Hong Kong ─ Why are no navies willing to risk a confrontation on Somalia’s lawless coast despite a U.N. Security Council resolution allowing the use of force in Somali waters? The pirates’ attacks on international shipping are acts of war that justify an invasion of the pirate strongholds and Somalia.
America and China must establish and lead a Somalia Anti-Piracy & Restoration Task Force to defeat piracy and rehabilitate the failed state on the Horn of Africa. China’s military leadership has made known its desire to play a leadership role in defeating the pirates.
Piracy is a renewed scourge from the 19th century that must be dealt with today as it was then, with the U.S. again leading the charge, this time with China alongside, as well as other countries interested in joining the anti-piracy coalition.
During 2008 alone, Somali pirates seized more than 40 vessels and at least 800 seamen, collecting an estimated $150 million in ransom.
What is the point of America and China building state-of-the-art navies, air forces, armies and intelligence-gathering infrastructures to protect their citizens and international commerce on the high seas if they can’t be used against pirates?
It was America that initiated the first campaign against pirates in the 19th century.
In the 18th century, most civilized states accepted the Roman law definition of pirates as “enemies of the human race.” By the end of that century, the rulers of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli had become notorious for harboring pirates and engaging in piracy and the slave trade in whites, chiefly captured seamen. European countries found it easier to ransom these unfortunates rather than go to war. Admiral Horatio Nelson, commanding the British Mediterranean fleet, was forbidden to carry out any reprisals.
“My blood boils,” he wrote, “that I cannot chastise these pirates.”
By contrast, America was determined to do so. Pirates were the main reason Congress established a navy in 1794. In 1805, U.S. Marines marched across the desert from Egypt to Tripoli, forcing the Pasha there to sue for peace and surrender all American captives ─ an exploit recalled by the lyrics of the U.S. Marine Corps hymn, “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.” Why not add “and Mogadishu?” Make the hymn ─ and the U.S. Marine Corps ─ relevant to the 21st century.
The daylight helicopter raid in Somalia by U.S. commandos in September 2009 that killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, the most wanted Islamic militant in Africa, is an example of what America can do when its political and military will are synchronized.
The time is long overdue for America to embrace China as its 21st century comrade-in-arms and lead the world back to basics ─ starting in Somalia.
