20,000 boats and 30,000 square miles of ocean veto an intensive approach. It is a marine Vietnam.
You can deter, you cannot eliminate. Nothing short of an invasion of Somalia and complete subjugation of their population will ensure gulf safety. A dogs breakfast is a dog's breakfast and they are poochie chow. Let it fester and it will pus up real good. Ostrich diplomacy is not going to win this one. And trust me, Saudi Arabia or Syria isn't going to do anything about it.
Carpet bombing might be good. People recoil at broad brush military solutions that have massive collateral damage. That is not how we won World War II. Of course we fought on a front. But we also bombed civilian centres that harboured their military and production. And the Germans were far more civilized and easy to fight selectively than these morons. If it isn't their civilians fault that they harbour pirates because they cannot socially organize, then it isn't ours either. Too bad. You have to respond with what works and is least damage to your forces. We cannot go in their house to house and figure out the bad guys. This means THEY must do it. My reaction would be to systematically shell their ports and sink all their boats until they get their shit together and police their own. Don't worry, with 3 weeks of naval bombardment and they will come up with a plan. Next door neighbours who are harbouring weapons and parking motherships in harbour are known about and within jig time they would be hanging from lamposts. Tut tutting about those poor Somalis and their troubles is for wimps. In all societies that wage war, or whose denizens harass other states 90% of the people are always innocent. 90% of the Japanese in World War II, 90% of the German in World War II, 90% of the Iraqis in the Gulf war, 90% of the Soviets in the Cold war, 90% of the Koreans in the Korean war and so on. It does not change the bomb runs or the targetting of missiles. Stand off war, as cruel and inhumane as it always will be for babies and mothers is the only way you can preserve your force and win. It is the law of nature.
When leaders build up rationales for war, all they are doing is making a fiction that makes people want to do the horrible stuff that they have to do. It is all a crock. The reason for war is if you don't do it, then completely unacceptable situations will prevail and attrition of your commerce or people will continue. It isn't because Somalia is habited by unrepentant evil in every being. It isn't any more than we are. But at a certain point you have to draw a line and say that they must en masse learn a lesson. They either control their society or are expunged from the list of tolerated societies. Door to door interviews is not going to weed out the chancres in their group. It is very simple. Piracy is coming clearly from centers in certain areas of Somalia. Conclusions, the Somali government in that area such as it is and their people must be held responsible. It is either them or martians, and I think that choice is fairly easy.
It is clear from one end of the ME to the other, their societies in no small way have encouraged a rebellious, dangerously militaristic self justifying nucleus of rebellion based on individual guerrilla self sacrifice. This mutt and jeff game of seeming like a unified state and sending out dedicated anarchists to seeth havoc on the western world who buys their oil on one side and in the same breath justifying the anger of their people by saying rogue nationg goaded them to do it, it a crock we have lived with for 50 years. If is just pure power and domination with the weak colourations of righteousness. That and out and out bare faced lies and deception. ME countries have taken turns playing nice and funding AK47 disruption. At a certain point, namely the Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq, whose danger was manifest for decades, the tipping point is reached. Nations can no longer harbour vast numbers of loose cannons and claim that it is not their fault if individuals are out of control. Their is political self determination to rancor within their ranks but it gets the greatest encouragement from their leadership rank and file at every level of society. One thing I do know. People from Iowa do not skulk about the middle east looking for people in Bazaars whose politics they don't like to blow to smithereens. They don't, but when they decide to do it, I can warrant that the results will be notable.
Some Iowans Got Riled Up a While Back -- A Cautionary Tale
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