Assuming that Ms Clinton is not wandering off the Obama Reservation, the administration and president are equally committed to a program of feel-good proposals which will not prove effective in handling the challenge presented by the pirates to US national and strategic interests.
The major features of the Clinton Scheme For Pirate Neutralisation are: (A) The US government will "work" with the shipping industry including insurance firms to reduce vulnerability to pirate attack and seizure; (B) "explore ways to track and freeze pirate assets" along with seeking to "persuade boat builders not to do business with the pirates;" (C) Call for immediate meetings of the international anti-pirate patrol to improve coordination; (D) Have a meeting of all relevant federal agencies on Friday to review the problem and consider options; (E) "Going after" pirate bases in Somalia pursuant to UN resolutions of a few months back.
The SecState being faithful to her roots as a lawyer advised the media, "These pirates are criminals. They are armed gangs on the sea."
Duh! You don't say? Criminals? Gangsters? Who would have thought?
Ms Clinton also opined, "We need to bring Twenty-first Century solutions to bear."
Apparently the use of force against the "criminals," the "armed gangs" is not considered to be a 21st Century solution as Her Secretariness didn't mention that possibility.
OK, to err on the side of accuracy, the SecState did make the ambiguous reference to "going after" the pirate homeports which implies the use of force. But, for reasons previously adduced such an effort would demand the same fatal excursion into "nation-building" which has been seen before not only in Afghanistan, but, in Somalia. Ms Clinton should remember that one. She lived in the White House at the time the wheels came off that particular Noble Experiment.
Come on, Madam Secretary, get a grip. You may make the High Minded happy with your portfolio of non-solution solutions, but you won't stop the pirates. Unless they collapse with a fatal attack of laughter.
The State Department does not need to engage in either special inter-agency task force meetings or the creation of new liaison offices with Treasury. You all at Foggy Bottom don't need to jawbone to or with the shipping industry and insurance companies. You don't even need to dust off ancient plans for how to build a nation in Somalia.
Here is all the people at State need to do.
First, get the Principals together to draft an Executive Order prohibiting any shipping company or maritime insurance firm doing business with or in the US from paying any ransom under any color for any seizure of any ship or crew.
Second, give President Obama the phone number for Nicholas Sarkozy over there in Paris. Tell the President to ask his French counterpart one question.
The question?
"Sarko, how do you get the balls--I mean, the political will--to have your navy take down the pirates?"
Tell Mr Obama to take notes. Perhaps you should do so as well, Ms Clinton. You see, Obama-ites, in the real world, the world in which the High Minded rarely soil themselves by passage, all that is needed is the balls to take on the piratical goons mano a mano and kick their butts.
We have the capacity to do that.
Do you and the president have the will? That is the one and only question.
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