More Piracy Near Somalia

[motorfirebox]

Mass slaughter? Define mass in this context please.

Killing enough Somalis to dissuade piracy.

Motorfirebox:
First off, how did you come up with that name? It is kind of interesting as I imagine is the story behind it.

I came up with it around the time Hackers came out. That movie impressed on me the need to have a cool handle on the Internet, or else nobody would take me seriously. It's all in the name!

I am interested in the immediate problem at hand, murderous Somali teenagers shooting people, kidnapping them and stealing their things. The immediate solution to that immediate problem is shooting said teenagers, sinking their boats and continuing to do so until they figure pirating isn't really so much fun. That puts an end to the violence (no more pirates, no more shooting pirates) and the whole cloth solutions can be started. As mentioned by Bill Moore, I think, you have to stop the shooting first before you can start effective development.

We haven't been doing that much, hardly at all. It is still big news when one or two pirates dies by the sword at sea. When it doesn't make the news at all because it has become routine, then the thing will stop; and then it won't make the news because it has stopped. If there is a pack of coyotes beleaguering your sheep, you don't just drop one, almost hit one then throw up your hands and wail that there is nothing you can do; you keep dropping them till they are all gone. (please don't come back with the coyotes from the next county will come over, these analogies can only take so much strain)

You mentioned starving fishermen. I don't know that much about the area in the area that used to be Somalia where all this started, but most of the starvation I've read about in the area that used to be Somalia was caused by armed groups of murderous Somali teenagers (they make another appearance) stealing food from other Somalis. My information is probably dated though. I would note that most of the pirates identified, to my knowledge, have been teens or men in their early 20s, about what you would expect in brigands. There don't seem to be many mature men who are heads of families righting the wrong by stealing the M.V. Itinerant and crew and ransoming it for $50 million.

A few things. Most of the reports I've read have indicated that shooting people is generally a last resort. For the number of pirate attacks over the past few years, there have been a very low number of casualties. So I'm not sure it's all that fair to call these guys "murderous", as if they're just running around looking for people to kill. With the amount of money involved in these operations, I doubt the actually murderous teenagers are ever allowed to be pirates by their fellow ex-fishermen.

I don't view piracy as the immediate problem. The piracy has been going on for something approaching three decades, now. The illegal fishing and dumping seems to be younger by ten to twenty years, and as I've said many times (and it's not just me--almost any serious examination of the issue you care to study says the same thing), seems to be responsible for the recent increase in incidents. The only thing that's been shown to effectively decrease incidents of piracy is the increase of law and order.

Killing pirates to reduce piracy is flat out a non-starter. This is Somalia. I don't think you're taking into account the amount of violence we would have to bring to the area to even get noticed, much less actually have an effect on the behavior of the population at large. I mean, read about what's going on there--this is a serious moneymaker for these people, and while a lot of the financing goes to international financiers, another large portion goes directly to the villages from which the pirates stage their operations. They're not going to stop because we kill a few of their shooters. They're not even going to stop because we kill a lot of their shooters--again, this is Somalia. It's not like they're going to run out.

Piracy in Somalia is a political issue. It's a social issue. Aside from the issue of who is to blame for the rise in piracy, any study of the area that consists of more than a quick glance at the actual incidents of piracy will reveal that there's more to the problem than dudes in need of being shot.

There are lots of organizations who would be willing to go to the area that used to be Somalia to provide whatever help you care to name. I read they don't because it is too blinking dangerous. They operate in other completely confused areas of Africa, but not in the area that used to be Somalia. That may have something to do with the nature of the people who live in that area.

Which, as I said, makes shooting people the least likely course of action to effect change. In a room full of shouting people, you're not likely to make yourself heard by trying to outshout them. If we were to try to outshout (outshoot) Somalia, we would have to kill hundreds of thousands of people. Like, high hundreds. Anything less would just spawn more al Shabaabs. I won't even get into the effects that would have on our international relations--I'm just going to leave it there: killing hundreds of thousands of people to save a few million bucks.

You mention building up the Somali naval forces. That is a grand idea. I think the first order of business would be to make a Somalia out of the area that used to be Somalia. That is a hard thing that nobody seems to have the stomach for, except the Ugandans. They are trying at least, and maybe the Burundians too, I think they are up there with the Ugandans. But in lieu of that, we should build up the Somaliland naval forces. There might be a chance there. Puntland, not so much.

I have a minor quibble with that. Puntland is actually pretty swank by Somali standards. They have a functioning government, including an education system. And since it's where the majority of the pirate attacks come from anyway, that's where I'd start. Give the pirates something to do besides pirate and the attacks will drop.

I really don't care about what grave policy errors we made in the past concerning the area that used to be Somalia. As I said above, I am concerned about here and now. Therefore, I symbolically scourge the west, and the US most of all (naturally), for our past sins in the area that used to be Somalia. Now can we get to shooting some pirates and making the lives of innocent mariners a little easier?

Regarding this statement-"If you spank your kid when he's good, and you spank your kid when he's bad, he's not going to bother trying to be good for long. " You do what you want with your kid. But when you are driving down the distant interstate and some kid who lives next to it tries to carjack you, I concede your right to smite him a mighty blow regardless of what he says his circumstances are. (I hope I didn't strain that analogy beyond the breaking point.)

Our past sins are relevant because they affect our expectations for the region. A lot of the thinking about Somalia tends to run along the lines of "Somalia would be better off is Somalis stopped being so violent." That is demonstrably untrue--Somalis tried not being so violent, and they got invaded by Ethiopia for their troubles. This basically means that Somalis are never going to stop being so violent on their own in the forseeable future. Since we're the ones that dissuaded them from not being violent, it seems reasonable that the responsibility for giving Somalis reasons to stop being violent falls on us.

Again, I'm not against taking action against pirates who are presently engaged in piracy. But we simply can't shoot enough pirates to stop the epidemic without a) spending more than the pirates take in ransom in the first place, and b) doing some truly horrific things.

Here is a link to the story reporting the 4 Americans on board the pirated boat Quest were killed.

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/22/fo...ec1_lnk3|45602

Annnnnd there goes any possibility of us doing something besides shooting pirates. Nice one, Somalia.