So far the piracy has been comparatively non-violent: offhand I can’t think of anyone I know the pirates themselves have killed — although hostage rescuers have certainly killed several people. If the ships crews were to start using machine guns instead of water hoses, the pirates would presumably shoot more people too.

Piracy when the RN was wiping it out was generally much more violent than in the days when it was a safer occupation.

So a War-on-Piracy approach might well kill more seamen than it saved.

As for playing hunt-the-pirate — they have millions of square miles of ocean to operate in, and a couple of thousand miles of coastline to operate on. At any one time there must be thousands of small boats in that area to be searched. And as warships cost several hundred million dollars apiece, there will never be that many to do the searching.

And as the pirates are Somalis who steal from non-Somalis to the benefit of other Somalis, they probably don’t have that bad a press in Somalia. So they should have local support. Like Robin Hood.

I don’t think this would be an easy problem to solve.

OTOH, there does not seem to be that much effort to move through near-African waters in convoy, which suggests that for the moment it is quite a small problem. It may not need any more attention than, say, kidnappings of foreign businessmen in Mexico.

I guess occupation suited many French quite nicely. The “big difference” between France and Somalia narrows.

While Al-Shabaab may and probably does have foreign fighters in it’s ranks – it’s still a home grown organization and not an occupying foreign army.

Huge difference between them and the n%%is.

Regarding foreign interference in the internal politics of nations, this is as old as human society and has always been taking place. Even the founding of the US contained elements of French “meddling” in North American affairs simply to cause the British problems.

So yeah, I do have “sympathies” as you put it, for one group over another. One group definitely fought against an identifiable foreign invader against overwhelming odds – and the other, well, they just seem to want to make a profit off of their own homegrown piracy organization.

But hey, if you want to stand in “sympathy” with the pirates, be my guest.

Al-Shabaab is said to have non-Somali foreigners in its ranks, particularly at its leadership[25]. Fighters from the Persian Gulf and international jihadists were called to join the holy war against the Somali government and its Ethiopian allies. Though Somali Islamists did not use suicide bombing tactics before, the foreign elements of Al-Shabaab are blamed for several suicide bombings.[26] [27] UN’s 2006 report stated Iran, Libya, Egypt and others in the Persian Gulf region as the main backers of the Islamists. Egypt has a longstanding policy of securing the Nile River flow by destabilizing Ethiopia. [28][29] Similarly, recent media reports also cited Egyptian and Arab jihadists as the core elements of the Al-Shabaab, who are training Somalis in sophisticated weaponry and suicide bombing techniques.[30] A few young Somali men who have immigrated with their families to the United States have also reportedly been recruited to fight in Somalia.[31]

From Wikipedia.

The only “huge” difference I see is your sympathies for one group of victims over another.

Big problem with your comparison between Vichy France and modern Somalia.

France had been defeated by the Germans, it’s army destroyed (what part didn’t evacuate to England that is), forced to sign documents in the very rail car Germany had to sign it’s surrender documents in at the end of WWI, and a small but effective portion of it’s population was involved in resisting the German occupation by any means possible – whether it was helping shot down allied flyers back to England, assassinating German soldiers whenever the opportunity arose, hiding French Jews or even putting sugar into the gas tanks of German vehicles.

Resistance was enough that Germans had to occupy the country, and large portions of their military remained tied down in France instead of being shipped to other areas.

It is also true that there were many Frenchmen who were content to accept their lot under occupation who claimed to have been partisons after the war was over.

Not a lot of reason in that description to warrant “razing France to the ground” is there?

In Somolia, on the other hand, there is no evidence anyone is resisting the status quo, and evidence indicates that large segments of the population actually support the piracy trade.

Somolia also is not suffering under any kind of occupying army – it’s simply preying on vulnerable shipping businesses.

Huge differences there….

So, even though I can sympathize with with the viewpoint of destroying the pirate’s base of operations, I know it’s not going to happen because the Dear Leader doesn’t have the nerve to do so. The best that can be hoped for at this point is to catch them at sea and simply sink every pirate ship and execute every pirate that can be found.

No argument, just disagreement. I believe you misinterpret what I said.

My point is that claims the locals are living with the pirates because they don’t have the power to change the situation fail when one takes into account how entire villages are profiting from the piracy trade.

The movie Catch-22, which is what I assumed you were referring to and not the book based upon how you quoted a script and not a novel, on the other hand to me seems to be all about actions not really mattering in the larger scheme of things.

You’re screwed no matter what you do, hence the pop culture reference “catch-22” meaning a situation where you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

I’m sure there are more cultured minds here than my own who will probably leap in to correct me as to the *real interpretation* and *underlying message* of the movie, but that’s the message I ended up with after watching the flick.

I don’t believe it really applies to the piracy situation because the villagers are obviously not *damned* as they enjoy the fruits of the piracy trade.

Contrary to popular sentiment, no navy and no nation is going to simply wipe out these villages – we must have a more *nuanced* and *proportionate* response to the acts of these obviously well meaning but disadvantaged folk.

End result, aid money will eventually go into the area (predominantly paid by the US taxpayer of course!), and the villagers will enjoy the benefits of the piracy trade first, and the benefits of incoming aid last with a generally freewheeling live-for-today existence in between.

There is no Catch-22 here for them, it’s all win-win from their perspective.

–Yup. Nothing will come of this. They (the gubmint types) only flap their gums when we’re looking at them; as soon as we look away, they go back to chewing their cud and swatting flies.

In fact, the contingent is military, specifically the U.S. Navy. My son, previously Military Police, is presently stationed in Bahrain and is serving on a roving security team to do just what you have described. They board the ships in various ports and transit the Gulf of Aden going sometimes as far as the Med. They maintain 24-hour watch (12 on and 12 off) at the rails of the ship and are armed with .50 caliber and more. In some cases, these teams are at sea for weeks, and sometimes months, at a time.