In Response to SOF and Piracy I linked Andrew Exum’s disagreement with me over the proper response to piracy.  Exum advocated the use of SEALs, and I advocated the use of large quantities of U.S. Marines in a long term presence.  When the Maersk Alabama was retaken by the U.S., it was with SEAL teams.  Andrew did a victory dance, and his commenters lambasted my views at Abu Muqawama.  One commenter made the observation that while I addressed a larger issue than just this situation, this situation was indeed unique in that there were hostages – as if the problem of piracy and ransom payments isn’t comprised by the aggregate of multiple hostage situations.

It is frankly rather puzzling to me how someone can so badly misinterpret my views.  It betrays the prose for either sloppy or dishonest, and Exum isn’t dishonest.  John Nagl of CNAS refused to correspond with me after this post, and Andrew Exum has exchanged only one short e-mail since then.  The whole exchange really was rather bizarre for fully grown men.  My points all along pertained to the use of SEAL teams as a remedy for the problem of piracy.  There simply aren’t SEAL teams, aren’t enough aircraft and aren’t sufficient logistics for the use of SOF to be a remedy to the problem of piracy.  And the SEAL teams are needed elsewhere and for other things.  In the grand scheme of things, it makes little difference whether the Maersk Alabama was rescued or not.

I had further said that I talked with one Marine Scout Sniper (on the 26th MEU, before this incident) who had a boatload of pirates in the sights of his Sasser .50 sniper rifle from a Helicopter, and he refused to take the shot because, well, “Hell, who wants to get tangled up with the lawyers when he gets back to the ship?”  In fact, taking the shots to save the Maersk Alabama required approval of the POTUS.

Folks, pirates aren’t that hard to find.  The Marines of the 26th MEU did it frequently in the Gulf of Aden.  While in the Persian Gulf, they also had an Iranian helicopter virtually land on board the deck of the USS Iwo Jima with Iranian gunners laughing at the Marines, and the U.S. Navy ordering the Marines NOT to engage for fear of creating an “international incident” (how’s that for “rules of engagement”?)  One of my points was that with aircraft, radar, LCACs and other sea-based craft, there is adequate means of locating and interdicting pirates, regardless of the size of the Gulf of Aden.

The problem isn’t finding them.  The problem is what happens then.  Now with that background, let’s cover recent data concerning pirates.

The Somalian pirates seized another big ship the other day. This time it was a large oil tanker. I spoke with a friend who owns ships and lives in Athens about the latest attack. He provided some interesting information. My notes from the conversation:

The seized tanker is owned by a large and successful family owned Greek shipping company. Pirates have hit Greek ships before, but this is the largest ship to be captured. There is $200mm worth of crude on board. The vessel is worth $100mm – 200mm. There was a crew of 25 of which eight were Greeks, most of whom were officers.

The Greek shipping world is PISSED at this one. The combination of the money and the fact that Greek crew members are involved makes this a very big deal.

I got a status on the bigger picture in pirate land:

There are currently 20 ships of all sizes and uses currently being held by Somali pirates. There are approximately 700 prisoners being held. It generally takes two to three months to negotiate and pay a ransom. My guy estimated that in the past year nearly $300mm in ransom has been paid to pirates.

There have been attempts to thwart the pirates but they are (obviously) not working. NATO has warships in the region as does the United States. The problem appears to be the “rules of engagement”. The Western powers have the ability to stop and search suspected pirate ships. But when the pirates see them coming they dump their arms overboard. Therefore they are released as only armed ships and crews can be seized and taken out of commission. The pirates are well aware of these rules.

This article goes on to make an important observation.

The final consideration is what is happening within Somalia. There is a group called al Shaabab. They are Muslim extremists. They too are highly armed. They have been fighting with the Somali pirates. Al- Shaabab wants to take over the job the pirates are doing. They want the money and the power that comes from pirating ships.

My guess would be that the Islamic militants will win, and the pirates will lose (the pirates will become Islamic militants).  I have previously recommended something like the following concerning pirates: tell the lawyers to go home, find the pirates, line them up on the deck of the ship, and shoot each and every one of them.  Dump their bodies into the sea, and videotape the entire event.  Post the video to YouTube as a warning to future pirates.  Thus, an end to piracy.

Of course, this seems brutal and uncivilized to many.  Indeed it is.  But value judgments have a way of being nuanced, difficult things that eventually turn on you and create unintended consequences.  My recommendation is brutal, but consider the alternatives.  Hostages continue to be taken, ransoms are paid, lives are lost in a continual drip and drain of violence in the Gulf of Aden, and – perhaps best of all – yes, the world funds Islamic militancy with the ransoms.

A similar example might be the problem of illegal immigration.  This problem is easy to solve, but the U.S. doesn’t yet want the solution.  The more violent method would be to line the border with troops and fire on sight at anyone crossing the border.  The less violent method would be to imprison any CEOs or company owners who hire (knowingly or not) illegal aliens.  But for a whole host of reasons (mostly related to providing corporate welfare), America isn’t yet ready for any solution to illegal immigration. Maybe one day it will be.

So we have made the judgment to appear civilized to the world – and us.  This kicks the can down the road, but it feels good for the time being unless it’s our relative who has been taken hostage.  We don’t recognize the increased cost of goods because of ransom payments and increased costs of security.  We don’t acknowledge that wealth has a moral component, i.e., God demands that we use of it wisely, something that would militate against funding Islamic militancy.  We are civilized, and that’s all that is important at the present.

But let those numbers wash over you again.  Seven hundred prisoners are being held at the moment.  Some $300 million has been paid in ransoms to Somali pirates.  There aren’t enough SEAL teams and logistics isn’t sufficient to conduct cloak and dagger operations to free them all.  Oh sure, it can be interesting, reading about guys doing HALO jumps with re-breathers on, dropping their parachute just before the water, swimming to destination and engaging the target.  Things like this are what guys play in video games like Call of Duty 4.

But this just isn’t reality in the Gulf of Aden with 700 hostages being held and Islamic militants wanting to muscle in on the action.  And concern for pirates dropping their weapons into the sea just before being captured won’t win the day.  We can win the war on piracy, but currently we are not.  As these things go, it’s fairly straight forward and easy given what we have dealt with in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

To date we have chosen not to deal with the problem.  As I have pointed out before, just as with illegal immigration, we want piracy more than we want the solution.  Piracy (and illegal immigration) exists because we want it to.  Those value judgments are indeed complex things, no?

Prior:

Response to SOF and Piracy

Somalian Piracy

Piracy: The Only Solution

Pirates?  Call the Marines … Er, the Lawyers

UPDATE: Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link.

UPDATE #2: Ah … isn’t this fun?  Fark has a discussion thread up with one commenter responding thusly: ” … If I can’t kill someone for laughing at me, I don’t want to kill anyone anymore.”

Poor fellow.  It has nothing to do with that.  It has everything to do with force protection, and the Iranians were laughing at the U.S. because they knew we wouldn’t take it seriously regardless of our military doctrine.

Last week, WKGTV, a San Diego ABC News station, interviewed the Assistant Director, Al Hallor, for the San Diego port authority about security at the port.

During the interview Hallor confirmed that “weapons of mass effect” have been found by U.S. government agencies in apparent attempts to smuggle such devices into the country.

Customs and Border Protection officers clear 80 percent of all cargo before it enters the United States. Congress has mandated that they clear 100 percent of cargo imports by 2012. In San Diego, every cargo container is driven through a radiation detector before leaving San Diego’s seaport.”So, specifically, you’re looking for the dirty bomb? You’re looking for the nuclear device?” asked Blacher.”Correct. Weapons of mass effect,” Hallor said.”You ever found one?” asked Blacher.”Not at this location,” Hallor said.”But they have found them?” asked Blacher.”Yes,” said Hallor.

I could be wrong, but this would seem to qualify as a major news story.

So far, however, the only, other media source to report on this is The Daily Mail in the U.K.

The Department of Homeland Security has sought to tamp down any interest in the story and has explained Hallor’s comments as confusion or nervousness at being interviewed.

Perhaps.

Or perhaps Hallor has yet to get the Administration memo that government officials should never be honest or candid with the public about the grave threats that we face.  In that sense, Hallor is like the little boy in the nursery tale that was too innocent not to blurt out, “The Emperor’s got no clothes!”

Perhaps it is the rest of us who should be nervous.  Very nervous.

In Response to Afghanistan: We No Longer Give Pens and Stationary Away, DirtyMick responded as follows:

I was on the previous two PRTs in Kunar. They need to jettison the navy element and make it an army effort. Previous two Navy commanders (especially the one with the Nevada National guard in 2009/2010) focused too much on the soft aspect of coin, were in overall charge of the army manuever element at camp wright (like army running a ship), had a hard on for wanting to take non essential navy personnel (ie anybody not engineers) into places like the pech river valley and north of asadabad, and passing out badges and awards like candy on Halloween (so navy guys can be just as stacked as an 0311 marine cpl.). Torwards the end of this summer did my higher chain of command do things like cancel projects in the pech only after many months of us getting shot up in the pech. Why build a school for assholes when they’re shooting RPGs at us? I will never work on a PRT again.

And in response to Abandoning the Pech Valley Part II, Scarbelly79 said:

I was with DirtyMick in Asadabad during 2009-2010; I felt like our time was wasted in large part to satisfy the egos and experimentations of everyone who wanted to show how nuanced they were, and how we were going to make a lasting impact by NOT killing the enemy… An old vet told me once that “when you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow”.

It’s bad enough that Army and Marine Corps field grade officers are unwilling to risk their careers by granting air and indirect fire assets to troops in contact… We have Navy surface warfare officers and Air Force admin officers “leading” PRT’s; most of them without applicable experience or training – but trying desperately to pick up their O6 as they blame the Army and Marine Corps for screwing everything up.

The Pashtuns are not suicidal fanatics, they are brigands. We won’t win them to our side by bribing them with roads (when many of them don’t own cars), hospitals (without doctors to staff them), or electricity (when most of them don’t own televisions). We will win them to our side by effectively separating the militant Taliban from the general populace by hunting them down and killing them.

If you look back at the advent of Naval officers on PRTs in Afghanistan, it has pretty sad and naive theoretical framework.

The teams were founded in 2004 and are designed to be mobile goodwill ambassadors for coalition forces, using their transportation, logistics and communications capabilities to access the most remote Afghan villages.

Once there, the specialized personnel can hold medical, dental and veterinary clinics, and help build roads, wells, schools, irrigation systems and other facilities that will improve life for Afghans who have known only war and poverty for generations, Hartung said.

What about the infantry, you ask?  Why, they handle force protection for the team.  That’s right.  Force protection.  But DirtyMick and Scarbelly79 have given us reason to think that things are even worse now.  Naval officers are adorning themselves with medals at the expense of the fighting men, and then blaming the Army and Marines to boot.

Let’s make one thing clear.  We can discuss ineptitude all day, or organizational inadequacies, or lists of reasons that we are failing in Afghanistan.  We can treat that with clinical precision and a degree of detachment as a scientist.  But for a Naval officer on a PRT to complain and blame the fighting men is about as low as it gets.  I’m not sure what medals adorn the Naval officers on the PRTs, but unless they have been involved, engaged and active in kinetic operations and under fire, they don’t deserve and shouldn’t be awarded Combat Action Ribbons.  This would be a travesty.

Finally, here is the prerequisite for a Naval officer to complain about anything – ANYTHING – that is going on in Afghanistan.  Pick up a weapon, go on patrol, take fire, and kill the enemy.  Until you do, no one cares about your complaints, and playing the blame game with men under fire is immoral.  If you are a Naval officer who wants to complain, then lodge it right here, right now.  But show us your combat action ribbon first.  Tell us all about it.  We’re waiting.

In the spirit of good, instructive combat video, these Soldiers fight their way out of an ambush in Afghanistan.  My only comment is that it would be helpful if the authors would post information on date, location and units.

This is simply stunning.

On February 10, 2011, Director of National Intelligence, Gen. James Clapper, appeared before the House Select Intelligence Committee.  In response to a number of questions from Rep. Sue Myrick (R-9th Dist. NC) regarding the threat posed by The Muslim Brotherhood, Gen. Clapper made this outrageous statement:

“The term ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ is an umbrella term for a variety of movements, in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam.  They have pursued social ends, the betterment of the political order in Egypt and etcetera.  [Interruption by Rep. Myrick in attempt to refocus].  In other countries, there are also ‘chapters’ or franchises of The Muslim Brotherhood, but there is no overarching agenda, particularly in the pursuit of violence, at least internationally.  And with that, since there are entities associated with The Muslim Brotherhood here in the United States I will ask [FBI] Director Mullens to speak to that.”

(Emphasis Added)

And “speak to that” Director Mueller did.   Perhaps Mueller failed to get the memo from the Administration on whitewashing the MB.  Maybe he has yet to succumb to the zombie spell.  In any event, Mueller had no difficulty stating that, “I can say at the outset that elements of The Muslim Brotherhood, both here and overseas, have supported terrorism.”

To which I fully expected Director Clapper to jump in and respond with something like, “Yes, of course, terrorism, but not, you know, violent terrorism.”

Most news organizations are, strangely enough, not including Mueller’s comments but you can view them on C-SPAN.  The relevant portion with Rep. Myrick begins at the 1:22:22 mark.  Rep. Myrick recites some very devastating information about the MB which makes Clapper’s remarks all the more outrageous, not to mention non-responsive— something that seems to irritate Myrick to no end.

What does this say in a larger sense?

For one thing, I think we are witnessing (perhaps it is more accurate to say, we have been witnessing for some time now) the ultimate Dumbing Down of American government.  Anyone can now trot up to Capitol Hill and testify about international terrorist groups if Gen. Clapper is any measure.  I can only shudder to think what Clapper would say about those secular Hezbollah do-gooders.   This is our Director of National Intelligence! This guy is theoretically in charge of all the other intelligence services in order to provide a coordinated and comprehensive picture of, among other things, significant threats to the U.S.

Maybe I am over-reacting here.  Maybe the House Select Intelligence Committee just decided to post a sign-up sheet outside the chamber door and Clapper was the first guy on the list.  He isn’t really the DNI, is he?

Does anyone else want to sign up?

A word of caution.  Do not sign up to testify before a Congressional committee on weighty topics like national security or international terrorism, unless  you have your own spokesperson who can issue “clarifying” statements if you happen to make a fool of yourself.

That makes Clapper one, lucky guy.  Before the D.C. sun had set, a spokesperson for the DNI “clarified” Clapper’s remarks:

“To clarify Director Clapper’s point, in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood makes efforts to work through a political system that has been, under Mubarak’s rule, one that is largely secular in its orientation. He is well aware that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a secular organization,” DNI spokesperson Jamie Smith said.

The spokesperson claims that Clapper was merely making a point about the MB’s participation on the political system.  Was that Clapper’s point?  Watch the video yourself and decide.

Clapper’s point seemed to be a direct response to Rep. Myrick’s concerns about the radical nature of the MB, particularly considering Myrick’s with the damning statements from the F.B.I.’s own investigation of the MB and its involvement in sponsoring terrorism that grew out of the Holy Land Foundation case.

Clapper’s testimony seemed designed to blunt Myrick’s protrayal of the MB as a radical Islamist group with a very definite agenda to subvert Western democracies. Clapper’s statement seemed calculated to portray the MB as a non-violent, almost benign or even benevolent presence in Egypt.   It is the equivalent of, “Don’t be silly, Congresswoman, the Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t have any grand plan for promoting an Islamic caliphate and universal muslim rule.”

Why would Clapper, an important voice of the Administration, want to mischaracterize the MB in this way?

Part of the reason may be simple damage control.

Flopping about like a freshly caught fish, the Obumble Administration cannot make up its collective mind on whether or how to respond to events in Egypt.  Perhaps Clapper’s testimony reflects an effort to re-cast the MB as secular and moderate in order to claim, after the MB takes power in Egypt and bares its feral teeth, that they are shocked, shocked!

This is something like a 2011 re-make of the 1979 movie classic, Jimmy Carter and Khomeini, where Obama plays the role of heartbroken lover, surprised to find that the moderate, secular Muslim Brotherhood that promised they would respect him (and political liberties) in the morning is a radical Islamist afterall.  The problem with re-makes, of course, is that we have seen it before.  We know how the 1979 movie ended and no amount of re-casting by Obama is going to change things this time around either.

But there is something more than just damage control here.  These statements are so far off the mark that they seem almost delusional.  I would not be the first one to raise that possibility.

Look at the sorts of things Clapper said in that one, short statement.  The MB is an “umbrella term”?  No, it’s not.  The Muslim Brotherhood is a very definite and distinct group, founded in 1928 in Egypt with the stated goal of restoring fundamentalist Islam to dominance throughout the Middle East and beyond.  From Egypt, the MB has inspired and/or formed off-shoots— Clapper uses the term “franchises”– in other countries.  Like Hamas.

And what about his claim that there is “no overarching agenda” ?  If you watch the C-SPAN video from 1:22:22 on you will see that Rep. Myrick gives ample evidence of the MB’s overarching agenda and that agenda is not confined to Egypt but includes the U.S. as well.

Still it is difficult to believe that even this Administration could be so deluded.  Andrew McCarthy suggests that this is more of a case of  willful stupidity.

It may be simply that and no more.  But there is a nagging uneasiness.  If it is not delusion nor cynical damage control or willful stupidity, that leaves one, very disturbing possibility.

After watching this Administration over the last 2+ years, seeing the repeated follies and seeming mistakes over and over, one cannot help but wonder whether this is intentional.  How could an Administration be so thoroughly and consistently incompetent?  As the saying goes, even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally.  The Obama-Squirrel, however, seems to be avoiding the nuts and throwing out the ones that have been collected after decades of hard work by others.

The situation in Egypt bears watching, not only because of the important geopolitical implications, but because of what it may or may not say about the larger policy goals of this Administration.