Interesting Pirate Fix

SOMALIA: “Somalia Says: Let Us Handle the Pirates,” by Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times, 15 April 2009

During a visit to Mogadishu this week, Rep. Donald M. Payne (D-N.J.) said providing direct assistance to allow Somalis to crack down on pirates might cost the international community less, especially after accounting for rising insurance premiums and the cost of using warships.

"It's a lot cheaper to deal with this on the land before these guys get into the water," Payne said. He said he planned to seek funding in Congress.

Payne called the hesitation by the international community understandable. Since 1991, numerous transitional governments have risen and fallen in Somalia amid infighting, corruption and human rights abuses. Donors want to see whether the current government does any better, he said.

This makes sense to me. Since the Maersk Alabama was hijacked last week, the U.S. has had at least three ships and countless man hours off the coast of Somalia. I don’t even want to guess how much that is costing the U.S. tax payer. Funding and training the Somalis seems like a good opportunity, and very well may be a cheep, but quality solution – maybe they will sustain a government and start acting like a sovereign nation. Then again, it is Somalia…

Also see: Bold Call for Obama, Even Bolder Call for Bainbridge Skipper

Is the Obama Administration Mulling a Preemptive Attack into Somalia?

National Security: "Obama Team Mulls Aims of Somali Extremists," by Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, 11 April 2009

Somalia has been in the spotlight this week with the hijacking of a U.S. flagged cargo ship by Somali pirates, and the subsequent kidnapping of its skipper. Additionally, it appears Somalia has been on the Obama national security team radar for more than pirate activity.

According to the Washington Post, Obama's national security team has been discussing the al Shabab extremist group. The al Shabab group is a complicated problem for Obama for a number of reasons:

1. The al Shabab leadership have ties to al Qaeda
2. There are Americans and Europeans in its camps
3. The U.S. has no evidence al Shabab is planning attacks outside Somalia -- the groups main interests are in battling Ethiopian occupiers and the Somali government

What I find interesting, given the above information, is that the Obama team is considering a preemptive strike. The information from the Post article was derived from unnamed sources within the administration. "Unnamed sources" usually means one of two things: 1. The administration is prepping the U.S. for a preemptive strike by "leaking" it to the media; or 2. The unnamed sources are concerned about the direction of the discussions and hope to influence them by leaking plans to the media.

The Post article mentioned that also under consideration was increased financial pressure and diplomatic activity, including stepped-up efforts to resolve the larger political turmoil in Somalia. Huh? How do you execute any of that with a failed state -- a failed state where we have had zero progress since a tragic (Blackhawk Down) intervention in 1993?

A preemptive attack against the al Shabab camps in Somalia would mark the administration's first military strike outside the Iraq and Afghanistan-Pakistan war zones.

The other thing I find ironic with this situation, when combined with the pirate problem, is that, once again, the U.S. finds itself bitten by a failed intervention. As always, if we don't do the job correctly the first time, we end up going back and doing it again -- and it's usually twice as hard the second time around.

If Obama does decide to strike the al Shabab camps, how will the U.S. population react? How will the world community react? Will they see a strike as a continuation of the Bush administrations preemptive foreign policy?

Also see: Some Things Don’t Change: The Military Hammer
Photo credit: AFP