You see that guy sitting in the stern? Does he look more like Jack Sparrow or Steve Clemons?

Since Somalia is expected to be a Foreign Policy Test for the New President it is not a huge suprise to see that this has been suggested.

We the American People love a Strong Leader.

"Since the Israel invasion of Gaza, I sense that this desire to
start a conflict, even a small one using special force units, has
dissipated -- but still could happen And frankly, the Somali
pirates are a problem that may need to be dealt with in such a
way."

They are a problem because

1) Somalia has been an anarchy for decades (civil war, warlords
etc)

2) when an Islamic government recently created some law and
order there, USA and Ethiopia decided to screw up (Meles in
Ethiopia for completely different reasons than Bush), instead of
trying to bend them into a politically constructive direction,
basically because one of those in the new Islamic government
might have been pro al Qaida. Many of the others seemed to be
be more pragmatic and moderate, but certainly became more
extremist because they were attacked in the name of GWOT.

3) most importantly: they became pirates MAINLY BECAUSE
THEY LOST THEIR JOB AS FISHERMEN. Big fishing companies
took over the costal areas where they were fishing, and they
had no means to feed themselves and their families and
communities.

If Obama "solves the problem" by opening" a third active
military front" to prove that he is tough, he is stupid. There is
no other way to say this.

It is contra-productive, just like the US-Ethiopian raids in
Somailia were contra-productive, resulting in NOTHING. (No the
Ethiopians are withdrawing, resulting in even more immediate
violence in Mogadishu. Back to the civil war chaos...

These "gamed-out scenarios" are based on ignorance and
foolish imperial arrogance, and if implemented they are
ridiculous and immoral, and will result in absolutely nothing
sustainable. Zero. Nada. Nichts. Rien.

Steve, what is your position in this post?

"While I hope that Obama is not eager to..."

"...frankly, the Somali pirates are a problem that may need to be
dealt with in such a way."

"Japan rarely moves unless it senses America will too."

Are you
a) reporting?
b) warning?
c) encouraging?

You think you can have it both ways, as well as "just reporting"?

I`m not impressed by the ambiguous language of your post.

Ah, the return of the Ledeen Doctrine:

"Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business."

Or some crappy little pirates, I guess. The restoration of American ideals continues apace!

I thought Obama would at least wait until someone tested him. If some demonstration attack happens, I predict much ultra-hypocritical oohing and ahhing over Barack's manly muscles from liberals who just a couple of years ago were tsk-tsking Bush for his militarism.

From Wikipedia:

"Most pirates are aged 20-35 years old and come from the
region of Puntland, a region in northeastern Somalia. The East
African Seafarers' Association estimates that there are at least
five pirate gangs and a total of 1,000 armed men.[23]

According to a BBC report, the pirates can be divided into three
main categories:

Local fishermen, considered the brains of the pirates' operations
due to their skill and knowledge of the sea.

Ex-militiamen who used to fight for the local clan warlords,
used as the muscle.

Technical experts who operate high-tech equipment such as
the GPS systems.

(...)

During the Siad Barre regime, Somalia received aid from
Denmark, Great Britain, Iraq, Japan, Sweden, USSR and West
Germany to develop their fishing industry. The fishing industry
comprised either cooperatives which had fixed prices for the
catch, which was often exported due to the low demand for
seafood in Somalia, or fishing licences. Aid money improved the
ships and supported the construction of maintenance facilities
[1]. After the Barre regime the income from fishing decreased
due to the civil war. Some pirates are former fishermen, who
argue that foreign ships are threatening their livelihood by
fishing in Somali waters. After seeing the profitability of piracy,
since ransoms are usually paid, warlords began to facilitate
pirate activities, splitting the profits with the pirates.[14]
However, in most of the hijackings, the bandits have not
harmed their prisoners, hoping instead to be rewarded with
ransoms.[15] The attackers generally treat their hostages well in
anticipation of a big payday to the point of hiring caterers on
the shores of Somalia to cook spaghetti, grilled fish and roasted
meat that will appeal to a Western palate. They also keep a
steady supply of cigarettes and drinks from the shops on
shore.[16]

(...)

Precise data on the economic situation in Somalia is scarce but
with an estimated per capita GDP of $600/year, it remains one
of the world's poorest countries.[25] Millions of Somalis depend
on food aid and in 2008, according to the World Bank, as much
as 73% of the population lived on a daily income below
$2.[26][27]

There have been both positive and negative effects of the
pirates' economic success. Local residents have complained that
the presence of so many armed men makes them feel insecure,
and that their freespending ways cause wild fluctuations in the
local exchange rate. Others fault them for excessive
consumption of alcoholic beverages and khat.[24]
On the other hand, many other residents appreciate the
rejuvenating effect that the pirates' on-shore spending and re-
stocking has had on their impoverished towns, a presence which
has oftentimes provided jobs and opportunity when there were
none. Entire hamlets have in the process been transformed into
veritable boomtowns, with local shop owners and other
residents using their gains to purchase items such as
generators -- allowing full days of electricity, once an
unimaginable luxury.[16]"

I am not defending piracy here. I`m just saying that attacking
them to show that you`re tough is stupid, and would not
change the underlying causes.

"In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa -
collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on
starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the
Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the
country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone,
mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of
Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal
population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange
rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005
tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed
up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness,
and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN
envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear
material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as
cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced
back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be
passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I
asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing
about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no
clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."

At the same time, other European ships have been looting
Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have
destroyed our own fish-stocks by over-exploitation - and now
we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m worth of tuna,
shrimp, lobster and other sea-life is being stolen every year by
vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia's unprotected seas.
The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and
they are starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town
of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing
is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal
waters."

This is the context in which the men we are calling "pirates"
have emerged. Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian
fishermen who at first took speedboats to try to dissuade the
dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a 'tax' on them. They
call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia - and it's
not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the
pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was "to stop illegal
fishing and dumping in our waters... We don't consider
ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those
who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our
seas and carry weapons in our seas." William Scott would
understand those words.

No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some
are clearly just gangsters - especially those who have held up
World Food Programme supplies. But the "pirates" have the
overwhelming support of the local population for a reason. The
independent Somalian news-site WardherNews conducted the
best research we have into what ordinary Somalis are thinking -
and it found 70 percent "strongly supported the piracy as a
form of national defence of the country's territorial waters."
During the revolutionary war in America, George Washington
and America's founding fathers paid pirates to protect America's
territorial waters, because they had no navy or coastguard of
their own. Most Americans supported them. Is this so different?

Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their
beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch
their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome?
We didn't act on those crimes - but when some of the fishermen
responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of
the world's oil supply, we begin to shriek about "evil." If we
really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause -
our crimes - before we send in the gun-boats to root out
Somalia's criminals.

The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by
another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He
was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who
demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of
the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by
seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I
am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are
called emperor." Once again, our great imperial fleets sail in
today - but who is the robber?"

Read more here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/you-are-being-
lied-to-abo_b_155147.html

An unbroken link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/you-are-being-lied-to-abo_b_155147.html

Paul -- I'm not in favor of any targeted special ops because I don't know what clusters or bases we'd go after. If they were there, we would have gone after them already. I think that we are going to ramp up standard naval operations with special ops in the rear for action against any significant pirate actions....but that is a different topic altogether than what Obama's team may have asked for by why of scenarios. I just got a pretty full briefing a moment ago on why special forces make little sense for this kind of problem -- but perhaps that is what the military laid out for Obama's team. I don't know that part of the story.

I do know that we are focusing a lot more resources there though -- and have friends who watch just about everything that moves along that eastern strip of Somalia.

More later, steve

Any chance that using special ops on the pirates in the Gulf of Aden might just be some sort of cover for other operations in Somalia?

Dan,
this is a very good question. Here is my thoughts:

Ethiopia, who`s been at war with Somalia several times (starting
with Emperor Menelik annexing parts of the country in the
19`th century, as the sole African colonial power grabbing
territory together with the European powers), just withdrew their
troops from Somalia after cooperating with USA on the Global
War Of Terror (but of course for different reasons).

This creates an unstable situation in Somalia right now,
probably akin to the situation just before the Islamic
government took over power there three or four years ago: in
short a power vacuum. I don´t know if this is connected to what
Steve alludes to in his post, but I`m sure the Obama
administration is monitoring the situation in Somalia closely.

the return of the Ledeen Doctrine...right Dan.

With a friendly, brown face calling it a humanitarian mission.
Today I read that Obama is going to impose sanctions on ZIMBABWE! Aren't the sanctions imposed after the land seizures are what led to the downward spiral?

Paul,

Thank you for all of the information on the Somalians.
Our proxy Ethiopians warriors are leaving Somalia and we should stay out. We've done enough damage by killing the clerics who seemed to have been the ones who brought order to the chaos.

I wonder if the rumor of an African Gitmo there is true.

"I wonder if the rumor of an African Gitmo there is true."

Where? In Somalia? Djibouti? Aden?

Steve,

Why don't we send US Special Forces after the industrial-scaled foreign-flagged fishing vessels that wiped out the Somali fisheries those very same Somali pirates had depended on for their livelihood?

The reporting I've read stated that once those fisheries were wiped out, there were no other options available. So they turned to piracy.

In a country afflicted by drought, famine, war, and regularly destabilized by external forces, those fisheries were the only reliable resource around.

Want stability? Maintaining national boundaries and national control over natural resources is our first responsibility. Enforcing catch limits can install some internal sustainability and prevent this kind of extra-systemic damage.

Shouldn't we be looking at root causes?

Because when Somali pirates can nail a shipload of Russian tanks, whole supertankers full of oil, and a long long list of other prizes, a few missions aren't gonna solve the problem.

Our Special Forces are going in and coming back out. The Somali 'pirates' will always be there--and they'll always need something to eat.

How's the saying go? Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime.

This must be the inverse of that principle. Economically and militarily, we're teaching them to kill.

Woops. Paul beat me to it--great post/cite.

So what about it, Steve? Shouldn't we be sending Special Forces after the waste dumpers and industrial fishing trawlers? Enforcing Somalia's territorial integrity?

Think for a second: Somalia's undergone successive famines---and that's been used as an opportunity to plunder their last reliable resource: their fisheries.

Who ares the pirates here?

Protect Somalia's territorial integrity and you'll protect the sea lanes. No need to go after fishermen-turned-privateers. Unless we plan on losing another war.

May I suggest that getting on the right side of a just political cause will ensure military and political victory here. Of course, it'd reverse the pattern of debacles we've stumbled through stretching back to Vietnam and beyond.

I do not think this will happen as
bombs dropped or raids in Somalia as you suggest.
Not unless the tactical analysis will show
a high probability of it ending the pirates
operations. Lacking that result, it would be perceived as a failure, and would be therefore
counter productive to tough guy image building.

It is unlikely that such operations, unless extensive and of prolonged duration, would accomplish much. There are far more than one or two groups involved and they do not need to
use ports to operate. They use small boats
that can be beached, and Somalia is
nearly all beach.

Hey Steve, do us all a favor, and the next time you see Rachel, tell her to stop using the "Arrrgh" line every time she mentions the pirates, will ya?

I'm tellin ya straight, man, she's gonna get wrinkles if she keeps it up!

I agree with Rich and Paul,
I am a union US merchant mariner and we know how this came to be. Ditto for the Nigerian "terrorists". Destitute peoples will resort to desperate means.

"It is unlikely that such operations, unless extensive and of
prolonged duration, would accomplish much."

Yes, unless they want to stay there as long as they`re likely to
stay in Iraq and Afghanistan. But have a look at Dan Kervick`s
question (and my attempt to suggest an answer).

There is a power vacuum in Somalia right now. And you
remember the bombing of the Embassies in Nairobi (Kenya) and
Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) in 1998? Aden 2000? They are on the
same African East Coast as Somalia (except for Nairobi, which is
linked to the area through the port town of Mombasa).

"On June 1, 2007, the USS Chafee fired its deck guns at
suspected hideouts of an Al-Qaeda suspect by the name of
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah who is one of the listed as
responsible for the bombings, in the Puntland region of
Somalia." (Wikipedia)

Obama may regard the anarchic Somalia, currently in a power
vacuum, as a lawless haven for Al Quaeda members similar to
the north western area of Pakistan.

Special ops? Drones? Anybody`s guess...

Right Paul, and I believe Somalia's Parliament in exile and the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia are trying to form some sort of moderate Islamist government under UN auspices, probably along lines not too different from what existed with the Islamic Courts Union before the US-backed Ethiopian and TFG invasion. The new alliance is rejected by the al-Shabab militia that appears to be running things in Baidoa. I wonder if some of these hardline al-Shabab Islamist leaders are targets of the new administration.

May I suggest Jeffery Sachs take on the subject. I you are unfamiliar .....google.

eberit: Sachs would certainly be better than Gates. But perhaps
Ben Affleck would like to contribute on the issue? (See Steve`s
post above).

Dan,

what do you say? We may be witnessing the GWOT being
extended - the western flank: Somalia, the eastern flank
Afghanistan/Pakistan, and Iraq in the middle?

A temporary weakening of the center, and a strengthening of the
flanks?

We`ll see...

These pirates/terrorists in the Somali waters are just economic opportunists. This GWOT stuff is just plain nonsense. Contractors like Blackwater are looking for openings with private shipping industry to provide maritime protection with ex-security forces in this region. This is a distraction of sorts.

While I applaud the special forces operations as opposed to massive invasions and occupations, Somalia is an example of the kind of warspace where our hypersuperior air power could turn the tables in a matter of weeks. I'll have to research logistically relevent air bases, and asset, but it would seem to me that a well placed Air Craft Carrier or two in the region and a steady flow of sorties along the coast could quickly wipe out Somali pirate assets and operations. Most of these pirates by their own admission are drunk or high when the initiate thier assaults, and while their RPG, and heavy weapons pose significant threats to unarmed commercial vessels in the region, - there would be no way to defend against strikes from the air. Our Naval and Air Force assests would be engaged in a turkey shoot, and quickly dust off Somali swiftboats attempting to attack and commandeer ships off the coast of Somalia and the Gulf of Aden.

Paul,

The US has already been waging the GWOT in Somalia for several years, which included among other things supporting the Ethiopian invasion that has now been ended. One continuing line of debate has been whether the US should support popular Islamist governments that have a chance of stabilizing the war-wracked country, or should take the neoconservative position that all Islamism is bad and evil, and part of the global enemy. Of course many of the wars wracking the county have been stimulated by US infusions of cash and weapons to our favorite warlord of the month.

Here is a report that presents what may well be the Obama view of Somalia. It was prepared in partnership with the Center for American Progress, which is very close to the Obama administration. It strikes me as quite sketchy on the history of US policy in the region.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/09/pdf/somalia.pdf

Dan,

thanks for the link, I`ll read it later.

I am aware of what you`re saying about supporting or fighting
popular Islamist governments in Somalia (I mentioned it in my
first post above). I should have expressed myself differently:
Nobody knows yet the substance of what Steve is alluding to,
but it could mean a more direct involvement in Somalia one way
or another, after the end of the Ethiopian fighting.

As you remember, US troops were attacked during a military
operation in Mogadishu in 1993; the dead bodies of soldiers
were dragged through the streets and broadcasted on
International TV stations. This made humanitarian operations
unpopular among Americans, and also made the Clinton
administration hesitant with regards to invasions for
humanitarian reasons. This made them argue about whether
what happened in Rwanda in the summer of 1994 was genocide
or not - result: 800 000 tutsis killed within weeks.

Clinton and Albright (at that time a UN ambassador) expressed
deep regret for this later, and there is reason to believe that
this lack of action in a situation of ethnic cleansing was among
the motivations for the bombing campaign in Yugoslavia in
1999.

(When Bush jr. was interviewed before his presidency, he said he
opposed operations like the bombing in Yugoslavia (military
actions for humanitarian reasons, nation building etc). Then of
course you had 9.11, the Iraq invasion with securing energy
resources and nation building and the rest...)

So, as I see it, the failed operation in Mogadishu in 1993 may
have had a huge impact on future, unrelated operations in the
1990`s; and America would still hesitate before the thought of
ground invasion in Somalia.

The situation has some similarities with the Gaza situation, in
that the US let Israel weaken a popular Islamic government and
favor an unpopular political entity, Fatah.
In Somalia they supported the Ethiopians attack on the
popular Islamic Courts Union (branded by Meles Zenawi, PM of
Ethiopia, as a "fight against terrorism"). and supported the
much weaker alliance ARPTC. This have led to nothing.

The big question now is of course: how will the US deal with the
situation now that they can`t let the Ethiopians fight a proxy
war there. What increases the difficulties, is the fact that the
fighting in Somalia to some extent also is a proxy war between
Ethiopia and Eritrea.
I would hope that the Obama administration will try to talk to
a popular Islamic government and give peace and order a
chance to rebuild the nation. Neither the Somalians nor the
world can afford another decade of chaos and mayhem in
Somalia.

I enjoy your style of writing, but I feel you aren't seeing the big picture..In the past democrats have attempted to flex the military might of the USA in Somalia(Bill Clinton), but I feel that they are looking for a quick end to these issues. The Piracy in Somalia is a deep rooted issue. While the government of Somalia isn't declaring the fact that they are recieving funds from the Piracy, they are also doing nothing to combat it. I think that the best approach is a heavy handed land based assult, but it will take time to fully clear out the problem and will take persistance to ensure that the issue doesn't spout back up as soon as the land forces pull out of the main land based targets. As much as we hate to believe as Americans, the Piracy was actually contained during the time that the ICC ran Somalia. Heaven forbid we let Islamists run an Islamic country..If they want to run under Shria Law, let them...At least they do a decent job of containing acts such as Piracy in the region, the main goal of the USA, NATO, and UN should be to contain the Islamist Government and ensure that they rule with a fair yet iron fist and refrain from harbouring terrorist training camps that eventually send terrorists to other countries. If you feed the dog it won't bite, so we as a western society need to stop trying to train our own dogs and let the population pick their own, and we should act as the adult and ensure that the dog is well fed and able to protect it's people. Attacking the Pirates with a land based assult is only a short term solution.

Paul,

I agree with your comments and with Steves
vis a vis that what this administration
decides to do will be interesting to
see and some what telling.

I think ground assault is not a viable
option at this time. What I would like to
see this administration do is beef up the
littoral naval presence and have some SO teams ready for the occasional opportunity to accomplish
a few limited missions. I expect there will
be but few occasions where specific targets
can be found for such though.

The only thing that has to be done is
stop the pirates from being successful in
taking ships. This can be accomplished
by both protecting the ships with navys
and by more importantly,arming the merchantmen, and with more than fire hoses (forcryingoutloud).

I am aware of the maritime laws forbidding
this, but those laws were designed for
another time and another problem. Simply
fitting ships out with 4-6 M240's would be
all that's needed. These ships are designed
to take a pounding from big seas and need
only enough firepower to prevent approach
into RPG range, about 700 yards, to be all but
impregnable to these guys in their tiny boats. The shippers must be forced to take these precautions or prevented from entering the area.

These guys will find something else to
do once they can no longer successfully
hijack ships. There is no need to slaughter
them and large numbers of innocents to
end this. Ending the piracy is entirely
doable given the large number of entities
interested in accomplishing just that, and
as fine an opportunity for some team building
if there ever was one.

This of course does not fix the root of
Somalias problems. But until the pirates
cash empire is beggared, ground intervention
will be fought.

Just my opinion. Let's see what option
Obama's team chooses.