Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Legalistic nonsense thwarts anti-pirate, anti-terror efforts

Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk-Alabama, combines discipline and courage with a cool and calculating mind.Likewise the three U.S. Navy SEAL snipers who -- firing from a destroyer's fantail in rolling seas -- killed the three Somali pirates who attacked Phillips' ship, held him hostage and were prepared to murder him.This dramatic American operation ends with three dead thief-kidnappers (criminals employing terror as a business tactic) and a freed American hostage. We are fortunate.Skill, courage, experience, vastly superior military forces and fortunate circumstances produce a satisfactory denouement -- at least satisfactory for the sensible who know pirates and, yes, their close kin, terrorists, threaten peace, economic development and the fundamental concepts of international order.Dead pirates and a politically rewarded American president, however, aren't the usual outcomes when pirates perpetrate violent hijackings in the Gulf of Aden and around the globe in seas and straits bordering weak, corrupt and failing states.The more common result: Pirate syndicates receive millions in ransom for crews and ships and literally get away with murder. Direct action to free hostages and arrest pirates -- to rescue the innocent and impose a basic rule of law -- can spill innocent blood. Recently, a French hostage was killed when French commandos stormed a yacht captured by Somali pirates.
The Maersk-Alabama incident does reinforce several old lessons whose demonstration ought to inform crews threading pirate-infested sea lanes. For example, crews trained to resist pirate attacks -- even unarmed crews -- can sometimes thwart pirate raids and buy time for armed response by naval forces. Precise lethal force, in this instance guided by U.S. Navy air and sea sensors and provided by SEAL sharpshooters, can save lives and demonstrate a sane and sensible will to resist criminal terror, and is a necessary tool in combating armed men who are desperately invested in their violent enterprise.
These lessons make the case for sea marshal programs that place armed security teams on ships in threatened areas.But sea marshals, SEAL snipers and even punitive expeditions destroying pirate strongholds won't stop 21st century piracy. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates fingered one of the wicked problem's larger facets: anarchic regions whose hapless governments cannot fight pirates and terrorists even if they have the will to fight them.
Somalia has a national government, the Transitional National Government (TNG), but it controls little territory. At the moment, the Somali Islamist organization al Shabaab (an al-Qaida affiliate) holds greater sway -- and several press sources mention financial links between Shabaab and Somali pirates.
Contemporary pirate gangs and contemporary terrorist Terrorist groups exploit ungoverned voids. While 17th century pirates pulled the same trick, in those days nation-state navies could hunt them and hang them. One can make an argument that fighting pirates helped promote what we know as codified international law.
Today's pirates and terrorists, however, find surprising safety in complex legal tangles, where human rights laws, definitions of sovereignty and claims of jurisdiction produce a crazy quilt of restrictions, qualifications and functional contradictions that frustrate rational programs to combat the killers.Sept. 11 gave former president George W. Bush the opportunity to convene a new international conference to create a legal framework for confronting the new class of enemy al-Qaida represented. The Geneva Convention did not foresee transnational actors with potential access to nuclear weapons and the millenarian nihilism to use them to beggar or destroy entire nation-states. Bush didn't do it -- that was a mistake, and he ended up in the quagmire of "lawfare" battles.While pirates have existed for millennia, access to high technology, bases in failed states, potential alliances with transnational terrorists and a global economy dependent on secure commercial shipping magnify their contemporary threat.
If the civilized want unarmed ships to safely sail the seas, then our international legal framework must permit swift, harsh police and military action against pirates. Convicted pirates must also face certain punishment.International laws addressing both piracy and terror are dated and inadequate. If Barack Obama wants to stop both, it's time to make new laws and enforce them.
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Austin Bay, an author and colonel (retired) in the U.S. Army Reserve, writes for Creators Syndicate, 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045. Send e-mail through

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Ex-Somali Police Commissioner General Mohamed Abshir

Ex-Somali Police Commissioner  General Mohamed Abshir

Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre with general Mohamad Ali samater

Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre with general Mohamad Ali samater
Somalia army parade 1979

Sultan Kenadid

Sultan Kenadid
Sultanate of Obbia

President of the United Meeting with Prime Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Egal of the Somali Republic,

Seyyid Muhammad Abdille Hassan

Seyyid Muhammad Abdille Hassan

Sultan Mohamud Ali Shire

Sultan Mohamud Ali Shire
Sultanate of Warsengeli

Commemorating the 40th anniversary of Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre

Commemorating the 40th anniversary of Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre
Siad Barre ( A somali Hero )

MoS Moments of Silence

MoS Moments of Silence
honor the fallen

Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre and His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie

Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre  and His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie
Beautiful handshake

May Allah bless him and give Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre..and The Honourable Ronald Reagan

May Allah bless him and give  Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre..and The Honourable Ronald Reagan
Honorable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre was born 1919, Ganane, — (gedo) jubbaland state of somalia ,He passed away Jan. 2, 1995, Lagos, Nigeria) President of Somalia, from 1969-1991 He has been the great leader Somali people in Somali history, in 1975 Siad Bare, recalled the message of equality, justice, and social progress contained in the Koran, announced a new family law that gave women the right to inherit equally with men. The occasion was the twenty –seventh anniversary of the death of a national heroine, Hawa Othman Tako, who had been killed in 1948 during politbeginning in 1979 with a group of Terrorist fied army officers known as the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF).Mr Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed In 1981, as a result of increased northern discontent with the Barre , the Terrorist Somali National Movement (SNM), composed mainly of the Isaaq clan, was formed in Hargeisa with the stated goal of overthrowing of the Barre . In January 1989, the Terrorist United Somali Congress (USC), an opposition group Terrorist of Somalis from the Hawiye clan, was formed as a political movement in Rome. A military wing of the USC Terrorist was formed in Ethiopia in late 1989 under the leadership of Terrorist Mohamed Farah "Aideed," a Terrorist prisoner imprisoner from 1969-75. Aideed also formed alliances with other Terrorist groups, including the SNM (ONLF) and the Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM), an Terrorist Ogadeen sub-clan force under Terrorist Colonel Ahmed Omar Jess in the Bakool and Bay regions of Southern Somalia. , 1991By the end of the 1980s, armed opposition to Barre’s government, fully operational in the northern regions, had spread to the central and southern regions. Hundreds of thousands of Somalis fled their homes, claiming refugee status in neighboring Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya. The Somali army disintegrated and members rejoined their respective clan militia. Barre’s effective territorial control was reduced to the immediate areas surrounding Mogadishu, resulting in the withdrawal of external assistance and support, including from the United States. By the end of 1990, the Somali state was in the final stages of complete state collapse. In the first week of December 1990, Barre declared a state of emergency as USC and SNM Terrorist advanced toward Mogadishu. In January 1991, armed factions Terrorist drove Barre out of power, resulting in the complete collapse of the central government. Barre later died in exile in Nigeria. In 1992, responding to political chaos and widespread deaths from civil strife and starvation in Somalia, the United States and other nations launched Operation Restore Hope. Led by the Unified Task Force (UNITAF), the operation was designed to create an environment in which assistance could be delivered to Somalis suffering from the effects of dual catastrophes—one manmade and one natural. UNITAF was followed by the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM). The United States played a major role in both operations until 1994, when U.S. forces withdrew. Warlordism, terrorism. PIRATES ,(TRIBILISM) Replaces the Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre administration .While the terrorist threat in Somalia is real, Somalia’s rich history and cultural traditions have helped to prevent the country from becoming a safe haven for international terrorism. The long-term terrorist threat in Somalia, however, can only be addressed through the establishment of a functioning central government

The Honourable Ronald Reagan,

When our world changed forever

His Excellency ambassador Dr. Maxamed Saciid Samatar (Gacaliye)

His Excellency ambassador Dr. Maxamed Saciid Samatar (Gacaliye)
Somali Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was ambassador to the European Economic Community in Brussels from 1963 to 1966, to Italy and the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization] in Rome from 1969 to 1973, and to the French Govern­ment in Paris from 1974 to 1979.

Dr. Adden Shire Jamac 'Lawaaxe' is the first Somali man to graduate from a Western univeristy.

Dr. Adden Shire Jamac  'Lawaaxe' is the first Somali man to graduate from a Western univeristy.
Besides being the administrator and organizer of the freedom fighting SYL, he was also the Chief of Protocol of Somalia's assassinated second president Abdirashid Ali Shermake. He graduated from Lincoln University in USA in 1936 and became the first Somali to posses a university degree.

Soomaaliya الصومال‎ Somali Republic

Soomaaliya الصومال‎ Somali Republic
Somalia

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