Somali pirates attack two more ships in Indian Ocean. (and the world negotiates.)
on 10/11/2008 at 10:44 AM
Russia is the only nation left who has a little of the chutzpah necessary to do the kind of slap down required. I think we ought to find that kind of resolve.
The real question is, how big a smackdown do you put on these bastiges?
Have the CIA jam all radio, TV, and cellphone transmissions going in or coming out of the country. Send in several special ops teams to shut down the power temporarily. Forget to tell the media. Then send in the Marines to clean house. And I want a clean house. No dust bunnies, no roaches, no spiders. Use Chinese or Russian weapons, or at least ammo. No traces back to the USA.
Ok, that might be a bit vengeful, but I’m thinking we still owe them for Mogadishu. It would be just as effective to simply destroy every single boat up and down the coast. Send a few helicopter swarms up the rivers to check them too. No boats, no pirates. It’s just about that easy. You might have to repeat the task every 6 months for a couple years until they get the idea. Anything with an engine gets sunk. Anything that can carry more than 10 people gets sunk.
If the abos want to fish they can do it from little sailboats made from hollowed logs just like their ancestors did.
The US is probably retraining teams for a response to this even as we speak. On a guess, I’d say something in the dark area between Marine Force Recon, Navy SEALS, and FBI Hostage Rescue Teams. That and a helicopter that can deploy a gas cloud that will knock out everything for several hours. Force them to fight under full watertight/airtight integrity, and send in teams that consider such to be *their* home ground. Yes, you could just raze the entire coast of Somalia but, regardless how satisfying it might be, such “kill em all and let God sort em out” answers ALWAYS create new problems further down the line.
Make it so there’s just no chance of the payoff being worth the risk, it’ll very nearly stop by itself. The only people who will continue to try it will be those who feel they truly have nothing to lose. Granted, you could say that’s the only ones who are trying it now.
Still.... you Brits tell me, if there were *ONE* SAS team, say 24 men trained for precisely that mission, posted for a response time within 8 hours for any act of piracy in the area.....how much would that one group of guys, given free reign, change the picture?
A lot, I think. The tools are there to do the job with surgical precision, and a LOT of people have them. Apparently no government has the balls to put them to use.Drew:
“Russia is the only nation left who has a little of the chutzpah necessary to do the kind of slap down required.”
And, as everyone knows, I think that is VERY bad news for the West. The Russians just tried to put forth the idea of a European MILITARY PACT AGAINST THE US! Fortunately, (and this is the reason I hold out hope for Europe) they don’t seem to be going for it. They ought to know better than ANYONE save those fortunate nations to escape the “Jailer of Nations.” And that means that there is the possibility that Europe is capable of coming to its senses.
And this is good because we cannot trust Russia.
Your idea of a punitive expedition is… bloodthirsty, but could be effective. The one problem here is that not all Somali pirates are based from Somalia. Eritrea, Yemen, Sudan, and other Gulf countries are popular stopover places, and reports indicate they have flown as far afield as a few Indonesian ports and Singapore.
In such a case, merely blowing up the Somali coast every few weeks will have a minimal effect.
A more difficult but more effective way would be to intervene and attack anywhere they have a port-of-call. Be it an official port, a makeshift base, or the like. It would be labor-intensive, a pain in the ass, and take time, but I don’t see any other way.
You destroy irregular forces by wiping out their bases and logistical capability.
Which could step on many toes and will take a long time. But it is better than Putin or having a “Tanker Season” in the Red Sea.
(PS, did you ever get my E-Mail?)
Posted by Turtler
10/11/2008 at 02:22 PM
Sounds like it’s time for a couple of “Q” ships to drift around the Indian Ocean.
Posted by emdfl
10/11/2008 at 06:14 PM
OR, maybe the asshat shipping companies sending cargoes through this human mine field can take the advice at the end of the article ans STEER CLEAR of these waters so as to starve off the pirates. Is this simple advice so hard to understand in the maritime community or WHAT! These little boats only have so much range so an embargo of the area is an easy way to handle this without spending the resources of the worlds naval community. As to the relief ships,Well,let them suffer the problem at their own risk or get the nation of origin or UN sending the ships to pony up the escorts needed.
"OR, maybe the asshat shipping companies sending cargoes through this human mine field can take the advice at the end of the article ans STEER CLEAR of these waters so as to starve off the pirates.”
One problemo: The only f’ing way to do that is to defacto close the Suez Canal for business, shut down the Straits of Malacca, and vacate the Western Indian Ocean, much of the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the Eastern Coast of Africa.
For business, humanitarian, and other reasons, that is implausible. The entire reason the Suez Canal was built was to allow ships to avoid going around Africa. So, it ain’t going to happen.
“Is this simple advice so hard to understand in the maritime community or WHAT!”
If this were the waters of Tierra del Fuego (a tiny, insignificant speck of cold territory where Southern Chile and Argentina meet the waters of Antartica), they WOULD! But to vacate this region is like closing down the Panama Canal: it is too damn valuable to do.
“These little boats only have so much range so an embargo of the area is an easy way to handle this without spending the resources of the worlds naval community.”
In order to do this you would have to blockade the entire Red Sea Coast, Eastern Africa down to (at a conservative Estimate) Zanzibar, the Western Indian Coast, the Pakistani Coast, many of the Indonesian Islands, the Malay Peninsula, and much of the Persian Gulf. In other words, a vastly larger area than the European blockade the Western Allies did in WWII.
Sorry, that’s going to take a LOT of resources.
I will say this as nicely as I can: you have NO IDEA about the dimensions of what you are proposing, and your ignorance of maritime warfare shows. BADLY.
You can’t blockade hundreds upon hundreds of miles of coast without a whole lot of ships. A more efficient route is to nail those ports the Pirates are using, but even that would take time.
Posted by Turtler
10/13/2008 at 12:50 AM
My Bad. I was thinking most of the area of concern was in the indian ocean region,Not the red sea region. And that being the case then I concure with Drew to: Blow the hell out of somalia and the entire coastline of that stain on the african coast. BTW Turtler,Im on your side and appreciate the critique but Geez,mellow out.
BTW,If I had read this first I would never had made such a nieve summation but this was on my after list in reading: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/somalia/articles/20081008.aspx
BTW Turtler,Im on your side and appreciate the critique but Geez,mellow out.
I didn’t intend to offend. I was just absolutely shocked by the strange and unrealistic proposal.
Posted by Turtler
10/13/2008 at 07:27 PM
