A week ago the skiff riding thugs captured a Norwegian flagged, Burmese crewed chemical tanker off Madagascar. Due to its route and destination the ship was not registered with the fusion center controlling anti-piracy efforts in and near the Gulf of Aden. In its not-registered status the ship was one of the nine thousand plus vessels plying dangerous waters without letting the assorted patrolling navies know of their existence.
The seizure of the nine thousand ton tanker was good news for the pirates. So also is the unwillingness of shipowners and operators to wait for naval convoys--or even register the passage.
Thus the Norwegian tanker becomes another figure in the loss column. If one stares only at the goats, the number of attempted piracies, the news is all good for the pirates. This year seems on track to equal or surpass last year's record number of attempts--198. If, however, one's attention focuses on the number of successful pirate actions, the news is not at all good for the Thugs of the Blue Briny. Only forty-four ships were taken. That is only two more than the previous year where the numbers were forty-two for 122 attempts.
While the pirate net has spread ever wider, the catch is going the way of the bluefin tuna--down. One very good reason for this development is the acceptance by ship operators that minimum defense measures such as razor wire on the rails, blasting raiders with firehoses and, simplest of all, abrupt maneuvers at high speed turn attempts into failures. The addition of an armed guard has been shown to be the ultimate deterrent. It seems the pirates like to shoot but really don't cotton up to being on the receiving end of fast moving bits of metal.
Another way of showing pirates the downside of their chosen occupation was brought into sharp focus by the French frigate Nivose. The frigate, a component of the EU's naval task group went on a romp last week. The crew stopped and seized four motherships and six assault skiffs. The bag was thirty-five pirates in custody--and, one presumes, a whole lot of hard feelings back on shore.
While the loss of thirty-five members of the Jolly Roger Club is minuscule considering there are fifteen hundred or so pirates organized in seven syndicates doing a handsome business in ransoms (estimated 110 million for 2007 & 2008 combined), the French stop-seize-and-arrest is an arrow pointed in the proper direction.
(The Geek cannot help but wonder, given the current public view of the Obama administration being soft on terrorism, why doesn't one of the president's political men urge him to call up Secretary Gates or JCS Chair Mullen and tell them to ginger up our naval efforts, to, well, you know, out French the French?)
The problem for the French (and the rest of the League of Civilized States) is what to do with the pirates who are captured. All too often Kenya is used as a convenient dump for suspected pirates. The Kenyans are not thrilled by this. Even though the US and other nations help underwrite the direct expenses involved, the dumping of maritime pollution has caused severe difficulties for the Kenyan judicial system and is putting a strain on their jails.
The current practice also puts Kenya at greater risk of terror attacks emanating from Somalia. It is not surprising that members of the Kenyan legal and political establishments have been pushing back, hard, on the use of their country as the designated waste dump.
The Kenyans have been "playing up" in cricket terminology as shown by the recent conviction and sentencing to twenty years of seven pirates captured by the Royal Navy two years ago. Life in a Kenyan slammer might be bad, but at least these seven ex-thugs are better off than the two of their mates who died in the firefight with the Brits.
The UN Convention which governs the legal response to piracy gives primary jurisdiction to the country controlling the ship which captures the pirates. The US observed this law as well as its own domestic laws with the sole survivor from last year's episode which saw an American merchant captain held hostage by pirates thwarted in their attempt to take his ship. Three pirates were "double tapped" by SEAL snipers and the fourth has been indicted in New York.
The reasons that more pirates are not similarly treated (the Geek means arrested, not given head shots much as he prefers the latter) are transparent--and transparently bogus. The US and other Western states fear abuse of their legal systems by those representing and offering apologies for the pirates as well as entertaining some sort of misplaced anxiety that captured thugs-at-sea will claim political asylum.
Duh!
To make life worse, much worse, for the pirates it is necessary for more of the many navies now offering patrol, protection, and overwatch in the threatened sealanes to do what the French did. In addition it is necessary that all captured pirates be taken to stand trial and do their time in Western courts and prisons. The certainty of capture or worse, the sureness that the slow grinding judicial mills of the US, the UK, and other Western nations will produce in the fullness of time a long stretch in durance vile will raise the costs of doing business as a pirate syndicate.
History, a lot of history stretching back to the quite literal days of Julius Caesar, demonstrates that the vocation of maritime banditry loses its appeal when the costs are raised sufficiently. This does not mean we must return to the days of Execution Dock but it does mean that we must stop off loading the problem onto Kenya. It means that the countries who have stepped up to provide some measure of deterrence and protection against the Somali marauders must take the next step--bring the nasty little buggers to our homelands, give 'em a fair trial, let the apologists apologize, let the defense lawyers do their best, and, when the last hurrah has died away, lock the bloody blighters up for a goodly chunk of their lives.
The trouble and expense will be worth it. At the least by making a salutary example of the Somalis, there is some chance a far greater threat to maritime commerce and thus the global economy can be deterred.
That's right, bucko, there is a far greater threat on the near horizon. The Malacca Straits have been targeted according to Singapore maritime security officials. While the group has not been identified, it (or they) are Islamist in nature. The Malacca Straits constitute one of the greatest if not the greatest maritime chokepoint in the world carrying infinitely more trade than does the Gulf of Aden. The Straits are territorial waters for Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia, none of which has a significant navy. At the same time none of these rather prickly entities desires international assistance or an international naval presence. And, of course, two of them are Muslim majority countries and have internal problems with Islamist jihadists.
As even a member of the Obama administration should be able to see and understand, there is much more to be gained by showing palpable resolve against the annoying Somali skiffers than simply making the Gulf of Aden less risky. All that is necessary is to look at a map and see just how many very critical shipping lanes merge in the Straits and imagine what sort of destabilizing damage could be done by a few Muslim pirate/terrorists on skiffs of the Somali sort.
Making life worse for the Somali pirates will make life a lot less worse for the rest of us.
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