Somalia: "Why We Don't Condemn Our Pirates"

Yesterday Tristan McConnell of Global Post and Enduring America's Josh Mull offered analyses of Somalia, and the response to its political, paramilitary, and social situation, which went far beyond "Kill the Pirates" rhetoric. Writing for URB Magazine, K'Naan, a Somali-Canadian poet and musician, offers this perspective with the context of recent Somali history and ongoing "Western" activities off the Somali coast:

Why We Don't Condemn Our Pirates in Somalia

Can anyone ever really be for piracy? Outside of sea bandits, and young girls fantasizing of Johnny Depp, would anyone with an honest regard for good human conduct really say that they are in support of Sea Robbery? Well in Somalia, the answer is: it's complicated.

The news media these days has been covering piracy in the Somali coast, with such lopsided journalism that it's lucky they're not on a ship themselves. It's true that the constant hijacking of vessels in the Gulf of Aden is a major threat to the vibrant trade route between Asia and Europe. It is also true that for most of the pirates operating in this vast shoreline, money is the primary objective. But according to many Somalis, the disruption of Europe's darling of a trade route is just Karma biting a perpetrator in the butt. And if you don't believe in Karma, maybe you believe in recent history. Here is why we Somalis find ourselves slightly shy of condemning our pirates.

Somalia has been without any form of a functioning government since 1991. And despite its failures, like many other toddler governments in Africa, sprung from the wells of post-colonial independence, bad governance and development loan sharks, the specific problem of piracy was put in motion in 1992.

After the overthrow of Siyad Barre, our charmless dictator of twenty-some odd years, two major forces of the Hawiye Clan came to power. At the time, Ali Mahdi, and General Mohamed Farah Aidid, the two leaders of the Hawiye rebels were largely considered liberators. But the unity of the two men and their respective sub-clans was very short-lived. It's as if they were dumbstruck at the advent of ousting the dictator, or that they just forgot to discuss who will be the leader of the country once they defeated their common foe. A disagreement of who will upgrade from militia leader to Mr. President broke up their honeymoon. It's because of this disagreement that we've seen one of the most devastating wars in Somalia's history, leading to millions displaced and hundreds of thousands dead. But war is expensive and militias need food for their families, and Jaad (an amphetamine-based stimulant) to stay awake for the fighting. Therefore a good clan-based Warlord must look out for his own fighters. Aidid's men turned to robbing aid trucks carrying food to the starving masses, and reselling it to continue their war. But Ali Mahdi had his sights set on a larger and more unexploited resource, namely: the Indian Ocean.

Already by this time, local fishermen in the coastline of Somalia have been complaining of illegal vessels coming to Somali waters and stealing all the fish. And since there was no government to report it to, and since the severity of the violence clumsily overshadowed every other problem, the fishermen went completely unheard. But it was around this same time that a more sinister, a more patronizing practice was being put in motion. A Swiss firm called Achair Parterns, and an Italian waste company called Progresso, made a deal with Ali Mahdi, that they could dump containers of waste material in Somali waters. These European companies were said to be paying Warlords about $3 a ton, where as in to properly dispose of waste in Europe costs about $1000 a ton.

In 2004, after Tsunami washed ashore several leaking containers, thousand of locals in the Puntland region of Somalia started to complain of severe and previously unreported ailments, such as abdominal bleeding, skin melting off and a lot of immediate cancer-like symptoms. Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the United Nations Environmental Program, says that the containers had many different kinds of waste, including "Uranium, radioactive waste, lead, cadmium, mercury and chemical waste." But this wasn't just a passing evil from one or two groups taking advantage of our unprotected waters, the UN Convoy for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, says that the practice still continues to this day. It was months after those initial reports that local fishermen mobilized themselves, along with street militias, to go into the waters and deter the Westerners from having a free pass at completely destroying Somalia's aquatic life. Now years later, that deterance has become less noble, and the ex-fishermen with their militias have begun to develop a taste for ransom at sea. This form of piracy is now a major contributor to the Somali economy, especially in the very region that private toxic waste companies first began to bury our nation's death trap.

Now Somalia has upped the world's pirate attacks by ove r21 percent in one year, and while NATO and the EU are both sending forces to the Somali coast to try and slow down the attacks, Blackwater and all kinds of private security firms are intent on cashing in. But while Europeans are well in their right to protect their trade interest in the region, our pirates were the only deterrent we had from an externally imposed environmental disaster. No one can say for sure that some of the ships they are now holding for ransom were not involved in illegal activity in our waters. The truth is, if you ask any Somali if they think getting rid of the pirates only means the continuous rape of our coast by unmonitored Western vessels, and the production of a new cancerous generation, we would all fly our pirate flags high.

It is time that the world gave the Somali people some assurance that these Western illegal activities will end, if our pirates are to seize their operations. We do not want the EU and NATO serving as a shield for these nuclear waste-dumping hoodlums. It seems to me that this new modern crisis is a question of justice, but also a question of whose justice. As is apparent these days, one man's pirate is another man's coast guard.

A Grand Republican Teabagging: The Day After

Latest Post: Tea Parties, Violence, and Politics (And, Yes, This is a Serious Post)

Related Post: Enduring America - Your #1 Site for Republican Teabagging (with Updates!)

Enduring America, your #5 site for Republican Teabagging Parties, thinks it can now be proclaimed loud and proud:

Teabagging is here to stay.

Even a few weeks ago, this might have been surprising. For most people, Teabagging is a new and dramatic pastime. Yesterday it might have been far easier to take the safe road, like watching TV --- especially if The Price is Right is on --- or knitting.

Thousands, however, took the leap of the faithful and Tea-bagged in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and even Batesville, Arkansas, a newcomer to the Tea-bagging phenomenon.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Enduring America: Your #1 Site for Republican Teabagging (with Updates!)

Latest Post: Tea Parties, Violence, and Politics (And, Yes, This is a Serious Post)

Related Post: A Grand Republican Teabagging - The Day After
Related Post: Republican Teabagging - What It REALLY Means
Related Post: Republican Teabagging Revolution Begins

LIBERAL TEABAGGING SABOTAGE UPDATE (10 p.m. British Teabag Time): Enduring America regrets to confirm that liberal saboteurs have out-Teabagged our Republican friends, forcing the end of the Washington DC protest:

Secret Service officers were scurrying to close the North Lawn of the White House Wednesday afternoon because of a suspicious package and it appeared that trouble was brewing.

But it turned out that nothing more was brewing than an innocent little box of, yes, tea bags.

Journalists were quickly banned from moving outside of the press briefing room, and hundreds of protesters gathered for a "Tax Day Tea Party" were quickly shooed out of Lafayette Park as a security robot inspected the package closely.

After about a half hour of high alert, a Secret Service official told CNN the "suspicious package" was merely some tea bags. So the threat was over, and so was the anti-Obama protest.

We fear that we may have may have misunderestimated our liberal/radical/taxifying opponents' expertise and experience with Teabagging. Next time we must ensure that we, and not they, are the ones who "Teabag Obama".

TERRORIST TEABAGGER UPDATE (7:20 p.m.): Police have cleared Lafayette Park after a liberal/radical/taxifying agent provocateur threw teabags over the White House fence.

It is clear that the Terrorist Teabagger is an infiltrator, since Republicans would never try Teabagging through wire mesh.


NOT A DOUBLE-ENTENDRE UPDATE (6:30 p.m. British Teabag Time): "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher, reporting for Pajamas TV, gets a scoop: a protestor asks if "he would like to waterboard Obama".

We do hope that this is a genuine Teabagger advocating torture of the President, and not a devious liberal trying to slip in a sexual allusion.


MEGA-URGENT UPDATE (6:05 p.m. British Teabag Time): And we're off! More than 300 Teabagging Parties have begun across the United States. The biggest mass Teabagging is in Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. with a million teabags involved.

But we assure you that sutiable Teabagging precautions are being taken: "Organisers promised to put the bags on tarps and clean up afterward so as not to make a mess."

SUPER-URGENT UPDATE (15 April in Teabagging Britain): We're #2! Enduring America has vanquished the villainous Rachel Maddow, despatching her to Google limbo. Now to topple "The Young Turks" to claim our rightful status as Top Republican Teabagging Party Site....

URGENT UPDATE (7:25 p.m. British Teabag Time): For you first-time Teabaggers, Republican National Committee Michael Steele is ready to help. Half-politician, all-man, Steele has not two but four virtual teabags you can lay on your Teabag-ee of choice: President Obama, Vice President Biden, Senate Leader Harry Reid, or Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Actually we're #3 on Google for "Republican teabagging" behind the YouTube videos of "The Young Turks" and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, but we're hoping to become the #1 legitimate site by the time of the Teabagging Parties on Tax Day tomorrow. This is because:

1. We do not think the Young Turk and Ms Maddow are Republicans.
2. We are certain that the Young Turk is not from America, which of course is where Teabagging protest was established.
3. There is a possibility that Ms Maddow is a lesbian, which should disqualify her from any comment on the morality and good sense behind Teabagging.

Indeed, the latest video from Ms Maddow is a shameful slur on Teabagging Parties:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNXuSJwDwco[/youtube]

We are horrified by Ms Maddow's claim that Teabagging is a creation of FreedomWorks, funded by right-wing billionaires and led by the former Republican Senator Dick Armey, when our protest is that Teabagging is for everyone.

And Ms Maddow is clearly trying to tarnish us when she (and her guest Anamarie Cox, who we also think might be suspect) implies that we have naively claimed Teabagging --- in contrast to the non-Teabag legitimacy of the libertarians behind Representative Ron Paul --- as a shallow political swipe at President Obama.

We dissent. There is nothing naive about Enduring America's promotion of Teabagging. We do not believe it should be shallow: our Teabagging protest is full-throated.

This is our battle cry: when you Teabag tomorrow, do it for and with Enduring America.

After the Rescue: What Now with Somalia?

Related Post: Combating Somali Piracy - How Many People Can We Afford To Kill?

UPDATE (15 April): Pirates have attacked The Liberty Sun, a U.S.-flagged cargo ship bound for Mombasa, Kenya, but failed to board the ship. Four other ships have been hijacked in the Gulf of Aden since Sunday.

In the aftermath of the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates by US Navy SEALs, analysis has generally been dominated by cheerleading and a good bit of relief that the United States and (for supporters of the current Administration) President Obama have not appeared "weak". The New York Times breathlessly wrote, "To Rescue Captain, U.S. Snipers Held Steady Despite Many Moving Parts", while Watergate felon turned talk show host G. Gordon Liddy settled for, "Gman is joined by a former sniper who tells you what thoughts race through your mind when facing a killer".

Tristan McConnell, writing for our partners Global Post, goes an essential step farther. While Captain Phillips and his crew might be safe, the naval lanes off Somalia are not secure: "Short of escorting every one of the estimated 20,000 ships that use the Suez Canal every year, it is an impossible task to end piracy with navy patrols."

The obvious but difficult point? The piracy is connected to the economic and political instability in Somalia, and unless the US Government can dream up a military solution for the difficulties in Mogadishu --- "no one so far has managed to defeat Somalis by outgunning them, either on land or at sea" --- it's going to have to find a different approach that is far removed from the temporary solution of one-bullet sniping a pirate.

HOW TO STOP THE SOMALI PIRATES

Analysis: More Gunships May Not Be the Answer

NAIROBI — After the dramatic rescue of American captain Richard Phillips from the clutches of Somali pirates, U.S. President Barack Obama announced his determination to end piracy: “We remain resolved to halt the rise of piracy in this region,” he said.

Easier said than done. Dozens of international warships patrolling the Indian Ocean coastline have done little to deter the pirates.

And pirates seized an Italian tug with impunity even as the the world watched a small lifeboat of Somali pirates with their one solitary hostage facing down a flotilla of U.S. warships.

Currently the pirates hold more than a dozen ships with more than 200 hostages from a range of mostly poor countries.

Read rest of article....

Combating Somali Piracy: How Many People Can We Afford To Kill?

Related Post: After the Rescue: What Now with Somalia?

“Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates” – Mark Twain

You don’t have to be a serious news junkie to know that there is currently a lively debate ongoing in the media on the issue of combating Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Commentators from across the political spectrum have laid out countless detailed plans for fighting the pirates both at sea and on land, and some such as CNN’s Jack Cafferty and Rick Sanchez have even put the question directly to their audiences. However, all of the solutions presented seem to involve some level of military force used against Somalia, specifically US military force, and the major differences between the plans are over questions of financial cost and political willpower. To put it bluntly, the real question at hand is how many Somali people we really feel like killing right now.

But why do we insist on making this debate so narrow and yet still complicated when it doesn’t have to be either? Unlike the conventional wisdom of US military violence and nation building, which has an atrocious rate of success, there is a myriad of solutions available which have not yet even been attempted with Somalia, yet are far more likely to produce the desired long-term stability. Given the huge challenges facing the United States from its two ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the global financial crisis, isn’t it time we explored some of these other options?



The conventional wisdom is very simple. While they all agree that the Navy SEAL snipers killing the pirates was really cool, the generally liberal, realist, soft power crowd is pushing for an increased naval presence, that is ships with weapons, in the Gulf of Aden, the hawkish, bold-faced imperialist folks are asking for air strikes and special forces strikes against pirate sanctuaries in Somalia, and the population at large is especially craven, calling for public hangings of pirates and shoot-on-sight rules of engagement for US Navy ships in the region. Typically when presented by experts and commentators, these plans will also feature a data set debunking the other side’s plan, which means that when put side by side, they cancel each other out with no shortage of irony.

The consequences of these plans are also simple. The end result of all of them, no matter whether they succeed or fail, is that the US is going to kill a lot of Somalis. None of the plans even attempt to address the root causes of piracy in the gulf, like hellish poverty, illegal over-pollution, and the absence of basic human services in Somalia. So in order for these options to succeed, you’d have to believe that these desperate, armed-to-the-teeth gangsters from an apocalyptic-level failed state will be so incensed at the sight of a dead body that they’ll permanently abstain from the only profession that brings their family any shred of dignity and sustenance. Amazing logic, right? If you knew how much people were paid to come up with ideas like that, your head would explode.

But there are other options available. Rather than falling back on the usual tool of military violence, they instead focus on the seeds of instability and piracy in Somalia.

Seemingly the most obvious idea would be to ask the Somalis themselves what to do about piracy.  Are they asking for food, money and an end to illegal toxic waste dumping in their fishing grounds? Or are they asking for 200lb JDAMs to be dropped on their villages? You could ask even the most destitute, illiterate among them, and I’m sure they’d have an opinion either way. However, I’ve yet to see one actual Somali in the mainstream discussion, it’s mostly the usual suspects in the media foreign policy elite whose opinions are deemed worthy of consideration. At the very least they could lay out a clear, concrete set of grievances to be acknowledged in whatever response the US eventually chooses.

Instead of special forces, why not deploy diplomats to Somalia? The European Union would be the most desirable, as the catastrophic circumstances of Somalia would require the most skilled negotiators available. Director of the Global Governance Initiative Parag Khanna writes of their prowess, “Charlemagne’s efforts to resurrect the Roman Empire have been succeeded, over a millennium later, by the multipronged armadas of Brussels Eurocrats steadily colonizing Europe’s periphery, in the Baltics, the Balkans, and, eventually, Anatolia and the Caucasus. The Eurocrats’ book is not the Bible but rather the acquis communautaire: the 31 chapters of the Lex Europea, which is rebuilding EU member states from the inside out.” Great, if they can do all that, why couldn’t they handle building a state in Somalia?

Provided they are dispatched with the same resources and support as their military counterparts are, these diplomats could succeed in laying some framework for a sovereign Somali government. Aid agencies and other NGO’s have shown they are capable of operating in extremely hostile environments with only a hint of a functioning state, such as Rwanda and Sudan. It’s possible that a skilled diplomatic mission could assist the Somalis in creating enough of a foundation of statehood for these aid agencies to join with humanitarian assistance.

However, the idea of using a European solution to an American foreign policy problem is almost unthinkable, and multilateral coalitions are, at best, frowned upon. That doesn’t mean the US only has to use its military might though. It has other powerful, untapped resources at its disposal. Namely, the massive organized Peace Movement.

The Peace movement, as with any organized political movement, comes complete with its own elite policy wonks, its own intelligentsia, and even its own media and social systems with which to organize and direct broad and diverse groups of people. The American Peace Movement also has the added benefit of never being allowed into mainstream political debate, and is therefore free of the corrupt hypocrisy and institutional apathy that typifies other foreign policy sects. Likewise, it also means that they’re not currently tied up with other issues like Iraq and Afghanistan like the rest of the foreign policy elite.

The price of utilizing American peace activists would be dramatically less than any of the other options currently up for debate. While the cost of US military power is in the trillions, and even skilled EU bureaucrats can charge exorbitant salaries, peace activists have shown they are capable of operating highly effectively with little to no funding available.  Given a small amount of funding and protection, the results they could achieve in Somalia might be quite groundbreaking. Perhaps its time to constructively engage them in the task of stabilizing Somalia. They may have some very interesting ideas particularly as it concerns mobilizing Somali citizens into a coherent bloc capable of projecting statehood.

Of course these options are very vague and untested, nowhere near as precise as the options laid out in the mainstream debate. Some might even find it absurd or ridiculous to suggest dispatching a phalanx of European diplomats or appointing Cindy Sheehan as Special Envoy to Somalia, but my point is only to show that there may be other options worth exploring and debating besides the standard military response.