Somalia: this definitely counts as an escalation

Posted By Elizabeth Dickinson Monday, April 13, 2009 - 9:42 AM Share

The war cries to bring down Somali pirates are deafening this morning (Obama has promised to do so), but none more alarming than this report from Bloomberg:

The U.S. military is considering attacks on pirate bases on land and aid for the Somali people to help stem ship hijackings off Africa’s east coast, defense officials said.

Does the United States know what they're getting into? Piracy experts have long suggested that the root of the problem is indeed on land. But air strikes on Somali bases would be dangerously close to a U.S. military operation in Somalia -- the kind that the country has avoided since Blackhawk down in 1994.

Let's think hypothetically about what might happen if strikes go ahead. U.S. onland intervention will surely anger al Shabaab, the Islamist militant wing that controls an alarming percentage of Somali territory and is the biggest single threat to Somali stability. Already, the Somali government is struggling to convince the country that its relatively pro-Western stance is for the greater good. That argument will lose all weight if and when the U.S. starts airstrikes. Forget about the government's effectiveness, and forget about any hopes that al Shabaab will disarm. This would fuel the fire. No, we shouldn't kneel to the demands of al Shabaab, but nor should we ignore that their ire will be taken out on the already dilapidated Somali population.

Talk about an escalation.

To be fair, the rumored U.S. plans includes the creation of a Somali coast guard, and support for the Somali government. U.S. Congressman Donald Payne, long a Somalia pragmatist, made a daring visit to Mogadishu today to talk about how the U.S. can help the Somalis fight piracy. But the fact that his plane was shot at only proves how difficult a situation we are walking into.

If we have learned anything about Somali over the last two decades, surely it is that military escalation (this one included) will inevitably breed more chaos. And if we have learned anything about the pirates, it is that chaos on land breeds impunity at sea.

Photo: MOHAMED DAHIR/AFP/Getty Images

EXPLORE:AFRICA, AXIS OF UPHEAVAL, DRUGS & CRIME, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, MILITARY, SECURITY, SOMALIA, U.S. CONGRESS, U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

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JASON SIGGER

10:36 AM ET

April 13, 2009

Le'ts not hyperventilate either

The Defense Department is doing what it has always done, and that is to prepare options in accordance with US govt policy. No one has forgotten Mogadishu, and no one is proposing sending ground troops and aid convoys into Somalia - yet. Sure, a "whole of govt" approach ought to be considered, and in 6-8 months, maybe it will even get up and running. In the meantime, what do you propose we do?

Military action is a short term treatment (something the Bush administration ignored/forgot) but it is action to fill the long gaps between a crisis and getting US aid to a particular objective. But let's not forget who escalated the situation here - it was Somali pirates grabbing a US-flagged ship that did it. Time that pirates learned not to screw with the US Navy. Honestly, can it get any worse in Somalia?

CURIOUS OBSERVER

10:54 AM ET

April 13, 2009

Let's be blunt

Intervention in Somalia would turn a piracy issue into another clash-of-civilizations debacle.

Somalia was actually Bush's third failed war in the Muslim world; it just flew under the radar because it was a relatively brief affair in which Ethiopian proxies did most of the dirty work and were chased out after about two years.

Now Washington is going to step in full-force to support a "government" that has (if it's possible) even less popular support than Hamid Karzai? And give the Islamists an explicit throw-out-the-Americans cause they haven't had till now?

Somewhere in a cave in Pakistan with high-speed Internet, bin Laden is laughing his rear end off.

CATHOLICGAUZE

1:48 PM ET

April 13, 2009

Geography and Tactics Understanding Needed

You have to remember that the pirates are from Puntland while al Shabaab functions in Somalia-proper. al Shabaab's war against the "government" is really a tribal war with various Wahabbi, Sufi, and clan factions.

Finally, pirates do piracy because the gains outweigh the risks (until yesterday). Bombing ports ala the Barbary Pirate Wars (sans military invasion) is a near-riskless conflict and a neigh-certain win. Pirates cannot use 4GW tactics because their homes are static targets. Perfect targets for bombing jets.

TOMSACHS

2:22 PM ET

April 13, 2009

Will the Navy protect every ship?

Is it now US policy to use the full force of the Navy to protect every ship that is threatned by pirates? Will President Obama, the Joints Chief of Staffs, the NSA, and the FBI get involved for every situation where three people are holding someone hostage?

"Time that pirates learned not to screw with the US Navy". This is the same type of macho thinking that lead to the problems in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Its time Osama Bin Laden learned not to screw with the US". The military is only good at fighting nation-states, not small gangs of criminals.

CURIOUS OBSERVER

3:08 PM ET

April 13, 2009

Haven't you heard, Tom?

It's the God-given right of every American to pass unmolested wherever he or she may travel around the world*, and if that individual gets into trouble, it is the sworn duty of the U.S. military to come to his or her rescue.

Really, what's the point of living in an empire if you don't get the privileges that come with it?

*Excepting Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, where it is assumed you are collaborating with the regime

MCDUFF

4:15 AM ET

April 14, 2009

There is another side

I'm surprised that with the number of people commenting on the Passport blog about Piracy that nobody has mentioned that Somali pirates might not just be bloodthirsty anarchists.

Johann Hari, 5 Jan 09, The Independent

As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."

...More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."

This is the context in which the "pirates" have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a "tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia – and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence".

The navies of the world mobilising to defend colonial exploitation in Africa... isn't that a bit passée?

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