plan of action?

Also, do you honestly think that if your plan works, and Somalia becomes an economically and civilly stable nation overnight, that the "pirates" are suddenly going to become law-abiding citizens and be satisfied working some menial job for an hourly wage, when they are used to getting millions for a couple of days work?

If these "pirates" were raiding ships and stealing food and supplies in order foe their families to survive, then I might have an once of compassion for them. But instead they are holding corporations hostage for more money than I'll ever see in my lifetime. They are terrorists, and should be treated like any other terrorist.

Thanks, KirStang - I was beginning to think I was the only member of this forum alive in '93.

Somalia in 1993 was another example of the might of the US Armed Forces being misused in a half-assed manner. If you've got superior numbers and firepower, use whatever means at your disposal and you will emerge victorious. We proved that in the first 100 hours of the first Gulf War.

If you send in an undersized force and handcuff them with unreasonable rules of engagement, you'll screw it up every time. We still haven't learned from Vietnam.

As for the incident last week, I think the only mistake they made was not putting a bullet in the head of the 4th dirtbag and dumping his body over the side. Hopefully, they're saving him for a public hanging.

In my view - the shooting of the pirates is sub-optimal.

My view is not particularly significant. More important though is that many others will see the action as disproportionate and use this to validate their own biases.

I'd not want to be the next hostage.

Even if we could do it right now, there's no reason for a full scale invasion of Somalia. All that needs to be done are strategic attacks. Get in and out as quick as possible.

The fourth pirate surrendered, did you read anything about that?

Yes, because that's what we do here in the USA. Why don't we stone him instead?

"We" as in the U.S. or "we" as in the western world? Nobody seemed all that concerned when other flagged ships were being hijacked, but when an American President authorizes American forces to use force if necessary to safeguard the life of an American citizen, it's all America's problem now? You must be kidding me.

This sounds like Six-Degrees-of-America where you're trying to trace international piracy back to something the U.S. did or failed to do in Somalia and I'm not buying it. If you want somebody to blame for Africa's decline, blame European colonialism before you blame American 'imperialism'

Contrary to your belief that it's cheap to stabilize a country, it isn't. Trying this on the cheap doesn't work. Trying to stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq on the cheap is why we're in the situation we are now. Fixing a nation is a heavy investment, and it should not have to fall on the shoulders of one country to do it.

On a side note, other than cost, what's stopping these shipping contractors from hiring private security firms to patrol onboard a freighter that's sailing those water?

---------- Post added at 06:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:44 PM ----------


It's a no-win situation. If the pirates had killed the captain (while on a lifeboat towed by an American warship with American special forces within reach) that would be serious bragging rights and the'd be sure to dig up the ghosts of Blackhawk Down to taunt the U.S. and call us 'paper tigers'.

But now that we did take them out, they say we went too far. What would the proportionate action be? Continue to negotiate a stalemate? Wait until they harm the captain then respond? I don't think it's disproportionate at all.

Cost is the main issue. There are probably a lot of insurance issues for carrying armed guards.

---------- Post added at 03:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:51 PM ----------

Neither do I. I think the US response was totally appropriate. They did their best to get the pirates to surrender but we were clear that under no circumstances could they walk away free men. The fourth pirate was spared because he gave up. He should be tried in a US court for his crimes.

I totally agree with Kirstang and yournamehere... in fact, we need to just blast all those f*****rs and show them that the USA is smarter, faster and ready to make 'em all toast if they continue this charade of "might". It shouldn't warrent an invasion (why?) as this has Maritime Law working in our favor and we are the best fleet in the water, anywhere in the world so let's settle this fast and now.

Of course colonialism has left a much worse legacy in the region. But the division of Somalia and Ethiopia, and the ensuing wars between Soviet backed Ethiopia and west backed Somalia, all happened with direct participation of the United States at the outset of the second world war. In fact, it was only because of US support that the division of the region turned out the way it did, and that was what set up years of upcoming war and civil war over contested regions of Somalia.

Are we talking about the Ogaden war which was fought over the land that Britain returned to Ethiopia instead of Somalia? This same war that was supported by Egypt as a means to destabilize Ethiopia and secure the Nile river to themselves? The same war in which Somalia's defeat at the hands of Soviet- and Cuban-backed Ethiopians resulted in the civil war which rendered their government useless?

At the beginning of that war, keep in mind that Somalia's army was equipped with Soviet equipment. Also keep in mind that the Soviet Union's decision to withdraw their support from Somalia and divert it to Ethiopia instead (since prior to the war they were supplying weapons and support to both countries) had more to do with their downfall than any U.S. involvement.

Never said that it was the exclusive involvement of the US. But the entire dispute started as Britain and the US tried to prevent the Soviet Union of getting access to any of the Italian Somalia territories.

So while I never said that it was the US that "caused" anything exclusively, it is a fact that the US was pretty involved in the region, as it was in others.

Has anyone considered the irony that we are using national military to defend merchant ships that are (mostly) flying under flags of convenience. In other words, these are corporations that are dodging taxes and labour laws put in place by the nations that run these militaries.

Interestingly, until the death of these three pirates, only one hostage has been killed (and that apparently happened under odd circumstances). The rest of the piracy was solved by insurance companies and owners with deep pockets.

Then please be sure to mention that instead of laying all of this exclusively at America's feet when plenty of other nations have their bloody fingerprints all over it.

Where did I ever lay this exclusively at anyone's feet?

From my first post:
"The West in general, including the US, would need to "fix" a lot less if it didn't break so much in the first place."

He was aboard the Bainbridge to receive medical attention for an infected stab wound in his hand. He was still negotiating the ransom when his buddies received their perfectly executed head shots courtesy of SEAL snipers. Let's not give him credit for having his medical visit suddenly extended.

What - hang a pirate? Yeah, never heard of that before . . . .
Seriously, though - I believe he will be tried in Kenya, not the USA.
Which is a shame, because I find the death sentence of a pirate and kidnapper to be preferable to the prospect of his being released from prison in a few years, only to be more successful in his next attempt at killing innocents.

Yeah, when was the last time the US hanged someone?

It would be a shame if he was tried in Kenya. His crime was against US citizens on a US ship. Kenya has no jurisdiction.

I don't mind us having a presence there and when we can, we should respond to attacks against US ships. However, the Navy doesn't exist to provide protection to corporations.

Yes, the conflicts have ended peacefully but that is only because it is easier to pay them than it is to fight back. We can't allow them to act this way any longer. I don't care if their intent isn't to harm the captives, they are holding them at gunpoint and threaten to kill them if they don't get the ransom.

I don't support the kidnapping and killing of crewmembers, but on the other hand what should those pirates do? The West is illegaly fishing at their coast, taking away their source of income and additionaly using their coast as a toxic waste dump. I don't think the west has much right to complain.

Yeaaaah, I don't like the "but we're all assholes" argument. It doesn't seem very productive given any macro level discussion.

I also don't agree with the "stuff that happened four hundred years ago justifies current behavior of a tiny group of individuals" notion that has popped up in this thread a few times. It's naive at best. It stinks of reparations and Dr. Phil I'm-So-Sorry. I mean, that'd be like saying "well, it's okay, we screwed them" and let African Americans do drive-bys in white neighborhoods because of slavery, crack, and Michael Jackson's bizarre transformation.

Eventually we have to draw a new line in the sand, hold ourselves to a new standard, and punish those who don't live up to it. NES reset button.

Is it fair? Not at all. Turns out life is like that. Sure, white people have fucked up the planet... nobody argues that factoid. But eventually we have to forgive them for even their most evil crimes and focus on the future we have together on "This Island Earth."

We can talk about how horrible the conditions are in Somali and how Navy SEALs just deal with the symptoms of the disease... but let's not promote piracy by confusing it with growing pains or a temper . Symptom or disease, it's all bad and deserves a SR-25 shot just the same.

I don't think you really get it.

First of all, we are not talking about stuff that happened 400 years ago. We are talking about stuff that has happened within the past 50 years and continue to happen to this day.

Second of all, I don't think anyone is advocating any sort of self esteem exercises to deal with this, or any sort of "oh, poor pirates."


The point is much simpler. You reap what you sow. When you keep backing the people who will give you the best deals on their natural resources (or kill the most commies) regardless of hour ruthless they are, dont be surprised when some of that ruthlessness turns against you. And in particular don't go in some self pity parties about how "oh, we just want to help, why can't they greet us as their bestest buddies?"

It's less about being "productive" (although there is a lot of that) and more about how international relations must be understood as they are, as opposed to some self serving, self aggrandizing version where Americans and Europeans are thankless saviors.

Now, why is it productive? Well, maybe some day Western governments will understand why today's foes are yesterday's buddies.

my my, what a ugly thread this turned into. strange thing is that (a) piracy is not a new phenomenon--it's kind of a traditional business model
(b) it is curious that so many arm-chair field marshals are arguing for heading ïnto there guns blazing--into where? to get who? what are you talking about?
(c) it is more curious still that life is held so cheap here. merchanidise flows are more important than life. fuck with my commodity flows and you get the wrath of a thousand arm-chair field marshals descending upon your head. wow.

this is not to say yay piracy.
rather, its more marvelling at the simple-mindedness of that very christian kill em all let god sort em out approach to this sort of situation.

that said, i don't see any obvious solution to the problem of piracy.

most of the responses that link it to socio-economic conditions in somalia seem obviously correct--but what one does about that is much less obvious, particularly given the simple fact that there's no political consensus in the northern hemisphere that there's any particular reason to give a shit about africa really so long as the raw materials keep flowing. this is straight-up neo-colonialism--why bother with direct domination when you can control the organization of economies, get what you're after, and accept no responsibility for anything else? let the africans deal with the consequences of colonialism and neocolonialism--so long as they dont fuck with commodity flows, who cares?

o sure, you have any number of organizational gestures toward redressing this or that problem---but it's an extraordinarily, incredibly diverse continent that admits of no single or simple mode of action coming from the outside, particularly given that most modes of action that originate from the outside are parsed as extensions of colonialism itself. and there's no real interest in thinking out other solutions.

you reap what you sow.
and history shapes what that means.
it doesn't matter whether you like it or not. it's just like that. you want a hard reality--try that one.

i expect to see more armed merchant ships in that area, more military escorts, more conflicts.
is that a good solution?
it's not a solution at all.
but what alternatives are there? i don't see them.

400 years? 50 years? What does it matter in a world with such a short attention span and voracious history metabolism?

I don't advocate killing anybody. I advocate defending US citizens, though. Solidarity is important, as long as it's not the Post 9/11 vapor-patriotism.

*slouches in his ratty armchair*

I'm a staunch advocate of the Stop Putting Your Damn Finger Everybody's Pie, America party.

...

Escalation of force on the high seas. They drew first blood... or whatever. I mean, they did.

The royal "We" (the West) created this problem and now we're dealing with it in a predictable manner.

We'll see more guns on ships, tons of new security programs, billions of dollars potentially wasted.

Hell, it'll be just like going to that other airport in Chicago.

So I was reading that Somalia article...

We're dumping nuclear waste in to Somalian waters, while harvesting fish from the same waters? Wouldn't the 'Western' fishermen be eating our own radioactive waste then?

*ETA*

Further, while their system may be egalitarian, Pirates are still basically Water-borne robbers. Take away the water, put them on land, and they're just robbers....I don't think the introduction of water and piss poor living conditions justifies high-seas robbery.

The counter-vailing consideration is that being a pirate may be the most tempting career, because, the squalid economic conditions render pirating as the only viable career. Nonetheless, by being a pirate, you're accepting a life as a force-thief, and as a consequence, you must accept the consequences of using force or the threat of force...

For piracy? 1862

Because it was in international waters, and Kenya is the closest sovereign jurisdiction. That's where many of the Somali pirates have been tried. However, I heard this morning he will be tried in New York. Even The USA only gives life sentences (max) for piracy and kidnapping these days. Too bad.

Of course, in the US, a prosecutor could go for felony murder, considering three people died during the commission of the crime. That could net him three death sentences. It'll be interesting to see how they play it.
EDIT LATER: Don't know if international law has a felony murder charge. Since this happened in international waters, I doubt if US law will apply.

Isn't this pirate a teenager? I bet Madonna offers to adopt him and they let them both off the hook....hey, remember Capt. Hook?!

Paying them off encourages them to do it more. That's why we have the policy of not negotiating with terrorists. Pirates are taking hostages like terrorists have, and the same action should be dealt with under the same policy.
First, I need more than an opinion piece with a whopping two sourced quotes to back up claims to convince me. Second, if our citizens are taken hostage by armed thugs, we have every right to complain. He claims he's not saying piracy is justifiable, but the rest of the article leads me to believe otherwise.

I don't like it either, but all i was trying to say was, that I understand the situation of those pirates a bit.
Personally I would attack the foreign fisherman, give them 5 min to change course if they dont use the RPGs

some more:
UN envoy decries illegal fishing, waste dumping off Somalia


Illegal fishing off Somalia on increase

Really?!? While there are definite extremes of opinion in this thread, I think it has been handled pretty civilly. I mean, no hostages have been taken, and no one has been shot. ;)

Honest kudos to admitting that you don't know the answer. I say this without intent of malice or sarcasm. Because, like I sad earlier, no one is offering a realistic plan on how to end the problem.

mrklixx--it'd be interesting maybe to see how that could happen in a 2-dimensional space.

what i meant by that followed from reading through the thread as a whole and noting the number of folk who were advocating just going in guns blazing so those evil pirates don't disrupt the flows of commodities. what i saw as ugly in it was that this position is an exact repetition of a colonial view of africans---who cares about what colonialism has done--that's your problem--just keep the raw materials coming or we'll fuck you up. you had the same basic attitude animating those delightful chaps from belgium who thought it meet to introduce so many people in the congo to the delights of rubber harvesting. it kinda boggles the mind.

on not knowing--generally it's not understood as being a good thing to not know. i dont have a particular problem with it when the situation as i understand it admits of no obvious response. but thanks for noticing.

That definitely sounds like something that has to be addressed. Thanks for the info, I'll have to look into it more.

Yeah I agree to some extent. I'm just saying that it'd be nice if they'd found another solution. Such as immobilizing the pirate in some way. Is that possible? Not sure.

But there are other people other there who will be sure.

And those people will maintain that the pirates did not shoot first. That there are more dead Somalis than US citizens. And those people will be pissed.

The solution is simple.

Kill every pirate you can find.

Destroy the ports that harbor them along with all vessels.

Enjoy a cigar while watching the pirates scramble to build new boats and find food.

The vast majority of Somali's live peaceful lives and never touch a firearm. These pirates (and the communities who support them) need to be stopped.

It would be a relatively easy and inexpensive operation on our part so long as we have the backbone to just walk away after we crush the pirates/communities that harbor them.

---------- Post added at 12:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:41 PM ----------


Fist, we have no obligation to allow the pirates to shoot first.

Second, they did shoot at the captain when attempted to swim for it the first time.

I am glad there are more dead Somali's than US citizens...it shows our Navy is doing it's job. Since when should we allow Americans to die in order to show fairness?

And I can tell you that attempting to immobilize the pirates would have been extremely risky to both the Hostage (are you forgetting they were threatening to kill a hostage) as well as to the rescuers. Since any reasonable person will value the hostage more than the pirates, they dealt with the situation in the way that most-reduced the risk to the Cpt.

As far as your last line, those people are irrational morons who should be ignored by the country. Who cares about the opinions of someone who would rather watch a US citizen get executed than a few kidnappers/pirates get whacked? The should be ignored. If they encourage more piracy they should be shot.

At the end of the day, if you are a hostage taker you have to know that you are running a risk.

I maintain that this situation can only be mended by helping Somalia, but we shouldnt cry too much for the gangs of bandits and pirates

I'm often considered a liberal, but I think the Navy did the right thing by sniping the fuck out of those three guys, if indeed they were threatening to shoot the hostage, or things appeared to be running out of time. I'd like to add, seeing a live-action re-creation of that scene would be sweet. Feel free to snipe me with comments about insensitivity.
I don't care much for the pirates, to be honest. They fully understand the risks they are taking, and while I can't say I wouldn't do it were I in their situation, I'd know all the possible risks if I chose to become an outlaw. If you put your gun to an innocent man's head, you're risking your own life.

Seriously, they could have a picked a country with a less awesome military to fuck with.

Up until now, they did.

You've got to figure, though, that even the smartest man in the boat probably never saw the inside of a school.

Reminds me of a scene from an old cop show where two junkies walk into a bar and one pulls a knife and tells the bartender to empty the cash register. Within a second they had 30 guns cocked and pointed at their heads - turns out it was a cop bar. The nearest cop to the guy with the knife leans over and says, "Let me guess - you must be the brains of this outfit."

IMHO there should be an international naval/military task-force formed to deal with the problem, these people laugh at attempts of peaceful solutions. They make far too much money out of what they do to stop just because some diplomat said people are getting hurt.

A firm and decisive stance/action against piracy now will save us all a whole lot of trouble later if you ask me.

QFT

Even though this is a given, no matter who's fault it was ... they could have fixed this themselves, peacefully, a long time ago.

The problem is there's no "them." There's the people in power, who I assume control their respective areas, and keep them safe from rival "factions" by staying armed, dangerous, and keeping the people directly under them (some sort of henchmen) somewhat happy. The rest are people who don't have power, are kept under submission by the people with the guns and the power.
Those who have the power don't want it to change, those who want it to change can't.

Peacefully fixing anything like this is far easier said than done.
I will say though that I have no ideas on how to improve or "fix" this country, I don't think an invasion would be successful in terms of building a democracy, and I don't think it could be done by the US in current times anyway.
I don't think surgical strikes would do much, either. Diplomacy is always better than war, but who is there to talk to?