I’ve two suggestions:
1) - - - Don’t miss reading the comment thread of Somali Pirates Challenge Obama, U. S. Navy. You’ll find a lot of informed reasoning and practical recommendations there as to what we should be doing.
2) - - - Few people know more about the use of force by rogues past and present and how to deal with them than military historian John Keegan, whose classic works include The Face of Battle and Six Armies in Normandy.
Keegan has a column in the Daily Telegraph that’s headed:
Pirates must be hunted down and their vessels sunk on sightI hope you give Keegan’s column a read. It’s the most informed assessment of the pirate menace I’ve read. He recommends responses to piracy that've been effective and discusses what civilized nations need to do now to implement them.
The sooner we tackle this menace, the sooner our seas will be safe again, argues John Keegan.
If you read Keegan’s column, I’d be eager to know what you think of it.
3 comments:
Keegan is spot on as to what needs to be done. But I wager he would admit it's unlikely there are sufficient world leaders with the backbone and the testosterone to do what's necessary.
For the decoy ships, all that would be required would be a bank of flamethrowers on port and starbord quarter. Let the pirates try boarding a barbecue!
One of my last assignments with the Navy Antiterrorist Alert Center in the eighties and nineties was to monitor piracy incidents affecting US Navy assets. Although the problem has grown much larger in the past three or four years, it's not new by any means. Something should have been done long ago before it became the serious problem it is. But just like al Qaeda--if Slick Willie had done his job, there's a good chance we would never have experienced 9-11.
Tarheel Hawkeye
The problem will be is there really the will on the part of the Europeans and the United States to do what needs to be done. I am not sure that the current administration has the stomach to do anything other than to say that we are against piracy. The Europeans would much rather have the Americans do the down and dirty work so that they can then sit back and carp about every move.
Frankly, it is appalling that an American citizen is being held by pirates and bobbing around in a lifeboat (as I write this) with a gun to his head - meanwhile our navy monitors the situation. The US is quickly becoming a paper tiger - something I never thought I would live to see.
cks
Agree 100% with the article.
It's basic common sense, we should learn from our history.
I especially liked this part.
'Many would complain about such tactics but, in my opinion, pirates have no rights – indeed, it will be vital to exclude human rights lawyers from the anti-piracy campaign.'
Scott S.
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