VD Hanson: Killing Pirates Isn’t Enough–Let’s Kill Civilians, Too
Posted on April 12th, 2009
by Daniel McCarthy |
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Ships with cargo worth many millions of dollars are sailing through waters adjacent the poorest inhabited continent on the planet. And they’re doing so without armed guards. What do you think is going to happen? The only remarkable thing about the Somali piracy so far is that no hostages have been killed. If you drove an unguarded Brinks truck loaded with $10 million or so in cash at a leisurely clip through, say, Gary, Indiana, much worse would befall you. The brigandage plaguing the Gulf of Aden is serious but hardly anything to get hysterical about. Basic private-security efforts should be sufficient to control Somali privacy.
Classicist-turned-propagandist Victor Davis Hanson, however, has apparently never stubbed a toe without wanting to amputate a leg–and somebody else’s, at that. He doesn’t just crave a war on pirates, at National Review Online he calls for “disproportionate measures” (his words) that would involving slaughtering Somali civilians in large numbers. Take it away, VD:
Pompey’s victories over the Cilician pirates, the Venetian clean-up of the Mediterranean sea-lanes, and the British success in stopping Caribarrean piracy were all predicated on going ashore, destroying the docks, headquarters, and homes of the pirates. To end Somali piracy, disproportionate measures against the shore should be taken—for every one pirate assault, a lethal air assault should immediately follow.
A lethal air assault on what? VD knows there isn’t a nice isolated buccaneer cove with a bar marked “Pirate Shack–Bomb Here.” He would kill women and in children in retaliation for what a gang of street-criminals-on-the-waves gets up to. Hanson is the Ward Churchill of the neocons: civilian deaths mean nothing in themselves to him, they’re just fuel for his power fantasies — sinners on the wrong side of progress.
Filed under: World
Hanson is joining the chorus at NRO and elsewhere, desperate to find some nexus between the pirates and radical Islam. They have even taken to calling the pirates Terrorists.
Hanson is correct that the best method of controlling pirates is to deprive them of bases. But the original pirates operated with what look like Boston Whalers, hardly a good bombing target. My suspicion is that a little bribery to the right warlord would do be a cheaper and less onerous tactic than any occupation.
The freighters are barred by various laws from arming themselves. The shippers are afraid of liability for any overzealous act of self defense. Blackwater and other private firms are willing to take on a permanent pirate patrol but who will pay them? And what will be their rules of engagement?
It’s all just a matter of lack of resolve and legal timidity. If every time pirates captured a ship, the ship was stormed by commando’s this would all have ended long ago. But we are too weak willed and squeamish.
A blog named “conservative”, and all full of non-sequitur-grenade-throwing, hate america first, cause confusion and dissention among anybody calling themselves conservative, self-styled elitists.
LOL
You managed to work “neocon” into that post, but you totally missed getting any of the Bush Administration blamed for this.
Can any of the good liberals who hang out here help us out?
I have a president. His name is Obama. While I disagree with almost EVERYTHING I have heard him say, I do give him high marks for the handling of THIS situation.
You said, “The brigandage plaguing the Gulf of Aden is serious but hardly anything to get hysterical about.”
In fact, let’s go a step further. You know how the good folks who highjack AIRPLANES just want to go for a joyride? Let’s make a law that we don’t just shoot them, but rather let them get to their destination, and then negotiate.
You can work to create the fiction that conservatives and republicans don’t have ANY common sense, and don’t want anything other than to kill people.
You can HOPE that those cute airplane hijackers don’t belong to anything more sinister than WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT. You can pretend that the pirates are not funding any terrorists. You can sneer at “neocons” and pretend that the rescued Captain’s family agree with you.
Or not.
My impression, and I haven’t seen a lot of hard data on this, is that the reason for not arming merchant vessels has more to do with cost and liability concerns rather than legal restrictions. (Not that the two are always separate.) Here’s Wikipedia on the subject, for what it’s worth. Britain’s top naval officer for the Gulf of Aden, Keith Winstanley, has recommended arming merchants vessels.
A rather interesting remark by one “Joe Angelo, deputy managing director for the London-based International Association of Independent Tanker Owners, known as INTERTANKO,” in a Houston Chronicle story:
As if getting governmental navies involved couldn’t possibly lead to escalation. It seems to me that up to now the shipping companies and been losing enough profit to the pirates to make arming the vessels economical — and no doubt externalizing the price of policing international waters onto national navies is a cost-saver, too. Even Brinks wouldn’t employ armed guards if they thought their trucks could get free police escorts.
The other afternoon, in the midst of an otherwise worthless rant, Rush pointed out that one traditional consideration that prevented the arming of ship’s crews was the risk of mutiny.
Hopefully trial and error would help the shipping industry develop practices and incentive structures that would prevent this, but who knows? This is a sticky problem, and I don’t know what the right solution is.
I do know that bombing Somalia, a la VDH, isn’t it.
I think that Angelo is full of crap. There is such a thing as international maritime law which, in essence, says that the ship is a floating autocracy, the captain of the ship being the autocrat. This means he can form a security force and defend his domain. If that is the law, then how could the skipper be “taking law and order into [his] own hands on the high seas”?
My understanding is that the firearms laws of the various port of calls are a big part of the problem. I’d need to research it further. According to one British source crews are only allowed shotguns for pest control.
The pirates are only armed with hand held weapons, that is, 30 caliber assault rifles and RPG rocket launchers. One fifty caliber machine gun and some assault rifles for the crew would tip the balance in the crews favor. Even an old 30 Caliber Browning of WWII vintage would out-range their AK’s. And you can’t sink a ship with an RPG.
One interesting Idea would be to secrete heavily armed commando’s randomly on ships transiting the area. Such “Q Ships” are a great deterrent and offer the chance of inflicting maximum casualties on the pirates without danger to civilians.
TomT wrote:
“You can work to create the fiction that conservatives and republicans don’t have ANY common sense, and don’t want anything other than to kill people.
You can HOPE that those cute airplane hijackers don’t belong to anything more sinister than WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT. You can pretend that the pirates are not funding any terrorists.”
Ergo, the acme of common sense is then to act (indeed including killing people) based on things you *don’t* know about….
Boy I wonder if you can’t really see the fundamental nature of the fractures amongst the Right in all this. You got the neo-cons like Hanson, working like hell to advance their own little agenda like Islamophobia, whooping up the Angry Susceptibles to just lash out at someone, somewhere, and then the rest of us who are now “hate America firsters” simply because we don’t exactly get Rambo-like thrills out of seeing Hanson’s “disproportionate … lethal air assault measures” deployed against entire populations who are barely living in the Industrial Age.
So I don’t get confused with any of the “hate america firsters”, let me be the first on this blog to express my thanks to God that Capt Phillips was rescued. Let me express my pride in being an American, in view of this successful rescue effort.
Even as a Republican, let me express my hope that none of the other hostages suffer because of the brave choices that this Democratic President has made, to KIll these terrorists.
(And I chuckle, picturing BUSH, instead of putting a bullet in their brains, giving them an armed escort to Egypt, or pouring water up their noses.)
Unless you are reading something other than the article that you cited, Hanson never said, “Let’s Kill Civilians, too”. Even though you falsely made it appear that is what he said.
You said, “…He would kill women and children in retaliation…”. That is not what HE said. It is what YOU said he MEANT.
TomB, you try to make it sound like Hanson advocated deploying LETHAL AIR ASSAULT measures against ENTIRE POPULATIONS. That exaggeration is yours, not his. Patently false, sir.
VDH said he had THREE thoughts about the pirates (they are numbered 1 to 4).
#1 he predicts that the American public will demand that our Navy punish the pirates
#2 he advocates a “lethal air assault” against “docks, headquarters, and homes of the pirates”, after each act of piracy
#3 he complains that the pirates are being given a cutesy image, and wonders if the government shares this picture of the pirates
#4 he says the Obama people, like Bush before them, are too apologetic, and worries the pirates will not be afraid of us.
I find that I agree with about 50% of what he said. I almost completely disagree with the dishonest characterization of his remarks presented in this blog.
How about convoying ships? Why can’t this be tried?
Instead, we’ve got military vessels patrolling the region, with the same result patrol has had in other situations-the ships are miles away when needed.
Organize convoy runs, work with Lloyds of London to get lower insurance rates for ships that travel in convoy, offer pardons for the smaller fry (and put them to work-get the Islamic countries to organize a regional security force, and hire the Somalis), use info from the smaller fry to nail some of the kingpins, and you’ll have the problem reduced to manageable levels.
While we’re at it, maybe we can lean on the Taiwanese and the Chinese to not clear the waters in the region of fish, which is the main reason so many fishermen have turned to piracy: they have no other means of supporting themselves in waters denuded of seafood by fleets of factory ships.
TomT, of course Hanson never expressly advocated killing civilians, although in fact one doubts these pirates are state actors and thus in a way are civilians themselves. But aside from the and even preserving the distinction between the two, he did call for “lethal air assaults” and given the nature of same the raw fact is that this *is* calling for killing innocent civilians. It’s simply almost inevitable that it will happen.
And it’s precisely *because* of this that I think we ought to require a big obvious dose of sobriety and gravity from anyone advocating that we do such things in our name. And just like I think McCarthy senses, neither attribute springs to mind with Hanson here: E.g., the instantaneous nature of his call for these air assaults, these air assaults being the first and only thing he can think of, his call for “immediate” assaults after every piracy incident regardless of the ability to find valid targets, and then his own (amazing) characterization of his wishes that these “lethal” assaults in fact be “disproportionate.”
C’mon, Tom, it don’t take a weatherman to see how the wind blows between Hanson’s ears; it’s at a hurricane level. And decisions made out of anger are dangerous. Doesn’t the Iraq experience mean anything?
Sobriety and gravity, Tom. And that ain’t hardly shown by calling anyone here an anti-American either. Why start killing even one innocent civilian (and giving our real enemies the propaganda points by doing same) when the entire problem might just be deploying a couple of PT boats in the area? Or putting a few sailors on board these freighters with .50 calibers fore and aft?
Or are we so frustrated at the rotten fruits of the rest of our emotion-based decision-making under Bush that we’re now gonna go find someone who we clearly *can* beat the hell out of just to vent those frustrations?
Cheers,
TomB (nice name, by the way).
I think the term “unamerican” (with a lowercase A), is a term that we can legitimately argue about. For my side, I think your liberal folks would weaken our country to make the other party look bad, I think you would “lie” (and/or exaggerate) to misrepresent other’s opinions, and I think you would prop up a murderous enemy while apologizing or criticising for your countrymen.
You would look a soldier in the eye, and say, “I thank you for your service”, and then in a stage whisper, “Too bad your commanders had you raping babies and bombing hospitals for a living”.
People like you threw blood, from screaming crowds in airports, at servicemen who returned from Viet Nam. This blog is often inhabited by just the same people.
I’m sure your side would respond with something like, “The ends justify lying because there is no heaven for us to go to, and no God to be afraid of. We represent the noble goals of peace on earth, less carbon in the air, and a moral government strong enough to save the people from themselves and their bad habits.”
You said, “he did call for “’lethal air assaults’”
Then you exaggerated, “this *is* calling for killing innocent civilians. It’s simply almost inevitable that it will happen” - IMPLYING that people who oppose you are baby-killers, and incapable of avoiding civilian casualties.
You said, “instantaneous nature of his call for these air assaults”
Then you exaggerated, “air assaults being the first and only thing he can think of” - implying that people who disagree with you are murderers motivated by blind rage or unthinking agression.
You said, “the wind blows between Hanson’s ears; it’s at a hurricane level” - the implication is obvious
You finished with, “Why start killing even one innocent civilian (and giving our real enemies the propaganda points by doing same) when the entire problem might just be deploying a couple of PT boats in the area? … Or are we so frustrated at the rotten fruits of the rest of our emotion-based decision-making under Bush that we’re now gonna go find someone who we clearly *can* beat the hell out of just to vent those frustrations?”
Your point is that ALL the countries, ALL the armies, All the governments, ALL the transportation companies, that have an opposing view, simply don’t match your elitist capability for understanding, and instead of arguing the merits of ideas, the shortest route to your goal is to denigrate the PERSON that you disagree with.
I am here NOT to defend VDH’s view, nor to oppose your reasoning in criticising it.
I object to the THROWING BLOOD on people, instead of civil discourse.
See your folks, for a minute through my eyes, and have a good laugh.
Robert Gibbs, Obama’s press secretary, was asked if the President BOWED. He responded that there must be something wrong with the questioner, because they were not focusing on more important current issues, rather than something a week old. An in the next sentence, he began listing the sins of the Bush era as examples of this.
All us right-wingnuts were rolling on the floor laughing at this transparent lie, and lapse in logic.
Any systems analyst knows that what *IS*, exists for a reason. When bailout folks say, “Now is not the time for pointing fingers”, and when Obama says, “It’s not important to know precisely who caused this mess”, then we are suspicious of a massive bailout possibly built on false assumptions, one of which is protecting the very crooks who caused the problem.
When this blog GUESSES about the reason for no armament, and no escorts on shipping convoys, and then proposes solutions based on these possibly false assumptions, then there is room for discussion. But when much of your argument is spent changing the meanings of words, saying things you know not to be true, and congratulating each other for attempts to destroy the credibility and reputations of those you disagree with, then people like me need to stand up.
Here is a litmus test: I think I get more good logic from the Rush Limbaugh show, than I do from much of this blog.
If you feel anger or contempt for me, after I say that, then you prove my point.
But, if you feel challenged, and eager to compare points of view, and the logic behind them, then you are a brother (or sister), and we have much to discuss.
In response to my post TomT wrote:
“You would look a soldier in the eye, and say, ‘I thank you for your service,’ and then in a stage whisper, ‘Too bad your commanders had you raping babies and bombing hospitals for a living.’”
Geez, you really did mean it (unintentionally, but inescapably logically) when you said initially you prefer taking positions on things you don’t know about.
I’m happy however you find all that logic from Limbaugh, and no I feel no contempt for you but instead just puzzlement I guess. After all we just got done with eight years of essentially following his conservative logic and to me at least the results are a little wanting. Still in a quaqmire in Iraq and Afghanistan with all our dead, all we have killed, all our loss of prestige and credibility in the world, all the hatred from the arab and moslem world, and with its sole signal geo-political achievement being the huge increase in Iranian influence in the Middle East. And then of course we have all the increase in the size of our government, its debt, its spying on us, restricting our rights and etc. and so forth.
And then of course on the economic front we’ve got Mr. Bush’s legacy of presiding over the worst economic debacle seen in eighty years, and with more hurt certain to come.
It seems to me the bottom line Tom is just simply that yours is a kind of conservatism that I just don’t recognize. And it certainly doesn’t produce the kind of results that makes me want to re-think mine.
Cheers,
VDH writes about “destroying the docks, headquarters, and homes of the pirates.” The word to think about there is “homes.” Even assuming the pirates use docks and “headquarters” that are apart from civilian communities, what about the homes? Many of these men, perhaps most of them, have wives and children. So what exactly is involved in destroying their homes?
Rough justice for pirates is one thing. Rough justice for their families, and for whatever families happen to be living within a blast radius of pirates’ homes, is another.
Anti-war conservatives leave me puzzled. Just because military adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan was wrong (and cosmically stupid) doesn’t mean military action always is. I wonder if some of you are still able to conceive of such thing as an “enemy.” VDH might be a bit overzealous, but he’s right. Pirates, you clean them up.
(And seriously, a few dead Somalies? You’re going to lose sleep over a few dead Somalies? For real?)
Silvio — I wonder whether you subscribe to the values of the “culture of life”?
[quote]doesn’t mean military action always is[/quote]
I don’t think many people are objecting specifically to that. Even the term “antiwar” is a loaded term. Sure, there are enemies out there.
But I think the problem begins when Hanson, for example, starts saying we need to start launching “lethal” attacks on the shore for every pirate attack. OK. Where? Against who? On what information do we base our attacks? Do we develop and fund an extension network of informants to tell us where and who are the ringleaders are? Are there ringleaders at all?
The devil is in the details, and before we just start answering every problem with a bullet, we need to start asking ourselves if that is indeed the best way.
Which touches on the biggest problem in post-9/11 America. Apparently you’re a coward, idiot, or p**** if you don’t automatically resort to military action. Strange, considering George Washington warned against even having a standing army. I would hate to hear what people like Hanson would say about him behind closed doors. If he isn’t all cognitive dissonance about it, that is.
And about Hanson’s original comparison to Pompey’s defeat of the pirates in the Mediterranean, I wonder if he stopped to consider who made it possible for Caesar to come to power. After all, Pompey made it his business to gather as much power to his office as possible…and when he proved himself incapable of the office, Caesar took over and the Republic died. History repeats.
It seems, all polticking , and nRO or other rhetoric aside, there are few things that are certain in this situation.
1. Piracy is illegal, and has been under international, maritime, and various domestic laws.
2. The US and many other countries has “enforcement” organizations designed to police the open seas, and deal with piracy in international waters. In the U.S. we call that organization the United States Navy.
The whole point to have a Navy is to protect trade on open seas, maybe it is time will have the Navy get back to doing that. In which case, the Navy and the infantry u8nits attached to it, which by the way were created specifically for fighting piracy, the Marine Corps., could easily patrol the shipping lanes, stop and/or sink pirate vessals, and arrest and/or kill pirates. This is all within its perview as the U.S. Navy.
All that remains is to give the order, and get to work.
BTW. This wouldn’t require the whole sale slaughter of civilians, rather it would greatly increase the risk while reduce the reward to piracy.
However, until there is a functioning state in Somolia, they best you can hope for is to reduce the risk of piracy through enforcement. Stopping it will require a lot of work on the ground.
TomB - When liberals were in power, some years ago, the decision was made to treat hijackers of airplanes as a nuisance, and much energy was spent pooh-poohing the ugly rightwingers who wanted to put armed federal agents secretly among the airplane passengers.
Even now, as you can’t understand why the civilain ships don’t arm up, Obama is taking away the right of AIRPLANE captains to carry a firearm.
If you’ve done international travel, you know all about the signs in airports that announce the DEATH PENALTY for anyone possessing an undeclared firearm. Same rules apply to SHIP’s crews, as they sail into port.
I then made the comment, “You can HOPE that those cute airplane hijackers don’t belong to anything more sinister than WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT. ” Referring of course to the unintended consequence of allowing Osama’a boys to run planes into American Buildings, because we were soft on arming authorities on airplanes.
You have disingenuously tried to twist my words to make it appear that I said I wish to opine on matters that are beyond my grasp, or my knowledge - your accusation is the hallmark of a liberal elitist.
Daniel McCarthy - you said, “Rough justice for pirates is one thing. Rough justice for their families, and for whatever families happen to be living within a blast radius of pirates’ homes, is another.” This is an EXCELLENT observation.
What is NOT EXCELLENT is making it appear that VDH prefers civilian deaths, instead of asking the obvious: “VDH, what would you do to mitigate damage to civilian infrastructure?”
Ordinarily this would not be such a necessary distinction, but you appear to belong to a group who wish to accuse America of “killing more Iraqi civilians than enemy soldiers.” Your accusations against VDH appear to be simply an extension of “twist any argument into an accusation against the right wing of the US”.
What would have happened if Iran and Iraq had joined forces, if we had chosen ONLY Afghanistan to attack? Was Saddam sending $35k to suicide bombers? Were both Iraq and Iran trying to get nukes?
And why don’t we hear more about the cannon that was supposed to be able to shoot a ton of yellowcake into orbit? And the hundreds of tons of yellowcake itself?
FOUR THOUSAND Californians died in auto accidents last year. There were 41 thousand dead nationally. Yet, for the last several years, Nancy Grace “paused for a moment to remember some dead soldier”. Now what do you see on CNN? A profile of a LIVING hero soldier.
The difference? Tear down BUSH and the rightwing, build up Obama and the left. It’s NOT about humanity, or doing what’s right for the US.
Show me where you blogged about the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people that Saddam killed, or the 50-something thousand dead people in car accidents in the northern hemisphere each year. Then I’ll read your references, and probably re-visit my opinion of your comments.
Silvio wrote:
“And seriously, a few dead Somalies? You’re going to lose sleep over a few dead Somalies? For real?”
Osama bin Laden, September 10, 2001: “What? You want me to call off the operations against the Twin Towers? Are you meshuggeneh?”
Fictional interlocutor: “Oh esteemed one, make no mistake! I enthusiastically back your attacks on the White House and the Congress building; those are legitimate command and control centers. But not those towers!”
bin Laden: “Seriously, a few dead Americans? You’re going to lose sleep over a few dead Americans? For real?”
Cheers,
Wow. Stopped looking at the blog overnight and all hell breaks loose. Hanson is a pathetic shill for the Islamofascist bashers, no doubt about it, and he is often wrong in his historical analogies, but piracy is no joke. History tells us that piracy can only be suppressed if the pirate bases are destroyed.
As anyone who has read any of my stuff knows, I do not favor unleashing mayhem on civilian populations anywhere on earth. But I do favor going after the Somali pirate bases because if we don’t do it the problem will become even more convoluted and will never go away. The pirate leaders have, per the media, built palaces with their loot. They now deploy zodiacs and larger vessels that can go far out to sea and have some heavier weapons. Satellite photos tell us where the palaces, boats, docks, and weapons are located. All of the above can be destroyed by Marine raiding parties to minimize casualties (versus using indiscriminate weapons like naval artillery or cruise missiles). Hit all such sites up and down the coast simultaneously and you destroy the ability to capture more ships. It will take some time to rearm and reequip and suddenly the cost of doing business has gone up considerably. They might even think twice about getting back in business at all.
With the explosion of Somali piracy, America is reaping what it has sown. In many ways, we have nobody to blame but ourselves for the emergence of high-seas crime threatening to disrupt important lanes of trade.
America’s support for a violent strongman during Somalia’s formative post-colonial years hindered the development of stable political institutions and severely complicated its capacity for effective self-rule and sustainable growth.
The country’s markets are also victims of foreign meddling, fatalities of the backhanded ‘charity’ which has made Western actors—and especially the U.S.—distrusted throughout the Third World. Rendered economically impotent through the misapplication of aid and assistance by the U.S. government and various NGOs, it is no surprise that Somalis have turned to brigandry for sustenance.
These actions we are now witnessing are not crimes of maliciousness or greed, but of desperation. They are sins of last resort.
http://who-whom.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-we-have-sown.html
P.S. The Other Philip is dead on. If media reports are correct, and the pirates have established distinctive enclaves, a few hundred Marines would do the trick with minimal damage to civilians. High altitude bombing or indiscriminate shelling, however, will probably come back to bite us in the ass, and will only cause more poverty and chaos, thus more piracy.
You know where piracy rarely happens? Along the coasts of countries with funtioning and effective governments. The US for example, has coastline and a criminal element but we also have cops denying a safe port for the hijacked ship.
Phil:
I don’t think anyone here would quail a bit at what you suggest if it turns out that’s indeed what’s needed and worth the risk. (After all you send in raiding parties and you possibly got dead and/or wounded and/or captured raiders, with the last of course very possibly turning into some ridiculous, full-blown theater where we end up getting jerked around by some Somali Jack Sparrows.) And if there have got to be airstrikes well then strike ‘em.
What I at least keyed onto was what I sensed as the meme the Limbaugh’s of the world seem to be glomming onto so as to keep their crowd in a constant state of hysteria to the tune of … “if Obama doesn’t unleash immediate total hell over there he’s betraying the country and is a wimp” business. And then of course the labeling of people here as “hate-america-firsters” if anyone dare oppose that immediate bringing of full-throated hell.
In short, the same kind of polemical, “if you’re not with us you’re an American-hater” approach that Mssr.s Bush and Cheney used to so fracture conservatives, and so far as I can see essentially destroy conservatism as a significant force for God knows how long into the future.
These pirates are a nuisance of a problem, no doubt. But the issue is being used as a stalking horse by those with bigger agendas. The Hansons to whoop up ever more Islamophobia, and the Limbaughs to whoop up their ratings to name just two of ‘em.
Cheers,
Can we better arm the ships which have to venture into pirate territory?
Philip,
While I agree that the use of the Navy and Marines, whether ours alone or inconjunction with other interested parties, is called for. A one time operation will not be enough.
If media accounts are correct, then piracy is just about the only profession available to young Somali men living in coastal areas. This means you will need an on-going presence - much in the way the Barbary Coast pirates, or Carribean pirates were evetually defeated - and you will need to assist a legitimate Somali govenment establish iteself and establish some form of rule of law to work land side to remove the social and economic incentives to take the risks of becoming a pirate.
If a concerted effort is not made over a long-term, then any effort will provide only limited relief from this problem.
I think that America has had 1 ship attacked by pirates, and the men responsible are either dead or in custody.
Why, exactly, is it our sole responsibility to police the entire world?
Many of the commenters seem to forget that Somalia is a shithole. Piracy offers a standard of living LIGHT YEARS away from anything any non-political lawabiding Somali can ever expect in Africa. To go from substistent loneliness to a mansion with a pretty wife and kids, and that just after one mission. It will take a lot of bombs to eradicate that incentive.
Also keep in mind the last time Americans invaded Somalia… no one wants to reliive the humiliation of the Delta Force and Black Hawk Down. We invade, there isn’t a lot of recent history to suggest things will go well.
Keep in mind the Somali pirate business model: fast moving speedboats used to catch and board large slow moving ships and subdue unarmed crews. Return both for ransom. Defeating any point of that model (watching for speedboats, arming crews, refusing ransom demands) will kill the business.
Michael Lind wrote something interesting on the issue, fitting it into his 4GW, decline of the state worldview http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/2009/03/03/on-war-294-a-barometer-of-order/ :
The British Foreign Office produced a formal legal opinion warning Royal Navy ships not to capture pirates, on the grounds that the pirates might claim asylum in Britain! The Foreign Office, it seems, has become an asylum.
If someone mentioned this above, forgive me, but, while I’ll gladly post a 1500-word comment, I’ll be damned if I’m going to read one. No offense.
Legally, pirates at sea are fair game. You can literally hang them from the yard-arm. No law protects them. We might be justified in pursuing them inland, but who wants to get involved with Somalia, again, now?
Politically, President Obama has to be very careful; he’s trying to get as much mileage as he can out of his contrite pose toward the world (which is wearing thin). Then there’s the tricky business of the first black president ordering the military into Africa. Military operations in an impoverished, black, Muslim African nation cause him problems on multiple fronts global and domestic.
Correction:
That is William Lind, of course. Dohh!
Funny that the warbots want to tie Somali pirates in with “Islamic Terrorists” when they are equal-opportunity hijackers. Last year, the Iranian ship Iran Deyanat. Apparently, some slip-up led to accidental death for some of the hijackers, so the junior warbots invented the story of the “Iranian Floating Dirty Bomb”.
http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/10/12/dirty-bomb-somali-pirates-thwart-iranian-dirty-bomb-attack-on-israel/
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2008/10/did-iran-attemp.html
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/275641.php
Are TomT’s comments a deliberate parody of the style of commentors on neocon honeypots like HotAir?
In poor countries, like where many of Obama’s ignored relatives live, people carry away human waste in “honeybuckets”, also known as “honeypots”.
We must assume that at “HotAir”, liberals will feel free to drop in and equivalence the term “neocon” with human waste, and then begin to work on denigrating the person, rather than the ideas.
Dominic’s comment is perfect for this blog, as we were discussing whether or not we could examine VD Hansen’s original call for stricter countermeasures, without calling him names, or ascribing to him a desire to kill innocent people.
Rather than discussion, some liberals would prefer to fling human waste, as Dominic points out.
Ron Paul’s plan to fend off pirates:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090415/pl_politico/21245