Bail out Somalia to curb the pirates?

Christian Science Monitor ^ | April 14, 2009 edition | Monitor's Editorial Board

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Obama, like pre-9/11 Bush, may scorn nation-building. But can the US afford not to do it?

It would be easy to hope, after Sunday's dramatic rescue in the Gulf of Aden, that heroic ship captains, Navy Seal sharpshooters, and an armada of foreign warships will somehow contain pirates off Somalia or keep that anarchic land free of Al Qaeda-friendly Islamists.

But a bit of history: In the early 19th century, it took America and Europe nearly 30 years to defeat the Barbary pirates off the coast of northern Africa, relying on horrific battles and eventually imperialist conquest.

So it's unlikely that President Obama, occupied with two wars and costly "nation-building" at home, wants to get to the root of the piracy problem by fixing the failed state of Somalia with an invasion, occupation, or oodles of foreign aid.

And yet, Somali pirates still hold captive more than 200 foreign sailors and more than a dozen ships. American crew members on passing cargo ships might now be particularly targeted in retaliation for the killing of the three pirates.

What's more, Mr. Obama's defense secretary, Robert Gates, cites weakly run countries as a major threat to the US. In a speech last October, he said: "The security of the American people will increasingly depend on our ability to head off the next insurgency or arrest the collapse of another failing state."

Mr. Gates calls for "enlightened counter-measures" to bolster vulnerable states that harbor violent networks. And this week, after the rescue of the kidnapped Capt. Richard Phillips, he went further to say there is "no purely military" solution to Somalia "unless you get something on land that begins to change the equation for these kids."

Yes, kids. The pirates were 17 to 19 years old.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Liberals at work......?

[Man50D]

We should bail out Iran and Pakistan to curb the terrorists.

[a fool in paradise]

Osama Bin Laden was a billionaire. So was Yassir Arafat.

They don’t engage in terrorism because they are poor. They engage in terrorism because they are evil.

[RC2]

Our problems always start when we neglect to stand up to people with overwhelming military force. That is the only thing they respect. For some reason, we feel that they think the way we do.........they don’t and our politicians don’t comprehend these people.

[angelcindy]

oh hell no!!!!! they already got 80 mil!!

[SonOfDarkSkies]

Telling Africa to Drop Dead (How aid is killing Africa)

When it comes to African poverty, everyone, it seems, wants to help—and “help” usually means foreign aid.

Here’s the problem: It doesn’t work—and it might even make things worse. That’s the argument of Dead Aid, a new book by Dambisa Moyo, an economist born in Zambia, educated at Oxford and Harvard, and who is currently raising major hackles in development circles.

...

According to Moyo, aid opens up a hornet’s nest of problems: it chokes off investment, encourages a culture of dependency, enables disastrous levels of corruption, discourages savings, depresses exports, encourages bloated, unsustainable, and lazy governments, is easy to steal and props up dictators. (“Indeed,” Moyo writes, “one could argue that the reason why Zimbabwe’s Mugabe has lasted so long is because he has been propped up by massive foreign aid receipts.”)

[Cheetahcat]

Bail out sounds like a job for the fellow Muslims in the Gulf Countries not us.

[angelcindy]

they got money to buy all them weapons they have...

[norraad]

.curb your dog, curb your pirate, curb your terrorist!

[jveritas]

The Somali Pirates problem is one of the easiest problems that we are facing and hence its soultion is rather easy when compared to the much more difficult problems and much more dangerous enemies that we facing such as Al Qaeda terrorists, the Taliban terrorists, the Iranian terrorist regime, the North Korean terrorist regime, Hizballah terrorists, Hamas terrorists, etc...

One or two US Navy ships present next to the cost of Somalia with ready Navy Seal teams can stop all the Somalia piracy in a short period of time. All what the commercial ships has to do is to radio in the US Navy ships and tell them that they are under the threat of attacks from pirates, the US Navy will dispatch a Navy Seal Team or an attack Helicopter and kill all the pirates. Once we kill few dozen pirates then it is over.

Another solution to launch air raids and special ops team raids against the land bases where the pirates come from and kill a large number of them.

[Hoffer Rand]

Bail out Bomb Somalia to curb the pirates?

There, fixed it.

[BuffaloJack]

> In the early 19th century, it took America and Europe nearly 30 years to defeat the Barbary pirates.

Yeah, but they didn’t have bombers back then.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

Tactical-nukes on every Somali coastal village and town...

[massgopguy]

I will never forget the front page of the Boston Herald in 1992 where the little smiling Somali BASTARD stood on the body of one of the Rangers from the Black Hawk.

[a fool in paradise]

When Time Magazine ran the photos of the dead American being dragged through the streets, they airbrushed out his genitals. Because that was what Time-Lies found offensive about the whole matter.

I mean, I hear that we cannot see the photos of ANY of the 3,000 dead on 9-11-2001 out of respect for their families. But there was no respect afforded this man’s family.

[Charles Henrickson]

DUmmie FUnnies 04-14-09 (Of Pirates and Patriotism: A DUmmie Dilemma)

SOMALIAN PIRATES
Tune: "Lincoln Park Pirates"

In Somalia where I live, there's a, there's an outfit that'd hijack almost anything on the sea. But they deal mostly with ships, and we call 'em, "Somalian Pirates. . . ."

The vessels are out on the ocean tonight
The calm sea makes nary a splash
The merchants are haulin'
The trawlers are trawlin'
But somebody's fishin' for cash

Yes, those crewmen are mindin' their business, he said
But we got work of our own
So hijack their boats
And we'll write ransom notes
And we'll see who will float us a loan

To me, way, hey, make 'em all pay
Somalian Pirates are we
We plunder the nations
It's called reparations
We're spreadin' the wealth 'round, you see

To me, way, hey, make 'em all pay
We're not doin' anything new
When ships want to sail out
We make 'em our bailout
Somalis need stimulus too

Obama's a brother from Kenya
A leader who's canny and wise
He will softly and smooth "yes we can" ya
And rob you in front of your eyes

So we've taken a page from his playbook
And we're changin' the words that we use
No longer we'll call it a "ransom"
"Investment's" the term that we choose

To me, way, hey, make 'em all pay
Somalian Pirates are we
We plunder the nations
It's called reparations
We're spreadin' the wealth 'round, you see

To me, way, hey, make 'em all pay
We're not doin' anything new
When ships want to sail out
We make 'em our bailout
Somalis need stimulus too

And when all the ships have been boarded
And all of their owners are broke
Then we'll have to do like Barack Obama
And find some new suckers to soak

'Cause even with all of the ransoms
There's millions more dollars we need
Now for money supply it's
The Washington Pirates
Obama, Pelosi, and Reid

To me, way, hey, make 'em all pay
Somalian Pirates are we
We plunder the nations
It's called reparations
We're spreadin' the wealth 'round, you see

To me, way, hey, make 'em all pay
Now soon we'll be done with the sea
No more brazen attacks
We'll just raise the tax
Let's join the thieves in DC!

[Oldpuppymax]

The Christian Science Monitor, demanding we fund the Somali pirates and criticizing the United States—as usual—calling us “imperialists” for doing away with pirating 200 years ago. What a shock.

[Jonny foreigner]

One or two US Navy ships present next to the cost of Somalia with ready Navy Seal teams can stop all the Somalia piracy in a short period of time. All what the commercial ships has to do is to radio in the US Navy ships and tell them that they are under the threat of attacks from pirates, the US Navy will dispatch a Navy Seal Team or an attack Helicopter and kill all the pirates. Once we kill few dozen pirates then it is over.

---

sorry but unfortunately it´s not that simple.
there are allready more than a dozen warships from several Nations patroling this area and still they are not able to stop this.

[Larry Lucido]

If they had bailed out us Italians, I’m sure there would have been no Mafia. Now pass me a cannoli, capice?