Free World Leadership Opportunity
Knocks. Reuters: Pirates nab a Greek-flagged ship and a Togo-flagged ship with Filipino crews. AP, noting the pirates are “undetered,” throws in a couple of Egyptian fishing boats.
Turns out what was essentially a SWAT operation that killed three pirates the other day didn’t cow the other X number of thousand pirates engaged in this. After all, their percentages are still pretty good. Now they’ve anted up the pot from 240 to 300 or so held in captivity. And they will not be inclined to play nice.
Obama’s laudable decision to issue a kill order, it turns out, has follow-through consequences. It means he can not simply talk the talk, when it comes to challenging pirates, but has some walking to do. I hope he has a plan for that, or gets one soon. It will get uglier before it gets better, and we may well see some al-Qaeda-style hostage abuse and terror tactics play out as the pirate warlords attempt to make Obama flinch. People will die, on one side, the other, or both. Preferably the other. But by some combination of coaxing and killing, Somali pirates need to be convinced this behavior is not in their short-term or long-term interest. Either that or they need to be deprived of the means of their piracy. Boats, mother ships and bases need to cease to exist.
No one ever said free world leadership was going to be easy. OK, maybe Obama did, when he was on the campaign trail. Actually, I think what he was trying to say back then was nobody actually needed to be leader, it could lead itself by self-congratulatory committee. And a majority of American voters actually believed him.
Here’s the thing about being leader of the free world, which is what for better or worse, Obama got elected to be. You actually have to exert leadership. It isn’t easy. Leadership isn’t about being liked. In tough times, it’s usually the opposite. When they say power hates a vacuum, it doesn’t just mean other people will try to grab bits of that power … anarchistic Somali pirates, kleptocratic Chinese expansionists, terror-supporting Iranian Islamists, etc. It also means that the people who have been living under the protection of your power will expect you to exert it, even as they despise you and disparage you for doing so.
A bit of free advice for Obama, as leader of the free world. I’d go on a war footing. You don’t have to make any dramatic announcement to the nations of the world, and the people of Somali, that they are either with you or against you. Let them figure that out for themselves. Don’t have to be like Bush that way. But you do want to be like Bush the other way, which is ready to act, ruthlessly.
It’s that, or sail away from the Horn of Africa. Tell the Filipinos it’s their problem. Let the pirates keep seizing dozens of ships, and let the insurance companies keep paying off pirates. At which point the United States ceases to be the leader of the free world, and someone else can lead whatever kind of world it is going to be after that.
Side note: I wouldn’t cut the Pentagon’s budget too much. We need that stuff, and it’s a great economic engine. Good jobs at good wages.
Goldberg via LA Times: What do you call shooting 3 pirates? “A good start.”
Topics: Obama, crime, law & order
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:50 am on Tuesday, April 14, 2009
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April 17th, 2009 at 11:59 am
[...] of your power will expect you to exert it, even as they despise you and disparage you for doing so. Read article. The Pirates Challenge Obama’s Pre-9/11 Mentality: Distinctions between lawful and unlawful [...]