Pirate Palaver
Negotiations break down. NYT reports Somali elders speaking for the ones in the boat with the captain won’t agree to US demands that the pirates surrender themselves. Why should they? Somali elders and pirates may think they have nothing to lose. Maybe the United States needs to suggest otherwise. I’d suggest a kind of biblical terminology. Fire and brimstone, wailing of women and children, that kind of thing. We’re dealing with people who don’t exactly live in this century, after all. NYT also reports an approaching boat from one of the warships on scene turned back after warning shots were fired.
FOX: Obama’s foreign policy problem with no easy solution. Hunting of pirate mother ships under consideration. Here’s an idea. Go grab a mother ship or two, dangle its crew and captain over the sides of the destroyers on scene, and then resume negotiations with the boat. But as one observer in the Fox report notes, the problem has its root on land. That’s why the destruction of boats, leveling of bases, such as they are, needs to be presented to the sage Somali elders as a consequence of their principled positions.
Topics: crime, law & order
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:48 am on Sunday, April 12, 2009
One Response to “Pirate Palaver”
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April 13th, 2009 at 5:35 am
You are absolutely right. A piecemeal solution will not work to stop this. Although Obama must be commended on giving the go ahead to take out the three pirates extent, Holder’s mulling criminal charges against pirates who commit acts of war is disheartening to say the least.
The only solution to this problem lies in sinking the mother ships and attack boats, then destroying the villages from which they sortie. They laugh at our, and all civilized nations, concepts of law and justice. Destroying both their will and ability to commit these acts of war is the only way to solve this problem. I’m just not sure that Pres. Obama has the will to do so, even though we certainly have the capability.