The recent murder of four Southern California missionaries off the coast of Somalia is perfect metaphor to compare President Obama’s strategy in the War against Terrorism and the strategy of President Bush, or more correctly, the first president Bush.
When Navy Seals captured a young Somali pirate, they took him back to the United States to a courtroom. Tried and convicted, the Somali was given 30 years in a federal penitentiary. The response? More murder and mayhem.
The Gaurdian newspaper reported: “Pirates reacted angrily to the sentencing and have since vowed that they will kill hostages before being captured during military raids and sent to face trial.”
Just think of the reaction of Al Qaeda to a show trial in New York City of Guantanamo detainees. It certainly will make the Somali pirate threat seem like a bad joke.
But the first President Bush had a different, and more effective way of dealing with terrorists. When Major James Nick Rowe was kidnapped and murdered in the Philippines, Bush didn’t seek to bring the perpetrators to trial. Instead he instructed the Special Forces to deal with the problem, sending a message that ensured no one touched another American for a generation.
The “Rouge Warrior,” former Navy Seal Dick Marchinko described the response to the murder of Lt. James Rowe in his book Echo Platoon:
But fortunately (if there can be a fortunate aspect of this incident), his murder took place when George Bush was president. George Herbert Walker Bush may have looked like a WASP banker. But believe me, the man had the balls of a U-235. The day he was told that Jim had been murdered, he personally called Ace Lyons and told him, “Ace, this cannot stand. You deal with it.”
So Ace ordered me to set up an FX at Subic Bay. My prep time was ninety days – barely enough to develop the kind of tactical intel necessary to pull of a hit in absolute stealth…..My intel was developed by an old shipmate Tony Mercaldi, who was one of maybe three people in the world who know what Red Cell was really about. And Tony always came through.
He certainly did in Manila. It took him sixty-eight days of working without creating a single ripple to do it but he was finally able to identify the safe house where the ABB leadership met once a month. We hit it. Andy eah, we killed them all. Messily. With what the Hollywood writer assholes call “extreme prejudice.” Then we decapitated the corpses and left the tangos propped against the wall, holding their own heads in their lifeless
hands as a sign to their comrades that we Yankees are serious fuckin’ dudes….”
The Bush strategy against terrorism seems more effective that the Janet Reno/Eric Holder/Barack Obama strategy. If Bush were in office today, I have a feeling that a large number of Somali pirates would have a tough time sleeping every night.
Pirate ships should be sunk on sight, no aid given.
Jan 23rd, 2011.
Somali pirates attacked a ship with Russian and Ukranian nationals on board.
The Dutch ended it and all the pirates got away.
But that’s not my point.
May 27, 2010, seven months earlier, all of the Somali pirates who attacked a Russian tanker were killed.
Video here.
My point is: Somali pirates are not capable of acting based on prior knowledge of an enemy.
All people on the sea are potential booty.
All people on the sea are potential enemies.
Anything can happen.
These are VERY POOR people with no access to news media, research, history or even schooling.
They do what they do for money.
Their leaders are hidden from the front line battles in safe houses.
They supply the boats and armaments.
They get a big cut of the loot.
Kill all the pirates you can and you don’t stop the problem.
I would add to Blast’s comment above that a division of marines landed ashore to wipe out pirate strongholds and rescue hostages if possible would probably take the profit out of Somali piracy and cause them to seek other pursuits. Basic economics. Too much for Obama to comprehend.
The comparison between the Somali pirates and hitting a “land” target in the Philippines is entirely odious. Can’t you see that? What do you propose we do? Send Special Ops into Somalia and and … do what? And sinking the pirates won’t work. Why? Because the pirates are on the ships they capture. We go sinking foreign flagged ships, we’ve got an act of war — against our friends. Sink US-flagged ships, and we’ve got both liability for the sunk ships and cargo and for the dead seamen who go down with their ship.
No one has come up with an answer to the Somali pirates. Not Obama. Not George W Bush. Not any nation on earth.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
We should slip in “decoy” boats that look like easy targets in all in those areas.
Boats of different classification, pleasure boats to cargo ships as decoys.
But they are simply to be considered easy targets for the pirates.
As the scumbags approach, at 200 yards open up on them with “lead hell”
Leave them for shark bait.
Move on for another sting operation.
No warnings, no survivors, no mercy.
After the taking of the Maersk Alabama by pirates, the Maersk company said, screw the Suez Canal and ”saving 9 days at sea.”
They go around Africa instead.
Sure, it cost more in money, although not that much more.
Mostly it costs time.
To Maersk, the lost time is worth it.
Until merchant marines are allowed to really arm themselves it is a smart business decision.
Show no Mercy to pirates !!
There is always a way to deal with terrorists if we are willing. Clintons responses to the embassy bombings set the stage for 9/11. These folks only understand violence. Talking out differences is a weakness. A few A 10s can resolve most of these issues. The Russians didn’t mess around!
A hudna (temporary cease fire so that the Muslims can re-arm) took place after the IDF pinpoint killed three or four leaders of the military wing of Hamas, starting with Yassin, an old man confined to a wheelchair.
Sure a few years after these killings Hamas started in again against Israel, but, what else is new.
IDF had scared the head of Hezb’allah (Nasrallah) so bad he remains in hiding to this day.
This type of technique might work with the Somali pirates.
But I think all the hostages would be forfeit were we to start down this road.
Pirates are gangs, lead by gang leaders.
IF gang leaders are forced to hide they lose street cred.
It might work, but it would be pricey considering they’d kill all hostages.
And, even if it did work, it would only be temporary.
It appears that we are being lead by cowards, but worst then that, the greatest share of the western world is too. To damned many politicians and not enough statesmen seems to be the problem. Sitting on your hands and negotiating with terrorist will get you nothing but more terrorist to negotiate with. Whatever happened to ” Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute”? It also seems that the ” war against terrorist” has gone the way of the “war on poverity”, the “war on drugs” and whatever war these cowardly politicians decide wage…All lost. Our country today is lead by a neutered chicken that is making a laughing stock out of this country, in two more years we will be a third world nation unless we act soon.
@ L. E. Liesner, If those Pirates had a Union it would be a done deal. The Democrats could get in on the spoils and no problem. They could get a UN Seat on the Human Rights Commission there like Libya and be free to practice their Trade in Purple Shirts and windbreakers. State dinners at the White House doncha know!
I would carpet bomb the shoreline and the docks.
Then I would release the captive with a message- next time it’s the entire f**king country.
Somalis are aggressive SOB’s. They understand only power.
Doc, they also understand politics like last time. It was a UN sponsored event so We sent insufficient Forces.
I like the Union Deal better. Just shoot anything that is Purple, moves and has a Pirates Union Card.
@Nan G:
Complete bullshit.
It’s very simple, but it’s also something we (as a country) aren’t willing to do. You kill (with extreme prejudice) every single, identifiable, pirate (and their family, if need be). When (and if) more pirates appear, you kill them too. Sooner or later the pirates will get the word that their life-cycle is very short and they will stop. As soon as it’s no longer profitable and they know that it’s deadly for them, they’ll stop.
Same thing in Iraq, same thing in A-stan. If you kill enough of them, sooner or later they stop coming.
Yeah, right. We value our own lives. They don’t. Rumsfeld said that we can’t kill or capture them fast enough to keep up with the rate at which they are being created. Do you understand the concept of the suicide bomber? Do you think that the people who flew those planes into the World Trade Center Towers and Pentagon and Pennsylvania farmland gave a rat’s behind about their own lives? Or even the lives of their families (I am trying very hard to figure out how we identify the families of all the Somali pirates; so that we can kill them, too.).
You kill one, you have 5 others vowing revenge. We can never kill our way out of terrorism. We can’t kill our way out of piracy. What we do is to turn Somalia from a failed state into a functional state and then hold the leaders responsible for controlling their own people. It’s the only way.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Too many Folks have the 9.10.00 Mentality. Going after the Pirates requires going after their Arms Dealers.
Arming Merchant Ships and a lot of common sense on the part of those that go Sailing or Pleasure cruising in dangerous waters will prevent some of that activity.
No one presently has enough common sense for that. Missionaries are foolish to go in harms way. Unarmed Vessels are targets in that locale as well. You take your chances there.
Somalia, like a lot of other places has resisted living in this Century and Millennium. Total quarantine of EVERYTHING will be a start. Send no Aid. Let them deal with that. Like Haiti, it will always be a toilet Nation. I have seen both locales and know that. Perpetual lawlessness and ignorance. Period. They have nothing in Common with any Civilized State and will NOT by Their Own choice.
Worthy of Note is the fact that Nation Building and Humanitarian Missions get People killed and cost a lot of loot. The Success/Fail Ratio can be very discouraging. Unless You are prepared to be there for several generations, ferget it. Centuries of Ignorance does not go away by holding Elections or handing out a template for a written Constitution. It does not work on the Quick.
Isn’t Larry the person who has argued that stationing our military around the world doesn’t do the US people any good? Now he wants us to help a lawless country succeed with a civilized government? I think that is the argument that OT2 and I made many months ago!
@ Randy, Hanging out here at FA can be very hazardous to misconceptions.
Our current international ‘strategy’ of dealing with the Somali pirates is not working. There are approxiamately 660 people being held by the thugs. They do it for the money, as one person said its the Somali business plan. Now with the murder of the 4 Americans, its time to shatter this business plan. Execute every pirate that is caputred. Brutal attrition of the pirates is the only way to stop them and make holding those 660 as dangerous has holding U-235. This will cause them to release the captives least we actually come ashore to do it while killing even more of them. To quote Machiavelli, “Better to be respected than liked.”
As for Lt Col Rowe, the US lost a true warrior that day. The communist killers ambushed and killed him on his front door step because that was the only plance they were sure he would show. Rowe, as a US Special Forces advisor to South VietNam, was captured by the Viet Cong. He was held in captivity for five years. Even after being tortured, when he heard US forces nearby he escaped. Read the book Five Years to Freedom. Rowe knew the evil of communism.
I agree with Trooper, who said:
I also agree with Randy. It’s not something that we can do. With respect to Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, all I was saying is that the only solution to these problems is for the countries in question to transition from failed states into successful states. When that happens, it’s then (somewhat) possible to hold the rulers responsible for controlling their own people. This can be achieved through things such as policies of containment and sanctions. In the meantime, the best thing that we can do is to inspire the citizens of the failed states by being a good example. George W Bush invaded Iraq and he sought to contain HIV/AIDS in Africa. Between the two, the latter was, by far, the more productive (to say nothing of cost effective) policy.
The USA “handled” the Soviet Union perfectly and it also “handled” Libya perfectly. Iraq and Afghanistan — not so much.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Do you know what Somalis do when they are not out at sea being pirates?
They make babies.
They rank #4 on earth in birth rate.
Women average 6.44 children each!
The average age of a Somali is 17.
(In the USA it is 38)
Only 1/3rd of them can read.
Hence, they take the word of their leaders about why a shipload of pirates didn’t come back.
Those leaders can tell them anything.
If their leader is charismatic enough he can keep boatload after boatload of pirates riled up and ready to attack no matter how we end any particular takeover.
Pinpoint attacks of those leaders will probably cost all hostages their lives.
That’s probably why we won’t do it.
@ Larry
Really? Thomas Jefferson did a pretty good job. Hey Patvann, what comes after, “From the halls of Montezuma…?”
Hmmm, click to edit not work. I don’t think the Ajax engine is working Curt.
@Old Trooper2: LOL
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Yes you can, but it takes balls and it means leaving stupid bloody liberals and their idiot sensitivities out of the loop.
You take out something they hold with great reverence one at a time until it stops.
@Nan G: Nan, if you examine all the Islamic commotion in Minnesota you’ll find a common denominator.
Somalis holding the state and municipal governments hostage for their demands. It’s the domestic version of piracy.
A quick military trial and summary judgement. Detail- PRESENT
-GET READY
-AIM
-ETC.
With Mr. O as President nothing will be done concerning these pirates. We will continue to treat them like law breakers rather than scumbag piratesthey are, who deserve nothing more than to have their heads cut off, placed in their laps, and sent back to shore. These people don’t understand compassion and other PC bull, they will understand that there are consequences for their actions. Just like training a dog.
@DrJohn:
Wow!
Are you ever right!
The Minneapolis Star Tribune has a story today about how the public schools are being pressured to always take Muslim holidays off.
This year school starts during the 3 day Eid thing.
So, they are being pressured to never do this again.
http://www.startribune.com/local/116886708.html
When are the gutless loonies in this country, led by the neutered CIC (Clown In Chief) going to realize there is only one thing to do? you kill terrorists and you kill pirates. End of story. The fact that the Moron in charge is of the “you have to understand them” ilk is only another testament as to the fact that he is basically lacking gonads as are most of the Leftist morons in this country. OOPS! I forgot, they’re more than willing to go bloody if they don’t get their way against their own people here in the states but heaven forbid if they are to actually take offense against an Anti-American action.
So…….4 Americans are dead at the hands of Somali pirates but the pirates are still consuming oxygen.
Can someone……..ANYONE…. give me a logical explanation as to why these animals are still alive? Go ahead. Tell me. I dare ya. I DOUBLE DOG DARE YA. You can’t do it. There IS no logical explanation.
Unless and until we just kill these bastards and dump the bleeding, bullet ridden corpses over the side, this shit will continue unabated. Besides, sharks gotta eat too ya know.
Here’s what it SHOULD look like.
http://i979.photobucket.com/albums/ae277/RAPH6969/DIS.jpg
http://i979.photobucket.com/albums/ae277/RAPH6969/SEP2.jpg
I have to disagree with the few on here that state that nothing can be done about the pirates. On April 27, 1805 a group of Marines with a mercanery army did just that, took on and destroyed the stronghold of the Tripoli Pirates and set the stage for an end to Pirating along the African coast. All attempts to passify and pay off the scum resulted in nothing but more attacks and hostages taken every year. All it takes is the fortitude to do the job and follow thru.
The problem is the pirates are individualists. Sending them to prison or killing some here and there is just not going to work. The whole pirate culture has to be stopped. One method is to sink all the Somali boats. Another way is to attack the ships with hostages and cargo making the very concept of ransom mute.
@ Aleric, that was Pre-UN. The UN wants them coddled, fed and has issues with killing them. As We host the UN and the folks that make under the table cash on Humanitarian Aid, remember Oil for Food, there is no way the US will be involved dealing out the spankings.
Unless the US withdraws from a UN that has lost it’s Original Purpose decades ago.
So the answer to piracy is to kill every pirate we capture. This begs the question of how we capture the pirates without getting the crews killed. Freighters typically have international crews. In any event, these hostages are civilians, not soldiers. It’s one thing to board a small sailboat with 4 Americans and it’s something else entirely to board a freighter with an international crew. The reason piracy happens is because it is very low risk, very high gain. We could summarily execute every pirate we are lucky enough to catch, and it wouldn’t make a dent. The pirates won’t be deterred by summary execution, what they’ll do is start a tit for tat with their 700 odd hostages currently held. They’ll always have a ratio of 100 hostages for every captured pirate.
Mexican drug cartels ruthlessly execute their rivals for profits much smaller (per cartel “soldier”) than are earned by the Somali pirates. We will never be as ruthless to pirates as Mexican drug cartel members are to each other. And the Mexican cartel members have a much greater likelihood of being captured and/or killed than the Somali pirates will ever have of being captured or killed.
So, do we invade Somalia and nation-build it into a functional state? Anyone remember “Black Hawk Down?”
Also, it’s not up to us to tell a private shipping company what to do with its property and employees. They’d greatly prefer paying a ransom and getting back their ship and crew than in seeing both being held in perpetuity and then being executed in retaliation for the USA occasionally getting lucky, capturing a few pirates, and feeding them to the sharks.
While waiting a generation or so for Somalia to get its act together, the best thing we can do is to encourage (and participate in) international efforts to patrol the dangerous parts of the Indian Ocean and encourage self-defense efforts by the freighters, e.g.
http://www.zimbio.com/Somalia/articles/ejI6DDtfnIS/Korean+shipbuilder+rolls+out+anti+piracy+system
and encourage freighters (to say nothing of sailboats!) to avoid the dangerous sea lanes. This was the policy of the Bush administration and it’s simply being continued by Obama.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
How does that work, Larry? You have checked out sea routes for the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and Gulf of Aden, yes? I read these people were about 100 miles off the Somalian coast when hijacked. Well, the Gulf of Aden is only about 200 miles wide at it’s widest point, so if it was off the north Somalian coast, they were pretty much running equidistant between Somalia and Yemen. Not sure I’d want to hug the Yemen coast, anymore than I’d want to hug Somalia’s.
If one wants to go from the Mediterranean to SE Asia, it’s not much of an option to go via Cape Horn, the most treacherous shipping route and fiercest sailing conditions in the world. Considering the odds for being a victim of piracy (they only get a small percentage of the vessels using that route) vs the odds of battling for survival in those seas, (not to mention time and expense) avoiding that sea route isn’t logical for either commercial or personal maritimers.
I think private freight lines are crazy not to arm themselves. Just as I think private yacht or sailors are also unwise not to take precautions and do the same. Personally, if I wanted to go thru there, I’d want a warship escort. But alternative routes to avoid this scum is not much of an option.
Regardless of whose policy it was or is, if we do not treat these pirates like pirates and execute them on site they will continue with their terrorism. I agree that the shipping lines should provide protection on their ships and some are doing that. These ships are generally not attacked and if they are attacked the pirates regret doing so.
Piracy is like any business. When the risk exceeds the benifits, the participants try something else. The secret here is to make the risk higher.
@openid
The crews on those freighters are not Somalis and the difference between a crew member and a pirate is normally the AK the pirate is holding. The troops assaulting captured ships is not an issue, it can be done effectively if they are allowed to do it the Russians have proven that.
You are such a simplistic fool. That same BS line of helping them to get better has been going on since the 80’s. Black Hawk Down happened under Clinton who didnt want to even commit troops to the exercise and when it went bad he refused to let the military respond with the tools at hand. So dont give me this crap that we can’t go in and sweep the scumbag Somalis aside and take over the country in a week.
Just like we did in Iraq. Perhaps that’s why George W Bush didn’t do it.
– LW/HB
P.S. The problem didn’t start with Obama’s inauguration, e.g.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4584878.stm
Hey Guys, it all depends on how much infrastructure you are willing to destroy and be responsible for replacing. Iraq was done, as with Somalia, with the velvet gloved fist. The US will not now or ever wage war in the same fashion as WWII. We bombed Germany into a smoking ruins then and rebuilt it with the Marshall Plan. You will never see that happen again.
Hey Guys, it all depends on how much infrastructure you are willing to destroy and be responsible for replacing. Iraq was done, as with Somalia, with the velvet gloved fist. The US will not now or ever wage war in the same fashion as WWII. We bombed Germany into a smoking ruins then and rebuilt it with the Marshall Plan. You will never see that happen again.
What You do see from the Obama Foreign Policy/State Department is a slight variation on the Neville Chamberlain School of Diplomacy that failed then and is not working now. Don’t want to deal with Pirates, don’t go there. Stay away from their Area of Operations for now.
@Trooper (#42). As usual, uncommonly good common sense.
Anyone remember “you break it; you own it?” I can see “owning” Germany (and we still have a whole lot of soldiers and medics there). Does anyone really want to assume “ownership” of Somalia?
– Larry W/HB
@ Larry, no one in their right mind wants anything to do with Somalia, to be frank with you.
If I had a ranch in hell and a farm outside Mogadishu, I’d sell the Farm and retire to the ranch.
I have never seen so much Human Misery per square inch anywhere but there.
This thread illustrates one of the two biggest problems I have with modern day “conservatism” (the other being the concept that it’s preferable to borrow money than to raise taxes).
When I was a wee lad, I remember being taught by my step-father that the Democratic Party was “the party of war.” He was a staunch traditional Republican. Conservatives of that era were truly conservative. They believed in paying their bills (it was Kennedy who reduced the marginal tax rate from 91% to 70%, and not Eisenhower). And they were very wary of taking the country to war. Conservatives were dragged into WWI by Wilson, dragged into WWII by FDR (who basically invented the Iran-Contra philosophy of supplying arms to the British while dragging reluctant conservatives along, largely against their will). They were dragged into Korea under Truman and Eisenhower ran on a platform to get us out of Korea.
Somewhere along the way, there was a role reversal. I attribute this, somewhat, to Dixiecrats switching political parties. The GOP gained an important gung-ho war constituency.
Anyway, I agree with so many conservative principles, but the deal breakers remain the lack of true conservatism when it comes to pay as you go budgeting and taxing and, especially, literally throwing caution to the wind when it comes to deciding when to go to war.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
P.S. In my Democratic Party/War litany (WWI, WWII, Korea), how could I have forgotten Vietnam and JFK/LBJ?
– LW/HB
@ openid.aol.com/runnswim, My Unit Deployed to Somalia and Haiti on UN Mandates. You saw how swell that turned out! Neither are even remotely ready for Democracy or Self Sufficiency as Nations.
You can quote me on that.
My Units Deployed to Bosnia and Kosovo on NATO Mandates and things there fared better. Korea was a UN Mandate and We are still there in numbers. My money is on NATO, where I am currently serving.
As I have stated before, I am not a Member of any Political Party as neither represent My Views or Best Interest. I have served under both Democrat and Republican Commanders in Chief but My Oath is to the Constitution and not to the Temporary Resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I plan on voting for the Next Constitutionally and Economically LITERATE Individual that wants that Job as CIC. If Allen West or Herman Cain choose to run separately or in tandem as a Team They will get My Vote.
Pure and simple, Kill them all and let God sort them out, no “negotiations” or “half” actions this is barbarism, if they insist on acting like animals then we must begin to treat them as the rodents that they are. It is time to separate civilized peoples from the barbarians of the world or they will continue to separate civilized individuals from their heads.
@Nan G:
People do not continue to perpetuate behaviors that don’t benefit them. Let Navy’s kill the pirates on sight, with no quarter given, and after this happens a few times and it becomes clear that there is no monetary benefit, the behavior will end. This is what will end this problem, because an immediate end to any benefit to these people is what they will understand.