Appeasement on the High Seas

So now we're back to psychoanalyzing global criminals, trying to figure out what the aim of the Somali pirates is.

Their aim is to extort money from international shipping companies. There! And I'm not even a foreign policy expert.

The White House and Foggy Bottom are also wringing their hands over what to do. Here's an easy answer: Bomb their little dhows to flinders. Send in SEAL teams to free the hostages and execute the pirates on the spot. As UltimaRatioReg says in a reader post at the USNI blog post, How to Beat the Somali Pirates,

A few YouTube videos of pirate vessels (with pirates in them) being shot to pieces or of captured pirates swinging from the gibbet would raise the risk side of the risk/reward equation significantly.

I agree. Bombing the rotting port cities by the sea that harbor these miscreants also comes to mind. This is a business for them, complete with offices, financiers, negotiators and spokesmen. Time to take the whole rotten operation out.

I know, this is easy for me to say because I have no relatives held hostage over there. But if we do this one time, and let them know we'll do the same thing again, with no potential for gaining a ransom, the kidnapping will stop because the financial gain is gone from their criminal enterprise.

We need to send a message: Touch an American flagged tanker, or an American crew member on a ship flying any flag, and we will kill you and break your stuff.

Of course, this is not nuanced enough for our enlightened government that is straining to be liked again by global tyrants and the international weak sisters who enable them.

As another poster at the UNSI blog mentioned, "John Paul Jones would not have put up with this shit." Indeed, he and President Thomas Jefferson knew how to defeat enemies on the high seas. Contrast Jefferson's strong action against the Barbary Coast Pirates with the current weak-kneed response of today. Even France is taking stronger action than we are.

The Obama administration needs to learn what Jefferson and Jones knew instinctively:
Whatever you tolerate, you get more of.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/10/AR2009041003734_2.html?hpid=topnews
http://blog.usni.org/?p=2125