Posted on 04/18/2009 1:03:51 PM PDT by SandRat
WASHINGTON, April 18, 2009 – Military force is only part of the solution to the recent wave of piracy in the waters off Somalia, the Pentagon’s top military and civilian officials said.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said fighting piracy will require an international effort that includes a whole-of-government approach in addition to military force.
“It’s not just a military solution here,” Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said in a National Public Radio interview today.
Pirates have attacked at least three ships recently in the waters off Somalia and Yemen, and Dutch marines rescued 20 Yemeni fishermen after their boat was hijacked and used as a mother ship for Somalis operating against an oil tanker.
More than 80 attacks on shipping in the Gulf of Aden and waters adjoining Somalia have taken place this year. Though war ships from 16 nations are in the region, Mullen said, it is impossible to have ships everywhere in a 1.1 million-square-mile-area.
“There are an awful lot of ships, and the number of Navy ships we have out there cannot cover the water,” Mullen said. “Nor would increasing that number dramatically cover the water.”
At the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., yesterday, Gates said shipping companies have a responsibility in helping to combat piracy off Somalia, noting that some companies are prepared to pay ransoms to pirates as part of the cost of doing business.
“Clearly, if they didn't pay the ransoms, we would be in a stronger position,” the secretary said.
Somali pirates currently hold 15 ships and about 280 hostages. Piracy has become a business for Somalis, who live in a failed state.
“The impact of the dollars that these pirates get in their villages and for the individuals involved is staggering, because their home villages are unspeakably poor,” Gates said in Newport. “And the infusion of millions of dollars into them, and the corruption and everything else makes it a very attractive career field for a lot of poor young men who have no prospects.” And desperation on the ground will continue to make piracy attractive, Gates added.
“It’s a complex problem, and I think it involves both a maritime aspect that involves enforcement and a kinetic aspect,” he said. “But I think until we can do something to provide some kind of stability on land and some prospects for these people, it's going to be a tough problem.”
On NPR today, Mullen said more needs to be done to punish piracy. “In the end, this is a crime, and it needs to be prosecuted in a court,” he said. “The only country the United States has an agreement with is Kenya, where we have transferred pirates that we’ve captured. That part of the system has to be more robust than it is right now.”
No it doesn’t ...
HEY! Gates! Mullens! Try using aggressively the military first before making these STUPID bleeding heart wuss pronouncements.
Ummmmm, haven't we been down this path before? I like Gates, but sometimes I think he's made the adjustment to the Obama administration a little too well.
Put a half-dozen laser-equipped Predators on station probably covering overall 0.5 MM sq mi of Indian Ocean. They sight a craft smaller than X size, they whistle up a fighter-bomber from, say, Diego Garcia or a flattop, paint the craft with the laser, and it's SmartBomb City. Bye-bye.
I dunno, a military solution worked pretty well for Rome vs. Carthage.
Response: Hold on to your wallets.
Sounds like a solution to me.
No boats at or from the coast -—> no piracy.
All we have to do to end piracy is give the warlords a few hundred billion dollars in “aid”.
Just ask Hillary and the President.
bring them here. put them in the coast guard. sign them up for nobamas civilian force.sign them up to vote.
of course if that doesn’t work they make nutritious goodies for sharks.
Right you are.
Yup...I think Thomas Jefferson would agree with you too
well,i was trying to find middle ground. i don’t anyone accusing me of being a right wing extremist yanno.
of course,i agree,sharks need to eat too.
We could send them crayons and coloring books.
Yes, lets take on another “Welfare State” where we need to nation build for the next 25 years. We don’t have enough on our plate right now.
How about we terminate with brute force anybody trying to take over one of our flagged merchant ships and let some of the other nations of the world get up off their asses to spend blood and treasure rebuilding Somalia.
haha. the thought that these bleeding heart idiots want to address the ‘root causes” of every damn thing that goes wrong in the world for the past 50 or so years is why this country and the entire free world is in such chaos.
Palestine can support X population. Oh waity,they’re hungry? send them food. Food they didn’t work for,food they didn’t earn. Food they got by behaving like animals. What happens? More palis! wow,what a solution! This is all over the world. If people really cared for the earth,they’d stop sending food to countries that are populated beyond their means. Its a damn sight better solution than abortion. Hungry people have other things on their minds than reproducing.
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