Why can’t we use one of the many aircraft carriers that we have and cover the tens of thousands of square miles with dozens of Predator drones, armed with Hellfire missiles seeking out piracy on the high seas and let hundreds of retired old video gamers do the searching, missiles only fired on command from normal officers. Much cheaper and more satisfying than the Iraq fiasco. We can show the videos on the web or TV. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The area they pirate in is approx. 4 x the area of Texas. It is not a problem solved by adding a few sailors in boats. It that is all that was required ,it would have been ended long ago. The rubber boats, and little boats they use are not easily picked up on radar and sonar.
The problem is that the pirates aren’t pirates until the moment they start an attack. Up and until that time, they’re fishermen exercising the same right to be in international waters that we are. And if they see something that deters them, they’ll stay “innocent fishermen” until they perceive a target they can affect, at which point they suddenly convert.
If we go around blowing up the boats of poor people, we’ll look like pirates. Heck, we’ll BE pirates if we hit actual fishermen. The whole area has lots of small craft in it doing various inscrutable floating-around things. We can’t stop every craft and search it for rocket-propelled grenades – unless we make a much larger effort…and even then, stopping and searching everyone who’s not one of us probably violates some principle like “Freedom of the Seas” or whatnot.
If we could just control the flow of rum, cutlasses, peglegs, and parrots, seems like things would work out on their own.
Exactly. It is like saying that the way to stop all muggings in Washington DC is to take out all the muggers before they strike. Except that until the mugging occurs the guy is just an inocent guy walking down the street.
Reminds me of an old an silly story of a town that had a terrible infestation of rats and just could not get rid of them. A man came into the town and said he could kill all the rats for $5000 and the mayor and people gladly accepted the offer. He asked for a table and a knife and said “OK, now bring me the rats so I can kill them”.
I guess I am the only skeptic. When it was reported that the pirates were shot from a long distance when they were about to execute the captain, I did not buy it. What was their card to play if they killed him? There would have been no reason non to sink them immediately. Then they could tell intent from a distance? I think they were put on the boat to end the standoff and they did.