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| Africa Horn |
| No deterrent to pirates, U.S. commander says |
| 2009-01-16 |
| Guess who, Pappy! :-) I turned in my papers and like you said they made me a three-star armchair admiral. I'm to report to duty as soon as I finish my beer and figure out how to get the footrest folded back down. Piracy off the coast of Somalia can't be stopped until there is some authority to bring pirates to justice, according to the commander of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain. A five-inch gun isn't enough authority? Because there is no working government in Somalia and no country is willing to take captured pirates, bring them to trial and detain them, there is no deterrent for pirates to stop attacking ships, Vice Admiral William Gortney said at a Pentagon briefing Thursday. Sounds like an excuse. Somalia is a failed state. There is nothing there to call a state. Maybe some years ago. But not today. Time to take the reigns from the dead driver. "The problem is there's not a way to -- until we have a mechanism [to hold them] accountable and try them for their actions, there's no way to -- to finish the problem," Gortney said. Sooo it sounds like we're going to wait for the dead driver to miraculously spring back to life. Maybe in another 100 years after the West gets tired of Islam. The United States is making a deal with a country in the eastern Africa region to hold and try pirates captured by the U.S.-led Combined Task Force 151, a new maritime anti-piracy mission started earlier this month. Don't tell me. Some countries in the region are holding out for cash before they OK this? He said an official announcement would be made after the deal with the country is official. In the past three months, piracy attacks have averaged about 12 to 14 a month off the east coast of Africa. As of mid-January, the attack numbers are already at the average of the past three months, according to Gortney. "That [number] should tell you that we're not -- we're not being 100 percent successful on the deterrence of the attempt. And that's where we have to go after," Gortney said. The Indians dealt with one. The Russians dealt with one. And ship captains who saw them coming and hit the gas dealt with the rest. Hmm. Far from 100% if you ask me. The United States is expecting other nations to join the anti-piracy task force, but at the moment, the United States is the only country in the task force with just three ships off of the waters of Somalia. There are ships from some European and Asian countries patrolling the waters independently as well, primarily guarding cargo ships from their own countries. Pirates attacked nearly 100 vessels and hijacked as many as 40 in the waters off the coast of Somalia in 2008, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Pirating off of Somalia has increased during the past four to five years as fishermen from Somalia realize that pirating is more lucrative than fishing. Additionally, pirates are able to get away with the crimes because of the lack of government and overall lawlessness in the country. What country? In name only. Doesn't count. It would be nice to have a new law, but I don't really think anyone is going to complain. Gortney said statistically the chances of ships being pirated off of Somalia less than one percent, but it won't be stopped until piracy is "disincentivized." One percent? That's quite a bit in my opinion. Imagine whether or not you'd let your kids drive if those were the odds of getting into an accident. But for all my bravado, I realize it's tough when you follow the rules. But sometimes, the situation defies the rules. There should be rules in place for situations like this, even if they are on the a$$-end of the world. It's happened before, and until someone puts a bit of effort into coming up with some kind of rules to deal with it, it will continue to happen over and over until someone does. It's like the entire NYPD can't take down some 10-year old bully because they can't find the bully's mom. Somalia is a failed state. There is no authority there whatsoever. The rules do not fit the situation. There is nobody there to give a $hit, let alone take care of lawbreakers. Suppose some kid's mom doesn't discipline their kid and they get out of hand. There are legal means to deal with it and keep others "disincentivezed" from copying the kid's behavior. This is the same thing, just on a bigger scale. And even if the kid's mom gets mad and jumps up and down in the police station and threatens to sue the police because she's too proud to admit she's lost control, why should the police care any more than governments who are trying to put down pirates? It's all just hot air and we all know it. The fact is, until the mom and the Somalian government get it back together, everyone has to step in for them and maintain order. And this principle should apply everywhere else in the world, too. Unless the failed state has nukes, of course. |
| Posted by:gorb |
| #17 Barbara, the controlling authority is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and other international law. Check this if you want to know more or having difficulty sleeping. Bottom line, the lawyers are in charge so expect it to take a long time. That also makes me suspicious of relying on India and Russia in the longer term. I suspect India especially will be subject to lawfare. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2009-01-16 19:45 |
| #16 So, here's a strategy: the US captures a boatload of pirates; we call the nearest Indian or Russian ship; we put the pirates back in their boat, with one or more key engine parts missing; we clear the area. After that we can play Sgt Schulz - "I saw nuttink" |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2009-01-16 19:09 |
| #15 To reiterate about the Indians and Russians, it's evolving to a similar pattern of how we handled hot prisoners - returning them to another country to do the dirty work to extract information. Technically we're clean, but the job gets done with little real complaining on methods by our side. Our guys will continue to play defense, but the other players will get more action [and deference] from the pirates. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-01-16 18:37 |
| #14 "Said controlling authority has issues to work out: how to hold the pirates. How to try them. What to do with them after you try them" Who's the "controlling authority," Steve? As for the others, it's probably unrealistic, what with all the liberal whiners about, but I still think the rest of the stuff (holding, trying, etc.) could be taken care of with a long walk on a short plank. How the hell did the world get to the point where we coddle pirates? They discarded their rights when they attacked another person's ship. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-01-16 17:48 |
| #13 not turn them all to chum... but a few... come on.. you saying we cant even try to do that? |
| Posted by: Abu do you love 2009-01-16 17:20 |
| #12 Okay, okay. Pappy's point before (and one I agree with) is that it's all well and good to talk about killing pirates, and another thing to make it happen. The folks who've served in the Navy seem to understand this. It's a mighty big patch of water. You have frigates and helos because no one is putting a carrier on duty for this. There's a LOT of ship traffic, with all sorts of different routes, and the ship owners are not interested in 1) escorts 2) armed guards and 3) convoys. Piracy is an expense to them, not a life or death matter. And let's be clear, international law is different than 300 years ago. Back then you killed pirates because you didn't want to spend four months with them on your small ship while you dragged them back to Portsmouth. Today communications are instantaneous and one can dump a load of pirates on a controlling authority within a day or two. Said controlling authority has issues to work out: how to hold the pirates. How to try them. What to do with them after you try them. And no, sorry, we can't do an ARCLIGHT on the Somali shore. And napalm is right out. Finally, the pirates aren't exactly stupid. They understand the sea, ships, small boats, communications, handling money, and small weapons, and they learn from experience. So go ahead and boast about how you'd turn them all into chum. The professionals know better. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2009-01-16 17:10 |
| #11 Pulling into a Somali port with decorated yardarms would make a fair deterrent. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2009-01-16 16:49 |
| #10 Seems that piracy would diminish fairly quickly if they started running out of pirates... hmm that might suggest a strategy |
| Posted by: Abu do you love 2009-01-16 16:02 |
| #9 No shark-infested waters nearby? |
| Posted by: kirk 2009-01-16 15:23 |
| #8 You do it the Chinese way. If these junk boats just disappear as you approach, nothing more need be said or done. If they keep disappearing fast enough, suddenly the problem just goes away. Everyone is happy. |
| Posted by: Woozle Elmeter 2700 2009-01-16 11:40 |
| #7 The USN is the DOJ's bitch. Fix that problem and piracy disappears. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2009-01-16 11:29 |
| #6 Sink their ships and dump them on the Yemeni coast. Punishment enough, right there. |
| Posted by: mojo 2009-01-16 11:24 |
| #5 killing them is a pretty good deterrent |
| Posted by: rabid whitetail 2009-01-16 11:07 |
| #4 One of the advantages of 'losing' the first half of the last great war, you get to turn your extended colonies over to other colonial powers. It's no longer yours, particularly when the victors tell you to give it up. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-01-16 10:43 |
| #3 You know, there's a word that hardly ever gets mentioned when talking about Somalia. And its ITALY. Since Somalia was a colony of Italy, and since it now has no working govt, you'd think Italy would be getting dragged into this mess. But they seem to have no liability there at all. Look at how GB and France, even Belgium get raked over the coals concerning their former colonies, but for some reason, not Italy. Its just curious to me that they seem to be the only exception to the rule. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2009-01-16 09:55 |
| #2 The Indians dealt with one. The Russians dealt with one. And Both are not infested with lawyers. There needs to be a cap on the ratio of lawyers to non-lawyers in any geographical and sovereign territory. If the cap is exceeded then like deer population out of control you issue 'permits' to get it back down under the limit. It won't be a perfect world, but then it's never been perfect but certainly has been more rational without so many of them. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-01-16 09:19 |
| #1 ...there is no deterrent for pirates to stop attacking ships, Vice Admiral William Gortney said at a Pentagon briefing Thursday. I can think of at least one deterrent. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-01-16 09:17 |