Somali Pirates: A Simple Solution

  Remember Richard Phillips, the American Captain captured by Somali pirates back in April?  How could we forget, the entire nation was glued to their televisions awaiting news of his fate.  In dramatic and heroic fashion a team of Navy SEAL snipers were dispatched then simultaneously shot and killed the pirates holding him captive aboard a life boat.  Seeing this as his first international crisis, Obama quickly took credit for giving the go ahead to take out the pirates.  Little do people know that he had absolutely nothing to do with that order, it was given to the SEAL team by SECNAV (Secretary of The Navy) when they were dispatched.  Yet again Obama holds true to the administration's mantra of "never waste a good crisis".

  Since April we have increased our presence in the waters off of the African coast along with other NATO nations and even the Russians.  Thats all well and good but quite frankly a useless strategy for patrolling hundreds of thousands of square miles looking for boats that are sometimes no more than 20ft in length.  I don't disagree with having the ships there but I do think the only ships there should be those with special operations forces and aircraft on the ready.  Steaming around looking for suspicious vessels or waiting for a call for help just seems like a waste of time and resources given the scope and size of the area.  We have the most advanced military in the world and by far the most superior Navy.  So how are we using this to our advantage?  We aren't.  As of now its patrol, board suspicious vessels and wait for a distress call.  The strategy needs to be more proactive and utilize the technology we have to our advantage.  Fly unmanned drones over the base camps of the pirates or set up an air combat patrol zone over the coast of Somalia and bomb the homes and bases they operate from.  Sadly this will never happen solely because this administration is as gutless as Clinton was.

  We left Somalia in 1993 after the Blackhawk Down incident, with our tails tucked between our legs.  Instead of finishing the mission, we packed up and left because Clinton didn't want anymore bad public relations from the conflict.  The images of that soldier being dragged through the streets on CNN were enough to put a scare and rage into anyone, but even more reason to stay and get the job done.  By leaving Somalia it has allowed the country transition even deeper into a terrorist and pirate breeding ground.  I can say with a fair amount of certainty that if we had completed the mission there, the problems we are currently facing wouldn't be as severe.

  As of yesterday a British couple are being reported as kidnapped by Somali pirates.  The news is still thin as there haven't been any communications or ransom demands of yet.  But here we are again, scrambling to find this poor couple when this may have just been prevented by playing offense instead of defense.  My thoughts and prayers go out to the couple and their family.