Piracy:Will we ever find a solution?
We have inveighed against the tendency in our industry, to keep repeating: Something must be done about piracy, without getting specific about what that something is.
A number of proposals, some of them sensible, and some of them unworkable, have been put forward. In the midst of all of the fulminations, a few mysteries are being cleared up.
One of these mysteries is why the United States, as the only major power with a navy of proven efficiency, has done so little (I realize this will offend my British friends, but its now official: the Royal Navy hasnt been as small as it is now since the Middle Ages).
There have for some time been rumours that the U.S. was pulling its punches with regard to the Somali pirates. Intriguing new evidence has surfaced in a recent article by two experienced New York Times reporters, Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt, detailing what appears to be happening behind the scenes. The reality seems to be that the United States now considers Al Qaeda in Somalia, and its affiliate across the Gulf of Aden, to be a greater threat than the operatives in Pakistan who have been hit with hundreds of drone aircraft strikes, directed by the Central Intelligence Agency, in recent years.
The primary group of militants, as the The Times likes to call insurgents, is known as the Shabab. Not all of these people seem to be militias opposed to the United States. There are also Somali clan militias, backed by Kenya and Ethiopia, that have reclaimed Shabab-held territory in Southwestern Somalia.
It has been implied that some Shabab fighters are in contact with the United States, while others are considered to be enemies. More than thirty Somali-Americans, from cities such as Minneapolis, have traveled to Somalia in recent years. An American military drone aircraft attacked several Somalis affiliated with the Shabab late last month, killing a number of individuals. This strike was reportedly carried out by the United States Special Operations Command, which is believed to have a unit on the ground in Yemen. It seems likely that American units, no doubt under deep cover, are also at work in Somalia.
There are said to be increasing operational ties between the Somali Shabab and the Qaeda franchise in Yemen, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Penninsula, or A.Q.A.P. This group conspired to destroy a passenger plane headed for Detroit on Christmas day, 2009, and another attempt, later, to destroy cargo planes carrying printer cartridges filled with explosives.
The bottom line seems to be that the United States is trying to do what it has done elsewhere, namely, develop a system of proxy allies on the ground in Somalia. This may prove to be a method by which piracy could be handled, if not suppressed, in a somewhat more effective way. A more unpleasant possibility, however, is that the pirates themselves could turn into allies of the U.S. Special Operations Command.
It would not be the first time in history that this sort of devil you know transformation has happened. We did it after the Second World War, in certain parts of Europe, during what is now called the Cold War. Our allies then erstwhile enemies were in some cases nastier than todays pirates.
Clay Maitland
This article has been initially published at www.claymaitland.com
