After several unproductive years of dithering in the Indian Ocean, navies and shipping companies are slowly changing their mindset towards countering piracy. Unsurprisingly, this shift has begun to produce a positive outcome. For 2011, the number of attempted Somali pirate attacks has continued to increase as in previous years; however, it appears that to date this year, the rate of successful attacks has actually begun a decline. What is contributing to this change? First, shipping companies have started to put aside their fears of liability and embraced the only foolproof deterrence against successful attacks embarked armed security. Eaglespeaks post here demonstrates the higher incidence of armed security defeating attacks.
Last week, Intertanko, the association of independent tanker owners, revealed a reversal in its earlier position by releasing guidelines on contracting armed security. The tanker industry had no choice but to get tough on piracy, as loaded tankers are especially susceptible to boarding due to their slower speed and low freeboards. Additionally, with the skyrocketing cost of bunkers, the four or so more days of transit that crude carriers from the Arabian Gulf use in an effort to hug the Indian coast is beginning to take a toll on profits. One of the oft-heard reasons against using armed security is that it will escalate the amount of violence in piracy. This argument holds little water as attacks by automatic weapons and RPGs, the torture, and execution of crews by pirates demonstrate the level of violence in these crimes is already quite unacceptable. Furthermore, Ive heard industry executives mention that there are rumblings that crews might soon refuse to sail in the Indian Ocean if something isnt done to protect them. The economic consequences of this sort of reaction couldn't be ignored by anyone, much less the shippers themselves. What additional armed security will do is force the pirates to seek out softer unarmed targets. Inevitably, other components of the shipping industry will have no choice but to tell their lawyers to pack sand and embrace this positive measure to protect their crews and cargoes.
The second factor contributing towards a tipping point in piracy is that the coalition navies have abandoned worthless catch and release tactics and increased their own level of violence. Some of the more aggressive European navies have set the standard for proactively stopping pirates, and even the USN has begrudgingly begun to see the value in killing pirates caught in the act.
In addition to more aggressive tactics on the part of navies and the shipping companies, what else needs to be done to rid the Indian Ocean of the scourge from Somali Piracy? First, we need to continue to target pirate facilitators. As Ive noted, detaining teenage criminals and cajoling various jurisdictions into expanding their jails is ineffectual and tantamount to flushing taxpayer money down the CHT system. Finally, we should:
Disrupt and Dismantle Pirate Bases Ashore: Piracy at sea can only be abated if pirate bases ashore are disrupted or dismantled. We have obtained appropriate authority from the United Nations Security Council and agreement from Somali authorities to do so. We will work with concerned governments and international organizations to disrupt and dismantle pirate bases to the fullest extent permitted by national law.
Interestingly, this passage is an excerpt from National Security Councils December 2008 policy on Countering Piracy Off the Horn of Africa. Granted, this document was created under a previous administration, but its still the most current US counter-piracy policy openly published. Lacking the will to enforce our own policies is an indicator of a disfunctional bureaucracy at best.
Although the monsoon season is about to begin, given the pirates' use of motherships, we should expect the number of attacks to not fall as severely as in previous seasons. Nevertheless, with the hardening of many targets and the realization by most involved that lawfare doesn't work, we are now presented with an opportunity to tip control of the seas in the Indian Ocean towards rule of law and away from hapless youths with AKs. Taking the fight to the pirates' leadership and sanctuary ashore is the logical next step.
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but really the only solution that would have worked best and cheapest was arming and supporting Dr Farole of Puntland who was trustworthy and willing to help
The UN didn't want to recognise him because they want to maintain the fiction of a unified Somalia which is actually 3 countries. Puntland, Somaliland and the completely dysfunctional ex-italian South Central region (containing mogadishu and al shabaab)
the relatively functional north wants nothing to do with the south
#2
dr farole has locked up hundreds of organised criminals linked with piracy in the last four years. But he has not much to do it with.
Annual budget for 2008 was $15 million and anybody who has been to Africa can tell you the US$ does not go very far there. food, items are expensive even compared to the West.
If they just gave Dr Farole some much needed support, piracy would shrivel up and go away.
you need order on the land to control piracy, and you need it in puntland as that is where most of the attacks come from
#3
A report issued by the UN last month reported average annual pirate earnings of US$80,000. The only way to get them to give that up is to kill them. And deport any smalli who supports pirate warlords.
#4
Until we totally destroy such places as Haradhare and Eyl, the piracy situation won't substantially diminish. We need to turn those two tiny villages into slagged stones and barren waste, even worse than it is now. Let whomever wishes to wage war against us (and piracy is a form of warfare) that the repercussions will be swift and devastating, otherwise we'll spend the rest of our lives in war. Unfortunately, we have far too many idiots in both Congress and the bureaucracy that have no understanding of history, and no sense of people or perspective.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/25/2011 17:46 Comments ||
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#4
If there was any doubt that Obambi is completely uninformed on many major issues, the speech last week should leave no doubt.
It was an almost biblically stupid in its vapidness and irrationality. I am stunned at how intent he seems to be in blowing up everything the US has worked on and for over the last fifty years.
"Somewhere in Kenya, a village is missing its idiot"
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
05/25/2011 10:28 Comments ||
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#5
BC, I think it was utterly unremarkable. He's simply repeating every vapid, irrational, progressive meme that masquerades as astute scholarship on campuses from coast to coast. He's intent on blowing up everything the US has worked for over the last fifty years because that's what he was taught, everyone he knows was taught the same thing, and questioning the dogma gets you punished or cast out so no one does it. Just one of many thousands of brain-dead commie-bots those ideological swamps crank out every year. What's stunning is the very occasional hiccup here and there when he gets something right.
#9
Obama makes me think of Peter Sellers in "Being There"...same non-intellectual posing and pseudo deep thinking.
JFK almost never used a teleprompter and I bet you could get Ronnie to think on his feet. This guy is a wind up toy and a tape recorder and an empty suit.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
05/25/2011 20:52 Comments ||
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LAHORE - The ongoing tussle between the ISI and the CIA has intensified while the Indian, Israeli and Afghani secret agencies have stepped in to support the American secret service, raising concerns about possibility of more attacks on Pakistans military and other strategic installations.
In collaboration with the American CIA (Central Investigation Agency), Indian RAW (Research and Analysis Wing), Israels Mossad and Afghanistans RAMA (Research and Analysis Milli Afghan) have enhanced their activities in Pakistan in order to exert pressure on the ISI (Inter-services Intelligence).
Intelligence sources are of the view that terrorist attack at the PNS Mehran base in Karachi is a part of this conspiracy and through it a message has been conveyed to the military leadership that more such attacks could be carried out if their (international conspirators) agenda is not followed.
A strong response from the ISI chief has dashed the Indias nefarious design of surgical strikes in Pakistan while Chinas clear stance and expression of support for Pakistan has also played a pivotal role in this regard. Military experts are considering their options and ways to counter the new wave of terrorism.
According to sources, a strong reaction came from the Pakistan military to US unilateral operation in Abbottabad on May 2 in which Osama bin Laden was killed. Pakistan took certain stern measures like ban on visas for Americans and ordering some unwanted Americans to leave the country were taken, besides indicating that NATO supply lines might be severed if drone strikes were not stopped. Raymond Davis like secret contractors had started leaving Pakistan before US Senator John Kerry visited Islamabad.
Posted by: John Frum ||
05/25/2011 08:32 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#1
Yep. That's it. Better than having to acknowledge a failed society with broken leadership.
Though information about the attacks remains scarce, a few implications - however tentative, might be sketched out: whether this is revenge for the US raid on Osama bin Laden; whether Pakistan's nuclear weapons can be safe if its bases are not; the impact of the destruction of a maritime surveillance plane; and how this might further disrupt Sino-Pakistani relations.
Uh oh. Somebody better call Camping...
Ahmadinejad believes that the covert emergence has, in fact, occurred. Therefore, he acts like he no longer needs the supreme leader and that he can disobey him, as he is taking his orders directly from the Mahdi himself.
#3
FOX NEWS AM > GLEN BECK Segment > IIRC His Glen-ness argued that RADICALIST ISLAM will inevitably defeat the US-West + triumph because FAITH TRUMPS EVERYTHING, IRREGARDLESS OF KIND + METHOD + ENDURING POWER. IT MAY TAKE TIME TO DO SO, BUT FAITH = GOD? ALWAYS WINS IN THE END.
IIRC again, in closing his show Glen quoted Ben Franklin, which IIUC Penn called upon Colonial Americans to take pride + entrench themselves deeply AMAP in their hate which in turn proves + empowers Faith by passionate inspiration of people to rise up in order to do "the right thing" [Moralism]???
This speech was given at UCLA on May 11. Horowitz will be speaking about the organized campaign of anti-Semitism on America's college campuses at UC Santa Barbara on May 26. Horowitz's UCSB speech will be called, "Infantile Disorders at UC Santa Barbara: Why the Muslim Students Association Is Afraid of David Horowitz." The Muslim Students Association is expected to protest and will be hosting a counter-event across the street.
Drive behind the Geffen Contemporary, an art museum in downtown Los Angeles, and you will notice that it has painted over the graffiti scrawled on its back wall. Ordinarily, that wouldnt be surprising; the Geffens neighbors also maintain constant vigilance against graffiti vandalism. But beginning in April, the Geffena satellite of L.A.s Museum of Contemporary Artwill host what MOCA proudly bills as Americas first major museum survey of street art, a euphemism for graffiti. Graffiti, it turns out, is something that MOCA celebrates only on other peoples property, not on its own. Long, but an interesting read...
You want to know something really scary? Everyone knows I live in a nice mid-sized Chinese city. A couple of new young, foreign residents wondered aloud at the lack of graffiti defacing the city. They said it needed some. Fuckwit hipsters.
Not to fear: transgressive is still one of the highest compliments that Deitch can bestow. For one of his New York dinner parties, he commissioned a performance piece in which unclothed gay Austrians urinated into one anothers hats while standing on a scaffold above the dinner guests. The work was spectacular, perverse, uplifting, beautifully horrifying, and deeply transgressive, Deitch told The New Yorker.
#3
I once saw some naked Australians urinate on an electric fence. The result was "spectacular, perverse, uplifting, and beautifully horrifying". The language that followed was truly artistic.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
By Robert Spencer
