Pirate-fightin' navies find that parking off the Horn of Africa provides cover for counterterrorism and protects scofflaw fishermen.
Navies are expensive, and sending warships to Somalia is a hugely inefficient way to fight pirates, considering that the number of successful attacks off the Somali coast this year -- 35 by mid-November -- is only seven below the total for all of 2008, before NATO and the EU had anti-pirate missions in the region.
So why are they there? The short answer is that Western governments don't know what else to do. But the U.S. and Europe also have different self-interested reasons to cruise the Indian Ocean.
For most of the European governments involved, the obvious idea is to protect their domestic shipping business. "For these big shipping nations, it's not a big deal," a Horn of Africa expert named E.J. Hogendoorn, at the International Crisis Group in Nairobi, told me in September. "They've got big shiny navies; what the hell are they gonna do with 'em anyway? Might as well park 'em off the coast of Somalia. It's as good a training as any."
And defending the sea lanes is more or less what everyone's claiming to do. But America's interest is more complicated. In spite of the dramatic rescue of the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama last April, the ocean isn't terribly crowded with American merchant vessels. (Even American shipping lines sail under foreign flags, to save money.) The real draw to this part of the world, for Washington, is counterterrorism.
The Navy won't say so. "Piracy's an international problem requiring an international solution," said Lt. Matt Allen, a spokesman for the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, where the separate U.S.-led counterpiracy coalition (Combined Task Force 151) is based. "Even though a small portion of the [merchant] vessels are U.S.-flagged, a majority are allies and friends. Every nation has a vested interest in insuring the safe passage of the sea lanes."
But Washington's military buildup on the Horn of Africa started with the war in Afghanistan, which led to a (still-growing) naval base in Djibouti, just north of Somalia. Officially, the base in Djibouti has nothing to do with pirates. It's lodged inside what the Pentagon calls an "Arc of Instability" stretching from Kenya to Yemen. Al-qaeda and some like-minded groups have civil wars running in Yemen, Somalia and Sudan -- and Somalia, of course, could become "the next Afghanistan" if Islamists like al-Shabaab take over. Washington wants to watch these developments.
In September, a small American team killed a long-wanted terrorist named Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan south of Mogadishu, which suggests that the Pentagon has good intelligence in the region. No one in Djibouti, Bahrain or the AFRICOM headquarters in Germany will admit to organizing the raid, but Special Forces from an American warship reportedly helped, which might indicate a measure of support from the Navy's counterpiracy base in Bahrain (since the Djibouti base doesn't send out warships, officially).
The Navy's new jet-sized surveillance drones based in the Seychelles -- officially to watch pirates -- also have more than enough range to glide over Somalia and the rest of the Pentagon's "Arc of Instability."
But there's a third interest at stake in the fish-rich Indian Ocean. Some European fishing boats wander down from the Mediterranean (and away from hated EU regulations) to trawl the lawless coast of Somalia for tuna, lobster, shrimp and shark.
"It is particularly ironic that many of the nations that are presently contributing warships to the anti-piracy flotillas patrolling, or set to patrol, the waters off the Horn of Africa, are themselves directly linked to the foreign fishing vessels that are busily plundering Somalia's offshore resources," Clive Schofield, an Australian research fellow at the University of Wollongong and author of a paper called Plundered Waters: Somalia's Maritime Resource Insecurity, has written.
Namely: France and Spain. Hogendoorn, at the International Crisis Group, singled out Spain. "I've spoken to diplomats in Europe who've made it quite clear that Spain has been very active in the piracy issue because of its own national interests," he said, "which can only be interpreted to mean that they have fishing vessels making lots of money off of fishing in Somali waters."
Decimation of Somali fishing is a major complaint of the pirates themselves. The notion of a Somali fisherman hijacking a cargo ship because of collapsing fish populations is over-simple -- piracy is organized crime -- but the complaints about systematic decimation of African fish is real. Many Somalis, in fact, think the warships they see from their beaches have arrived to make the seas safe for foreign boats.
Aboard a NATO frigate in September, a British officer, Lt. Cmdr. Graham Bennett, noticed the lack of fishermen out on a calm, sunny day. It was the start of fishing season in the Gulf of Aden -- the monsoons had just ended -- but Somali fishermen seemed to be staying home.
"We need to get the word out that we're not here to arrest everyone," he told me. "We got on Somali TV the other day [and] said we really do want to protect the fishermen themselves from piracy. But some of the Somali people thought we were just here to protect the European fishing trawlers. That surprised us a little."
This article starring:
Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan
Posted by: Fred ||
11/19/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Pirates
#1
Pirate-fightin' navies? Who, exactly, has been fighting the pirates? If there was any fighting, there would be shore landings by Marines to eliminate the pirate nests.
#4
This is one of the European's dirty little secrets. They are in it to essentially pirate the fish off the East coast of Africa. However, a problem evolved when the Italian Mafia also took the opportunity to start illegally dumping toxic waste of the East coast of Africa.
The two goals are mutually exclusive. It doesn't do any good to steal someone's fish if you poison it first.
#6
The Navy's new jet-sized surveillance drones based in the Seychelles ...
Really? I didn't know that.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/19/2009 10:53 Comments ||
Top||
#7
I'm very comfortable, if not downright approving of european fishing boats looting the somalian waters (better for the spanish to do that there than in french waters and provoke a clash with the remnants of the french fishing industry as they did years ago), anyway, it's a great "in yer face" to those... nice productive, sensitive somalians, I guess, who bring happiness and order wherever they venture... BUT, I'm not happy, not happy at all with toxic wastes being dumped in that very same sea. What are you thinking? People will eat that fish! I might eat that fish!
Guys, let's get organized.
Loot the somali halieutic booty.
Dump the green glowing waste IN THE SOMALI MAINLAND, dammit.
Let's starve them from that sweet brain-noursishing fish, and give them cancer, it's not like everyone cares (or should care, for that matter, sucks to be a failed state all by your own fault).
The nation waits to hear the ultimate verdict today in the Bangabandhu murder case trial with bated breath and also in the expectation that finally justice will prevail. It has been a long, painful journey for the people of Bangladesh. It ought not to have been this way, for the particular reason that the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistani occupation in December 1971 was considered symbolic of a clean break with the past. That Bangalees would see democracy grow in their country, that under the leadership of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman they would go forth to create Shonar Bangla, a cause the Father of the Nation had consistently espoused since he emerged with his Six-Point programme of regional autonomy in the mid-1960s, was not a misplaced expectation. Indeed, it was a dream that seemed eminently attainable with Bangabandhu as the undisputed leader of this country.
And yet that dream was to be marred by the conspiracies already afoot to undermine Bangabandhu and his government. These conspiracies took form and substance even as the government struggled to provide meaningful leadership to the nation. In the pre-dawn hours of 15 August 1975, the conspirators struck. As the nation slept, the killer squads fanned out across various key points in Dhaka, the pre-eminent one being the residence of the President of the Republic, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. In one fell stroke, the assassins put an end to the life of the Father of the Nation and to the lives of most members of his family.
His wife, three sons, two daughters in law, his brother, his brother in law Abdur Rab Serniabat, his nephew Sheikh Fazlul Haq Moni and Moni's wife Arzoo were all murdered in what would be a macabre demonstration of ferocity.
The assassins would not be prosecuted for a long period of twenty-one years. An infamous indemnity ordinance, put in place by the usurper president Khondokar Moshtaque Ahmed and subsequently incorporated in the nation's sacred constitution by General Ziaur Rahman, Bangladesh's first military ruler, ensured that Bangabandhu's killers (who had also murdered the four national leaders in prison in November 1975) would remain beyond the pale of the law. The killers were indeed rewarded, through being appointed to the nation's diplomatic missions abroad. After Zia's assassination in an abortive coup in May 1981, successive governments until 1996 made no effort to overturn the indemnity ordinance and bring Bangabandhu's killers to justice. During the Ershad period between 1982 and 1990, the assassins were permitted to form political parties and take part in elections. When a popular uprising forced General Ershad from power in December 1990 and democracy was restored through the general elections of February 1991, the nation looked forward to a time of healing of the old gaping wound. Regrettably, the government led by Khaleda Zia, widow of Ziaur Rahman, pursued the old policy of keeping the killers safe from prosecution.
Twenty-one years after August 1975, the Awami League was voted back to power in June 1996. The government it formed moved briskly to annul the indemnity ordinance and bring Bangabandhu's killers to justice. Those among the assassins who were inside the country were arrested; the others were on the run, outside Bangladesh. That in no way obviated the requirements of justice. Parliament annulled the indemnity ordinance, clearing the way for the perpetrators of the August 1975 tragedy to be brought before the law. In what it considered to be the need for transparency and for justice to be done and to be seen to be done, the government of Sheikh Hasina initiated proceedings against the killers of 1975. In November 1998, the men accused of killing the Father of the Nation and his family were found guilty and sentenced to death.
And then everything stalled with the return to power of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in 2001. The new government of Begum Zia appeared reluctant to pursue the case. In more than one instance, judges felt embarrassed about presiding over the appeals hearings in the case. Conditions came to a pass where soon an inadequacy of judges on the bench led to a stultification of the proceedings of the case. It was a situation that would permeate the entire period of the BNP-Jamaat alliance government between 2001 and 2006.
The return of the Awami League to office through its victory at the general elections of December 2008 marked the beginning of a new phase in the Bangabandhu murder trial. Over the last many months, review petitions filed by the convicts have been heard and both prosecution and defence have argued the case in detail.
This morning is, in light of all the twists and turns of the last three and a half decades, or nearly, a moment of reckoning. On a bigger scale, it ought to be a new dawn where a restoration of values should come to underpin Bengali collective life once more. It should be a day where the people of Bangladesh can rise in unison and proclaim to the world that crime does not pay, that rule of law eventually is triumphant, that through a legal condemnation of murder and mayhem we as a nation are finally ready to expiate our collective sin of witnessing Bangabandhu die and staying quiet about the grievous tragedy for years on end.
The judicial judgement today, we believe in the core of our beings, will give us back our self-esteem as a nation --- the dignity we caused to flower in ourselves under the inspiring leadership of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in our armed struggle for liberty back in 1971
Posted by: Fred ||
11/19/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
RALEIGH, N.C. - The U.S. Army plans to prevent media from covering Sarah Palin's appearance at Fort Bragg, fearing the event will turn into political grandstanding against President Barack Obama, officials said Thursday. The annointed one must be protected!
Fort Bragg spokesman Tom McCollum told The Associated Press that the military post's garrison commander and other Army officials had decided to keep media away from Palin's book signing, which will not include a speech. He said the Army did not want the Monday event to become a platform to express political opinions "directed against the commander in chief." Sounds like the SECDEF's call came through.
"The main reason is to stop this from turning into a political platform," he said. "There are Army regulations that basically prohibit military reservations from becoming political platforms by politicians." What political office does Palin now hold?
He said only one politician can use that platform, "and that person does it as our commander in chief." ...or Presidential campaigning Senator Obama.
Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, has already agreed not to give a speech at Fort Bragg, McCollum said. Officials said Palin will only sign her books at the event and will not stop to pose for photographs or personalize the books. But she was good enough to raise a fine son who volunteered for the Army and who now serves in the Iraqi Theater of Operations.
But McCollum worried that Palin's supporters might use the media to express political opinions from the sprawling military installation that serves as a base for some 35,000 soldiers. No worries from McCollum about the anti-Palin Lame Stream Media or what statements they might make.
"This will stop someone from grandstanding," he said. Other members of the public would be permitted to attend the event. "Grandstanding" or shooting hoops, or going out to a range to fire an M4, trip to the DFAC,...etc. Former Governors NOT WELCOME, stronger message to follow.
Palin's spokeswoman didn't immediately return an e-mail message seeking comment and a spokeswoman for Palin's publisher, HarperCollins, did not immediately return a call.
Palin began her promotional tour this week for a new memoir, "Going Rogue," with plans to travel through several states that were key to the 2008 election, including North Carolina. She made several stops in the state in 2008 while campaigning on the ticket of GOP presidential nominee John McCain. No surprises here, er huh, ARMY Stong!By the way, who was Commander in Chief on March 19, 2008? Wednesday, March 19, 2008 Obama in Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Obama spoke this morning in Fort Bragg, NC about National Security and the War on Terror (today is the 5 year anniversary of the Iraq War). He stated that the US is less safe now and continued telling the fact that he opposed the war from the start.
Obama's war stance is great although this headline isn't flattering: Audience hand-picked for Obama's war speech
As our powerless secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, dutifully covers her head to attend the inauguration of an Afghan president so unpopular his ceremony has to be held behind closed doors, our AfPak (Afghanistan/Pakistan) policy isn't merely adrift. It's sinking.
President Obama inherited a mess, and promptly made it worse. But let's be fair: There's plenty of blame to go around in the ongoing Afghan nondecision debacle, as well as regarding our follies in Pakistan.
And I've been wrong about a fundamental issue. For years, I've insisted that, while the Pakistanis would never give us "their" Taliban (such as the Haqqani faction), they'd deliver Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri if they could.
Wrong, wrong, wrong: As the conflict dragged on, I failed to re-examine my conclusion and see what's become obvious: Osama bin Laden is the goose that lays platinum eggs.
If we killed or captured Osama and Zawahiri, the Pakistanis might not be able to milk us for more tribute money. We could draw down our troop presence next door. And the Pakistanis would lose the mighty profits squeezed from our supply route into Afghanistan.
The Pakistanis don't want us to remain in Afghanistan forever, but they're not ready to hit the brakes on the gravy train, either. They're of two minds -- and the greedy side tends to win in the short term.
And as long as we "need" Pakistan, Islamabad will be able to sponsor more terror attacks on India, counting on us to intervene before New Delhi retaliates.
Why on earth would they hand over Osama?
My mistake became clear with the passage of time: Eight years after 9/11, Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency must know where Osama hangs his turban. The ISI has connections even among the state's most virulent enemies. It's impossible to believe that, after this much time has elapsed, it has no idea where Osama's hiding. He could even be under the ISI's active protection.
We're such dupes. For the Pakistani government and the Afghan government. Secretary Clinton will show our support for Karzai in public, nag him a little in private, get a few worthless promises, bother Gen. McChrystal and fly home.
Mission accomplished.
Our president won't act, our generals won't think and our allies won't help.
#2
He spends half the article explaining how he missed a very basic fact regarding Pakistan and Bin Laden. On one hand I respect his honesty, on the other it makes it hard to trust his judgement.
#4
I respectfully disagree Richard. Peters should continue to speak out. I too repect his honesty. When was the last time we heard anyone in D.C. admit to being 'wrong' about anything?
#5
He spends half the article explaining how he missed a very basic fact regarding Pakistan and Bin Laden. On one hand I respect his honesty, on the other it makes it hard to trust his judgement.
I feel the same way. I've been reading Rantburg for years, and I've lost track of how many commentors here stated the obvious point that Osama was being protected by elements of the ISI.
And yet the experts are surprised.
Peters is a smart guy, so I think it was more willful blindness than ignorance on his part.
#8
Osama bin Laden is the goose that lays platinum eggs.
Exactly. US Aid pays for 1/2 the Paki defense budget, shiny new weapons and the exorbitant logistics fees are the keeping the Paki economy afloat. One data point: the Paki stock market rose 15X at one point. No war, no money, so it's in the Paki interest to suck in as many troops as possible.
Then, I believe the Sept. 11 atrocities were sponsored by powerful elements in the Paki gov as a Hail Mary pass because the sanctions imposed after the 1998 nuke tests were crippling the Paki economy and miltary.
Posted by: ed ||
11/19/2009 12:08 Comments ||
Top||
#10
As I've pointed out in past, the greatest mistake we made when entering the cancerous tumor that is Afghanistan in the first place, was to look around and say, "How can we respect and rebuild this totally ******-up place?"
The point is that not only could we not fix the utterly broken, but that we shouldn't have tried to fix it. It needed replacement, not repair.
Don't ask them to write a constitution, give them one, to western standards. Don't help them teach their children crap, send them to western boarding schools to be taught by real, western teachers, in a safe environment.
Don't try to revive their crappy economy, build them a new one from scratch. We could have hired close to every unemployed adult male in the country, with their pitifully small wage, and it would have only cost $1B a year. It would have put the WPA to shame.
Don't let their current leaders rule, because they are more worthless and corrupt than Chicago aldermen. Pick random people off the street and send them to "government school". Then after they get through that, have them apprentice to real bureaucrats who know how to run cities and countries. Then finally let them do it while the bureaucrat looks over their shoulder.
And audit the hell out of everyone while they're doing it.
Militarily, we would still be doing what we are doing, but at least their would be something in the background that might someday *work*, instead of the same old crap that got them into this mess in the first place, which is what we have now.
#12
Anonymoose, you initial premise is correct...we should never have tried to rebuild that ****** up place.
We should have gone in, wiped out the Taliban, set up Karzai and then left. Period. End of story.
Something attacks us from that toilet again, we do the same thing only much more brutally. We are wasting the national treasury on this dump and we can't afford it.
Iraq is basically over too. We need to draw down there and bring those troops, and the $$$ to sustain them, home. I think we should do that at a lot more bases around the world too.
#13
Something attacks us from that toilet again, we do the same thing only much more brutally. We are wasting the national treasury on this dump and we can't afford it.
And if I might add, we've done so with a great many more third world cesspools in years past. "Nation Building" is a figment of some State Department bureaucrat's misplaced longings and imaginations. Pound the hell of them, ruck up, and fly out. Eventually all the other goat buggering bastards will get the bloody message.
Great, long op-ed piece at The American (AEI news rag) about Obama's visit to India. Just the first few paragraphs here. Let's hope Obama doesn't blow this one; the USA-India relationship is one of the most important ones for the next half-century.
At the upcoming state visit, the challenge for President Obama is to make sure that the United States works closely with India on the issues of mutual concern.
It is a testament to how far the U.S.-India relationship has come that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be the first foreign leader granted an official state visit to the Obama White House. Amid the pomp and circumstance of the visit next week, both countries leaders will speak in lofty terms about the present and future of the U.S.-India strategic partnership. But what does this partnership with India actually mean for U.S. foreign policy?
The answer will depend on the extent to which the Obama administration sees the interests of India and the United States aligning on key administration priorities. While President Obama has expounded on the importance of U.S.-India ties, the administrations actual prioritization of India remains at best unclear. President Obamas foreign policy agenda is dominated by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and climate change policy. The latter two issues are also significant priorities for India and are areas ripe for bilateral cooperation. Yet the United States and India have not always seen eye-to-eye and significant differences remain. The challenge for President Obama is to make sure that the United States works closely with India on these critical issues of mutual concern so that this bilateral relationship is in fact a strong and enduring strategic partnership. Without this effort, the strategic partnership will amount to naught.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/19/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I'm sure the PM will get a very nice bow from Obama.
#2
Ten bucks says he does something to cheese off the Indians.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
11/19/2009 16:34 Comments ||
Top||
#3
"Ten bucks says he does something to cheese off the Indians."
Another ten says Bush then goes quietly behind Bambi to his friend Singh and tries to make up for whatever idiocy the Bambi Brigade™ perpetrates. For the good of America.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/19/2009 18:10 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
