The US has had a long-standing and successful policy for dealing with Muslim pirating, a policy established by Thomas Jefferson in the Tripolian War 1801, otherwise known as the First Barbary War. In contrast to John Adams who maintained Muslim piracy was something the United States would have to learn to manage, Jefferson argued that it was not possible to police an entire ocean, so the successful strategy was to identify and project American force to attack the safe haven ports and the governments that support the pirates. Further, all American merchant ships were forced to navigate through the Straits of Gibraltar, a natural choke point that funneled merchant ships into the waiting hands of Barbary pirates, a known trap. James Madison continued Jefferson’s policy in response to a second wave of Muslim piracy, the Algerine War 1816, a deliberate test by the North African Muslim despots to see if the old ransoming racket could be revived since Jefferson was no longer POTUS. Americans were not harrassed by any state-sponsored Muslim piracy after that.
In 1904, when Muslim warlord Rasuli in Morocco snatched an American and kept him hostage, Pericardis, President Theodore Roosevelt quickly blazed out with warships and hot rhetoric: “Pericardis ALIVE or Rasuli DEAD.”
Ion Pericardis was not an ideal American – he’d renounced his citizenship – the Moroccan government actually was innocent of this hostage-taking, so it wasn’t a case of state-sponsorship, but they managed to get rebel warlord Rasuli to cough him up before Roosevelt’s ships barrelled in. Roosevelt was aware of all this, his purpose was to demonstrate to everyone that America would defend her citizens anywhere in the world, making it safe for Americans to live, work and travel abroad.
Jimmy Carter ignored this successful history and allowed himself to be mired in negotiations designed to humiliate him; painting the USA as weak in the eyes of the Muslim world. Clinton further encouraged an image of weakness in the Muslim world as he failed to respond aggressively to the first WTC attack, and to an intensifying pattern of increasingly deadly attacks against Americans and American military abroad during his eight years in office.
9/11, planned for years during Clinton’s Administration and executed during Bush’s first nine months on the job, judged by the eye-for-an-eye expectations of the Muslim tribal culture, was an act that absolutely required a violent response for the USA to be credible in the eyes of Muslims. Judged by their actions, Carter and Clinton were dismissed as weak and afraid to respond, so jihadist-inspired Muslims believed Bush would also display cowardice and do nothing. They were mistaken. Bush’s swift and comprehensively coordinated offensive defense came as a total shock to the terrorists; to their chagrin and dismay, Bush was revealed as a “Strong Horse.”
Far from being incomprehensible, Somali pirates have displayed classic tribal behaviors, including starting negotiations with ridiculous demands for phenomenal amounts of money they had no hope of getting, expecting major reductions through standard haggling. To their surprise, they got their first outlandish price, a devastating mistake on the part of the ransom payers. The depth of Somali depravity was soon discovered to be not so deep with the first captured ”pirate captain” being all of 16 and in delighted awe at the luxury of an American Navy brig, excited to be sent off to the USA. Hmm.
But the profound damage was done … millions of dollars of ransoms fund new boats, better weapons and worse, attract hard-core and violent terrorists who are trained to exploit law-less zones, and with the natural choke point of the Gulf of Aden through which thousands of merchant ships and tankers pass through, seek to control a region that has great strategic and tactical value.
Now, if any half-awake sociology major in Tempe, sucking down an over-priced burned bean latte at Starbucks with a computer and google earth can track Somali pirate ships right now departing docks at their decrepit ports in their collapsed nation-less nation, and back again, and how much more does our military have, then obviously we have the means to track and target these Third World pirates with ease.
We have the capability – in spades, in abundance, but the Obama Abministration isn’t interested in stopping this. Simple as that.
The big question is: Why not? Is it international incompetence? Is it an agenda that is valued more than the Consitutional duty to defend America from enemies foreign and domestic?
The US military could destroy the pirate ability and desire to pirate, (most would quickly surrender anyway, they aren’t suicidal) and conquer the wretched strip of overgrazed and bullet-pocked land called Somali in a WEEK, even with nap-time, and not even use a fraction of what we have, and who would complain? There is no “Somali” government and everyone’s ships are at risk of pirate attack, so who would complain about ending that harrassment?
In 1790, George Washington got this report from his Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson summarizing US options to Barbary Muslim piracy:
1) US pay to ransom captives, and pay annual protection racket tribute to the Muslim pirate states
2) Abandon the Mediterranean
3) Use military force to end the pirate harrassment.
“Nothing new under the sun.” In 2011 we have the same options:
1) US pay to ransom captives, thus financing criminality and increasingly directly international violent terrorism (a negative)
2) Abandon the Horn of Africa region (a negative)
3) USe military force to end the pirate harrassment for everyone. (a positive)
The DEMOCRATS haven’t yet displayed they have learned ANYTHING about this region, tribal dynamics and the international implications for their inactions and capitulations. Four American citizens have just lost their lives because of it. Their lives should not be have lost in vain, nor should be permitted to be the harbinger of more deadly attacks against Americans abroad.
