I beg your pardon? This is in the WaPo, on page A15. I'll have to see if I can find the other, more balanced, nuanced, point of view on another page; the one bemoaning the violations of the pirates rights.
With the rescue of American Richard Phillips from the hands of pirates yesterday, there was a blip of good news from the Indian Ocean, but it remains a scandal that Somali pirates continue to routinely defeat the world's naval powers. And worse than this ongoing demonstration of cowardice is the financing of terrorists that results from the huge ransom payments these pirates are allowed to collect.
It is naive to assume that the millions paid annually in ransom to pirates merely enables them to purchase villas and fancy automobiles. Somalia is a country without government, where anarchy is being exploited by terrorist organizations. Although the threat that pirates pose to commercial ships is increasingly known, little is being done to combat it. And we must consider the bigger picture: Terrorists are far more brutal than pirates and can easily force pirates - petty thieves in comparison - to share their ransom money.
We already know that Somalia is an ideal fortress and headquarters for global terrorist activity. The United States has learned the painful lesson that Somalia is not an easy place for our military to establish law and order; two of our interventions there became embarrassing defeats - in 1993 and more recently in support of Ethiopian forces.
So why do we keep rewarding Somali pirates? How is this march of folly possible?
Start by blaming the timorous lawyers who advise the governments attempting to cope with the pirates such as those who had been engaged in a standoff with U.S. hostage negotiators in recent days. These lawyers misinterpret the Law of the Sea Treaty and the Geneva Conventions and fail to apply the powerful international laws that exist against piracy. The right of self-defense - a principle of international law - justifies killing pirates as they try to board a ship.
Nonetheless, entire crews are unarmed on the ships that sail through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Shipowners pretend that they cannot trust their crews with weapons, but the facts don't add up. For one thing, in the United States most adults except felons are allowed to have guns, and the laws of many other nations also permit such ownership. Even if owners don't want everyone aboard their ships to be carrying weapons, don't they trust the senior members of their crews? Why couldn't they at least arm the captain and place two experienced and reliable police officers on board?
When these pitifully unarmed crews watch pirates climb aboard their vessels, they can do little to fight back. And while the United States and many other naval powers keep warships in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean - deployments that cost millions of dollars - these ships cannot keep pirates from boarding commercial ships that have unarmed crews.
The international right of self-defense would also justify an inspection and quarantine regime off the coast of Somalia to seize and destroy all vessels that are found to be engaged in piracy. These inspections could reduce the likelihood that any government will find itself engaged in a hostage situation such as the one that played out in recent days. Furthermore, the U.N. Security Council should prohibit all ransom payments. Whoa! That would be a statement from the UN!
If the crew of an attacked ship were held hostage, the Security Council could authorize a military blockade of Somalia until the hostages were released.
Cowardice will not defeat terrorism, nor will it stop the Somali pirates. If anything, continuing to meet the pirates' demands only acts as an incentive for more piracy.
Fred C. Iklé, a distinguished scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the author of "Annihilation From Within" and "Every War Must End." Hmmm... "Annihilation From Within". Might be worth reading...
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/13/2009 06:07 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Actually, the pirates have been pretty slick in not killing, raping etc. Just crinmes against property and as all good internationalists know, that is the goddess-given right of the poor. I mean even the TOTUS is stealing from the well off to give to his drones. How can you even think about killing the poor Somalis for doing the exact same thing?
Posted by: Flolung Darling of the Geats1633 ||
04/13/2009 14:36 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Piracy and support of piracy are acts of war, and should be treated as such. Whatever government or nation that gives pirates a free hand to engage in such acts should be considered at war with those it attacks, and may expect counter-strikes. Such strikes should be left to the imagination - and the military capability - of the government hijacked ships belong to or are registered under. Piracy is only possible in an area such as Somalia, where there is no central government, or areas such as the Malacca Straits, where multiple governments have jurisdiction and little ability to patrol the shipping lanes. Killing pirates, crushing whole towns to dust, and even devastating whole countries are "expenses" the pirates can't afford, and the attacks will cease. That is, it will cease until "things" get back to normal and the shipping nations of the world drop their guard - again.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/13/2009 19:03 Comments ||
Top||
#3
FREEREPUBLIC/OTHER > IIUC seems the SEALS ostensib killed 3 MERE, UNTRAINED, SHOULD-BE-IN-SCHOOL-OR-WITH-MOM SOMALI TEENS when they rescued Philipps???. The FAILED SOMALI STATE + ECON is what induced these youths towards a life of high-seas crime [read. D *** NG IT, the US-ALLIES = future OWG-NWO MUST AND SHOULD INVADE].
No doubt about it.
Yep.
You betcha.
* DRUDGEREPORT > MILITARY CONSIDERS STRIKING AT PIRATE LAND BASES
All I really want to do is wish a Happy Easter to everyone celebrating this day. And now, let's give readers their writes.
John, I don't have the ZIP code for Zeus-ville, so please pass this letter on to the International Olympic delegates who visited Chicago.
"Dear Olympic Mavens: I've been asking around, talked to lotsa guys and nobody wants your five-ringed circus coming here. Nobody. We've got enough games already. Only Daley and his pals want the 2016 Olympics in Chicago. They figure to clean up. They're the bride. We're the broom. If Chicago is your kind of town, here's an alternate. North Korea. Nice weather, same bosses. Happy Easter. Stanley G.
Dear StanleyBoth North Korea and Chicago are ruled by short-shanked monarchs who protect their chumbolones from the hazards of democracy. Politicians, business types and a few giddy reporters want the Olympics here. That's about it. The state of Illinois is broke. The city is festooned with potholes. Taxes are up. Property values are down. But if the mayor grants me exclusive rights to sell Kass' Gyros/Celtic Corn at all Olympic venues, I'll start cheering too. Wings, the young guy who helps out around here, wants exclusive rights to Wings' Magic Sangria stands, and he'll make a fortune. Yes we can!
For the 2016 Chicago Olympic symbol, instead of five interlocking rings, why not five interlocking potholes? Rick J.
Dear RickImagine that one on the side of a CTA bus.
And on to King Abdullah, the Chia Obama, and what happens when one is laughing and eating cheerios at the same time.
Your best source is jailed. You track high-sea hijacks by text and email. You get through to captors on a satellite phone but are then roundly abused. Reporting on Somali piracy can be surreal.
While some in the world only woke up to the phenomenon with the first seizure of an American hostage, Somalia's modern-day buccaneers have been marauding off the Horn of Africa for years, taking hundreds of captives and millions in ransoms.
Covering their exploits is a near-daily task for reporters in Somalia and foreign correspondents in East Africa. At times, like the saga of just-released American hostage Richard Phillips on a lifeboat with four gunmen, it becomes a 24/7 job, requiring moral judgments and canny journalism.
Reuters reporters in Somalia were able to contact Phillips' captors -- on their fuel-less, floating lifeboat stalked by U.S. warships -- at the start of the standoff. They issued various defiant messages to the world in barked conversations.
Having then been informed, however, that their remarks were making instant headlines on TV networks across the world, the pirate gang became less cooperative. "We are tired of your calls. We have no time for journalists," is a polite translation of some of the last quotes our team managed to extract from the pirates. "If you bother us again, we will order someone in Mogadishu to meet you," a gang member added before the line went dead.
Often, though, the pirates are friendly and helpful, though they detest use of the p-word. "We never kill people. We are Muslims. We are marines, coastguards -- not pirates," one said.
Hostages say the pirates are normally as friendly as they can be under the circumstances. While they threaten to shoot or beat them if they do not cooperate, they also roast goat for their captives and pass phones around for calls home.
Hostages say the pirates are normally as friendly as they can be under the circumstances. While they threaten to shoot or beat them if they do not cooperate, they also roast goat for their captives and pass phones around for calls home.
"ELECTRONIC" HIJACKS
At Reuters, news of dramatic hijacks can often break by texts, sometimes in the middle of the night, from sources. On a warship in the Gulf of Aden, one journalist was first to report the hijacking of an Italian boat from staff who got a distress call then saw communications disappear in minutes.
One of the best sources on piracy in the region is Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme. Based in Kenya's Mombasa port, the body is a champion for sailors' welfare, essentially a human rights group.
Mwangura believes some authorities in the region, and wealthy kingpins in places like Nairobi, Dubai and London, are complicit in masterminding and sheltering piracy. Last year, Mwangura accused Kenya of trying to cover up the real destination of tanks on board a hijacked Ukrainian ship. Mwangura was labeled a "mouthpiece" for pirates by the Kenyan government, and went to jail on charges of giving "alarming" information and possessing $3 worth of marijuana. He was later released, but the case hangs over him in what he says is a crude attempt to gag him from telling the truth.
Kenya's sensitivity over Mwangura mirrors some of the moral ambiguities over covering piracy. Are journalists fanning criminality when they speak to the gangs, or adding to a necessary understanding of the phenomenon?
Answers, please, in a bottle on the Indian Ocean.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/13/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Pirates
#1
"We are Muslims ... NOT Pirates" > CNN Guest Pert argued this AM that many of the SOMALI PIRATES ARE HIGHLY TRAINED, CURRENT OR FORMER SOMALI MILITARY-POLICE SERVICEMEMBERS whom became pirates to survive Somalia's FAILED STATE [nearly non-existent GOVT + espec ECON]; and that THE "REAL/MOST DEDICATED" OF THE PIRATES ARE THE ONES HANDLING OR CONDUCTING THE NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE US-FOREIGN POWERS [top Somali Mil Commanders + Politicos], NOTSOMUCH THE ONES YOU SEE IN THE MEDIA WAVING THEIR WEAPONS OR EVEN ATTACKING THE SHIPS, TAKING CAPTIVES???
#2
Joe, it was a preposterous statement on its face, anyways. Many if not most of the original Caribbean pirates were devout, even fanatical Calvinists who thought of their predations as part of the Wars of Religion against the Catholic powers, especially their Catholic Majesties the Kings of Spain.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
04/13/2009 11:36 Comments ||
Top||
Seems to have been penned before the rescue. What a difference a few hours makes.
In what has become a commonplace occurrence, a small boat pulled alongside a container ship and a band of men from the smaller vessel boarded the larger one. It was just another day off the Somali coast - the latest in a series of more frequent and bolder acts of piracy.
What made Wednesday's incident different was that the target of the pirate attack was a U.S.-flagged ship, the first pirate attack on one in nearly 200 years. For Washington, the seizure of the Alabama serves as a powerful reminder that the world is full of different kinds of threats and that the U.S.'s military might alone is incapable of neutralising them.
While the crew of the Alabama eventually retook the ship, some of the pirates escaped on a lifeboat with the ship's captain, Richard Phillips of Vermont, as a hostage. In a hyper-poignant example of the ineffectiveness of military force, a beefed up U.S. (and international) naval presence in pirate-infested waters has failed to prevent acts of piracy, and, in the case of the Alabama, proved virtually useless in resolving the standoff.
The case in point is the almost farcical dance occurring now off the Somali coast - the tiny enclosed lifeboat containing the pirates and Phillips is being shadowed by an 8,000 tonne, 125-metre-long U.S. Navy destroyer.
"What we're seeing now is the irrelevance of the naval response to piracy," Peter Chalk, a maritime security expert from the RAND Corporation, told IPS. "They can't really do anything."
Unable, for various logistical and legal reasons, or unwilling, fearing harm to the hostage, the naval ship has not directly attacked the lifeboat. "What we're seeing now is the irrelevance of the naval response to piracy," Peter Chalk, a maritime security expert from the RAND Corporation, told IPS. "They can't really do anything. I think it really underscores the impunity of attacks."
Indeed, many of the companies operating the merchant ships at risk opt out of armed resistance. Instead of arming ship crews, relying on security forces, law enforcement, or even the naval patrols now attempting to dissuade pirates of their ambitions, the companies operating the ships usually choose to give the pirates exactly what they are looking for: money. "The number one objective in these situations is the return of their cargo and crew," said Chalk. "For them payment of ransom is the cheapest way to go."
The amount of cash the pirates have managed to get is difficult to estimate, but news reports usually put the number at between at between 30 and 120 million U.S. dollars for 2008 alone, with most experts saying the number is probably towards the higher end of that range. "On the part of the pirates, there is a great economic incentive to do this, and the costs of being caught are pretty low," said Chalk.
Following the money is difficult for the same reason that it's nearly impossible to go after the land bases of the pirates - Somalia has been effectively without a ruling central government since 1991. This makes it an ideal base for criminal activity like piracy.
"You have to address the root source - and that's on land."
Many experts agree that, though attempts to reduce piracy on the sea-side of the operation might prove effective, completely eliminating piracy requires a land-based solution that will bring Somalia's anarchy to an end. "Addressing piracy at sea is addressing too late," said Chalk. "That's the endpoint. You have to address the root source - and that's on land. It will have to be addressed at some point."
Chalk is not advocating armed raids on land-based pirate centres. Rather, he says that the most important part of a comprehensive plan would be to bring economic viability back to Somalia. In its anarchy, the country has relatively no economic life.
In an opinion piece in the Christian Science Monitor late last year, Katie Stuhldreher suggested that focusing on ending commercial fishing ships' destructive practices off of Somali coasts may allow the "disgruntled fisherman" who became pirates to return to their jobs as fishermen.
But Chalk's notion of providing employment opportunities as alternatives to piracy will take an effective government of some sort to implement. Furthermore, it's not clear that pirates would be willing to give up their lucrative trade to return to something like fishing, the traditional occupation of coastal Somalis.
"They're making so much money from piracy that fishing can't compete," said Amb. David Shinn, who has been stationed in Somalia's neighbour, Ethiopia, and currently is a professor at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. Shinn also doubts that commercial fisheries are even still operating along the dangerous Somali coast.
"There's certainly total agreement between people looking at this problem - in and out of the military - that there is virtually no solution of this problem of piracy until you have a solution on the ground in Somalia," he told IPS. "Unfortunately, that's not going to happen overnight."
"In the meantime, in order to prevent or reduce these incidents, I would take tougher action in the sea," he said. "It means danger and risk, but you have to do something."
Shinn suggests that ships in danger employ small security crews, as a few have.
"When you have a fast moving skiff coming at you in the ocean, you shoot a flare at it," he said. "And they turn around and go for [a ship] that doesn't have someone shooting a flare at them."
Shinn also suggests that if good intelligence exists on "mother ships" - usually trawlers or other larger boarts used to launch the smaller quick boats - they should be sunk.
"That's a tough action, and there's a great reluctance to do that," he said, "but until there's a government in Somalia, I would do that."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/13/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Pirates
#1
CNN > IIUC, Guest Pert claimed that Somalia's prime fishing grounds has been fished out by non-Somali, international fishing fleets, i.e. there is no fish for any of the locals to catch, + little to no Govt control = anarchy???
* "Give the pirates exactly what they are looking for: MONEY" > it explains why the local Babes have "FUTURE MRS. PIRATE" WEDDING? BELLS in their heads.
#2
I don't think one incident where one person acted (the captain) changes anything.
The current anti-piracy tactics are no solution and anyone who proposes a land based solution is fantasizing.
The piracy problem will get worse until new tactics are found.
The solution is obvious, which doesn't mean it will be implemented. Declare the main shipping lanes no go, free zones against small boats.
The only solution requires making the risk side of the risk/reward ratio high enough to discourage piracy. Sink enough small boats and you do that. Enough is at least dozens and probably hundreds
#5
Guest Pert claimed that Somalia's prime fishing grounds has been fished out by non-Somali, international fishing fleets
They might have gained a little sympathy if they had limited their attacks to the fishing fleets. But they went after French yachts, American freighters, and Soddy oil tankers. No sympathy.
#6
"What we're seeing now is the irrelevance of the naval response to piracy," Peter Chalk, a maritime security expert from the RAND Corporation, told IPS. "They can't really do anything."
Well...let's Chalk that one up
'expert' inexperience.
#7
"They can't really do anything"
No, they can. They just may not do anything - they are prevented from doing anything useful by layers of lawyers and gutless governments.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/13/2009 19:34 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Schools don't do a good job of teaching the difference between can, may shall and will.
#9
ION WAFF > SOMALI SHABAB-AL-MUJEHEDEEN MOVEMENT SPOKEMEN SHEIKH MUKTAR ROBOW VOWS TO CONTINUE FIGHT AGZ FOREIGN FORCES/SOMALI PIRATES WERE CREATED BY THE USA.
America has become quite accustomed to being despised by Europe. I wonder how Europe will adjust to being hated -- or worse, dismissed -- by America.
What's that? You thought that the contemptuous attitude to Old Europe had been definitively trounced when the swaggering Texan was replaced by Barack Obama, the cosmopolitan sophisticate who took time out from his own domestic political campaign to address adoring crowds in Berlin? Bizarrely enough, precisely the opposite has happened. Paradoxically, what Mr Obama has succeeded in demonstrating to his own nation is that no amount of charm and flattery, no degree of self-abasement and apology for American "arrogance" is going to get any meaningful reciprocity from the Old Europeans (which is to say France and Germany, and the EU which they dominate) who could give lessons in sublime, transcendental arrogance to any American president however urbane and nuanced his message might be.
It is only now America has stopped swaggering that its more erudite, socially acceptable commentators have begun to engage in vitriolic condemnation of European selfishness and irresponsibility in the face of international danger: what is emerging is, in effect, a mirror image of the anti-Americanism which has become commonplace among European intellectuals. And paradoxically, it is precisely the change in presidential tone and approach which has made this possible.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
04/13/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
that its more erudite, socially acceptable commentators have begun to engage in vitriolic condemnation of European selfishness and irresponsibility in the face of international danger:
It seems reality is intruding into the Liberal mythology.
#2
Sorry - WTF? Since when is this inexperienced, rhetorically leaden and clumsy, mono-lingual, remarkably ignorant empty suit a "sophisticate"? He reads lines of mediocre to bizarre prose ("stop the ocean's rise") well, though not as well as many coiffed local news TV airheads.
Bigger issue: again, for the billionth time, what exactly were the brash, arrogant, cowboy policies of Bush? Or Cheney, or Rumsfeld? Maybe it was abrogation of the ABM Treaty - which led, as warned, to that ruinous US-Russian arms race. Oh, wait ....
Rumsfeld was RESPONDING to despicable Euro arrogance with his Old Europe comment - a comment that was openly and warmly endorsed by several European leaders.
As welcome as the conclusions or predictions of this column may be, they rest firmly on the make-believe world of the "critics" during the Bush years. There was no "arrogance" or "swaggering" - and a demand to produce examples of same will always be met with silence or fumbled and unpersuasive references to irrelevancies. There was - and is - however, plenty of shameful Euro arrogance, and cowardice, contrasted with American integrity and determination.
Back to the embarrassment in chief. Sophisticated? Cosmopolitan? Are you effing kidding me? Because he speaks Austrian? (those who don't get the joke, behold the awesome power of distortion in what was once called the press)
#4
Verlaine, don't forget....the Obamanutz are all about style.
As much as it might make you and me both gag, Obama is pretty much everything they wish they could be. He's tall, thin, can wear a suit well, has a nice deep tone to his voice (even if what he says is total BS), and went to Hah-vahrd Law School. Add the bit about him being biracial and their own "valor" in voting for him mainly because of that fact...and it's enough to make some of the more radical experience near orgasmic frenzy at the mention of his name.
They've bought into the marketing that "he is soooo cool, and since I support him, I'm cool too!" to such an extent that anything that doesn't fit in with their "narrative" must be re-edited to fit.
Remember, we have always been friends with Oceania, and have always been at war with Eastasia.
#5
Well, the 'Burg dismissed EUrope long ago. The libs are just pissed that EUrope hasn't bowed down to The One. I doubt they will actually come to hate EUrope - it remains their ideal, socialist EUtopia.
Yeah, but a family feud can be bloody. That last go around between International Socialists and National Socialists in the early 40s left a lot of dead piled up around Eutopia.
#8
Lest we fergit, the BAMMER intends for the USA to construct a TRANSATLANTIC OIL/ENERGY PIPELINE SYS from CONUS-NORAM to the EUROZONE, across the NORAT [North Atlantic].
It's official. The USAF did want more F-22s and considered a 180-some force to be a high risk approach, but after the Defense Department provided the service with a new assessment of future wars, the USAF changed its mind. That's what the service's top leaders say in a signed piece in this morning's Washington Post. And being able to change one's mind is the sign of deep though, right?
The most important fact about this story is that it had to be written at all. Gates said on Monday that the AF had fully supported the decision to close the F-22 line. Look what the 1970s brought us - disco, the Village People, the F-15 ...
Nobody with any great power and influence (current or retired officers, for example) has spoken against it, except for the usual suspects on the Hill. Maybe Gates is reading the all-time-record comment thread on Ares.
The second important piece is here: First, based on warfighting experience over the past several years and judgments about future threats, the Defense Department is revisiting the scenarios on which the Air Force based its assessment. More money spent on anti-terrorist training and tactics will pay off in Iraq and Afghanistan. In China? Not so much
Read this in conjunction with the paragraph before it, which states that Donley and Schwartz concluded last summer that a 381-aircraft force was "low-risk" and that 243 was "moderate risk". It's not a huge logical leap to say that 183 was termed "high risk" - that is, likely to prove deficient against future threats.
The USAF has not changed its methodology, but the DoD "is revisiting the scenarios" - that is, changing the inputs to the process. Garbage in ...
That is of course the DoD's job; but the Gates team seems to have done this in only one specific case. And when was it done? As we've reported before, the USAF in March was saying that it needed more F-22s.
Third pivotal comment: Analysis showed that overlapping F-22 and F-35 production would not only be expensive but that while the F-35 may still experience some growing pains, there is little risk of a catastrophic failure in its production line. Of course, according to this article, the F-35 doesn't work very well in hot climes, but whatever. We never fight in those
In its simplest terms, whether a risk is acceptable or not depends on the level of risk - its probability - and its consequences. Most of us will buy a $1 raffle ticket for a $50 prize even if we know that 100 tickets have been sold. Russian roulette has a much higher chance of a "win" - five in six - but most of us won't do that. That's risk management.
Now define "catastrophic". If you mean, for example, that JSF unit cost doubles and production rates are halved - as has happened to a lot of programs - there may be "little risk" of this. But its effect in a fixed-budget world would be to gut the US Air Force: the consequence is so severe that the only acceptable level of risk is zero.
Far lesser, and more likely JSF problems - a further delay in flight testing, more moderate increases in cost and rate reductions - will have a major impact because of the project's size and because there's no backup plan.
They could accelerate the aging of the force, compel the USAF to shrink its front-line strength and starve the other needs - nuclear reconstitution, ISR, space and cyber - that the two USAF leaders mention in the WaPo piece. Indeed, a two-year slip and a 25 per cent overrun in the price tag would easily equal the cost of 60 more F-22s over the same period of time. But, now, the punchline ...
But finally, missing from this piece is the full byline: Michael Donley is secretary of the Air Force. Gen. Norton Schwartz is chief of staff of the Air Force. Both were appointed to their present positions by SecDef Gates last summer, after he fired their predecessors, who had argued in favor of more F-22s.
#1
Anyone envision fighting a major long term conflict on the Chinese mainland? Bueller, Bueller?
I recall reading in Utley's book Frontier Regulars that in testimony before Congress in the 1870s that the conflict in the New Mexico Territories and elsewhere bore no consideration to the needs of the Army which had to be prepared to fight a European style war! Things haven't changed much in many people's minds.
#3
hey rantyes, such a crying bitches you all sound. you fags are the shit of America did you have your ass kick in your youth that now cluster together in this imbeciles blog
All of you are just conservative crying frustrated bitches
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.
Your best source is jailed. You track high-sea hijacks by text and email. You get through to captors on a satellite phone but are then roundly abused. Reporting on Somali piracy can be surreal.
America has become quite accustomed to being despised by Europe. I wonder how Europe will adjust to being hated -- or worse, dismissed -- by America. 
It's official. The USAF did want more F-22s and considered a 180-some force to be a high risk approach, but after the Defense Department provided the service with a new assessment of future wars, the USAF changed its mind. That's what the service's top leaders say in a signed piece in this morning's Washington Post.
