The ghosts of pirates
Opinion: Piracy off the coast of Somalia emerged after years of failed and flawed US policy in the region.
LONDON — The drama in the high seas off the coast of Somalia with a group of pirates holding an American sea captain hostage is one more of the costly legacies of the Bush administration.
The story and the rise in piracy throughout the Gulf of Aden is another example of how the Bush administration’s single-minded pursuit of its war on terror actually undermined security worldwide.
More than 20,000 ships pass through the Gulf of Aden annually, including 4 percent of the world’s oil supply.
With ship owners routing vessels around the tip of Africa rather than running the gauntlet of the pirate-infested channels in the Gulf of Aden, shipping officials say transport costs have gone up and the time per trip has increased.
The long journey adds an estimated 14 days steaming time from the Arabian Gulf to Europe and eight days to America.
The international naval task force that was sent to protect shipping may have deterred some attacks but cannot rid the region of piracy. There are too few warships to patrol at least a million square miles of sea.
The way to effectively reduce the risk of piracy, experts believe, is to increase security on land, and specifically to take away their safe haven in the failed state of Somalia. Somalia has become a haven for pirates because most of it is lawless. So how’s that the fault of the Bush administration?
The greater part of Somalia collapsed into anarchy after the dictatorship of Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. The Clinton administration sent American marines to the aid of a starving population caught in the chaos. The Marines were in turn attacked. Eventually, Clinton ordered forces to go after one of the brutal warlords, Mohamed Farrah Aidid. But the U.S. suffered a humiliating defeat in 1993 at the hands of Aidid and a host of tribal warlords, turned tail and left the country. The defeat was the basis for the Hollywood movie “Black Hawk Down.”
I can't say how incredible I find your analysis that Somali piracy is now the fault of the Bush administration policies of the last eight years and that the American people are ignorant about this enlightening expose because the mainstream media in which you have been a member for over 48 years is not telling them the truth as you see it.
You need to get out of London more often. And I am not a supporter of the Bush administration in case you've undoubtedly concluded.
The fact of the matter is that Somali piracy has become rampant recently for the very simple reason: it pays. And Somalia is a failed state because it was built by European colonial masters - the original pirates - from a disparate collection of tribes and clans with nothing in common.
Blaming America will not change these simple facts.
You mention Bill Clinton as the President who deployed US troops to Somalia, but I distinctly remember being dumbfounded (hey, I was a teenager!) when in the closing days of #41's term, HE sent troops to Somalia. Personally, I would tend to lay at least a LITTLE blame at the feet of a DraftDodger-cum-POTUS who failed to keep our troops properly equipped, instead seeking a "Peace Dividend". The dividend of peace is PEACE. When we equip soldiers to be police, and we prosecute enemy soldiers (aka terrorists) as criminals, we LOSE. We've BEEN there, we've DONE that, we're DOING it AGAIN.
As an American Merchant Seaman I have absolutely no sympathy with the Somalis. Whatever problems their country is experiencing are entirely of their own making, and should not be used as an excuse to condone kidnapping an extortion perpetrated upon innocent seamen plying their trade. If piracy is flourishing it is simply because it is more profitable than fishing. Why shouldn't it continue? The steamship companies don't want to incur the expense of arming their crews or supplying armed guards. Warships from Europe and Canada simply disarm any pirates they capture and then let them go. As for the one pirate the U.S. Navy captured alive, he was grinning from ear to ear when he arrived in the States. Why shouldn't he be, when he was probably treated better than he ever had been back home? Sounds like a pretty good business to me!
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