somali pirates

Naval reformers think the successful rescue of Maersk Alabama captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates may have highlighted structural imbalances in the U.S. Navy’s ability to handle irregular warfare.

I’ve spent the last 24 hours desperately compiling a forward-looking piece on efforts within the naval community to make the Navy a more effective anti-pirate force. I filed about an hour ago and my diligent editor, Laura McGann, has been tweaking ever since. And suddenly I discover, thanks to Rob Farley, that I overlooked perhaps [...]

Here’s Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, making a clear distinction between Somali pirates and Somali terrorists, while indicating that both scourges are rooted in the dysfunctional state of Somalia itself — a condition he says the United States should work to correct. From an interview today with MSNBC:
Based [...]

… or actually, the pirates’ reprisals might be direct, too:
Pirates attacked another cargo ship early Tuesday morning in the Gulf of Aden, continuing a spate of attacks despite recent U.S. and French military action against hijackers in the waters.
Pirates attacked the M/V Irene between 1 and 2 a.m. local time Tuesday, about 100 miles southwest [...]

Prompted by skepticism from Blackfive, Adam Serwer at TAPPED gets Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman to clarify President Obama’s role in yesterday’s rescue of Captain Richard Phillips’ rescue from the Somali pirates:
Bryan Whitman from the Office of the Secretary of Defense told me that “The Secretary of Defense requested the required authorities which were approved by [...]

I woke up this morning to the Grandy and Andy show on 630 WMAL, conservative talkers who gave the president a “B” grade on his handling of the Somilian pirate situation.
“He has saved the world,” grumbled Andy. “You are led to believe that this morning.”
“Had this led to a disastrous outcome we would be blasting [...]

Michael Shear of The Washington Post assesses that the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips from the Somali pirates — a commenter points to this apt cartoon about the discrepancy between the pirates’ aims and the way they’ve been treated as a joke  — is an “early victory that could help build confidence in his ability [...]

Can I be real for a moment? I don’t know a thing about what can or should be done about the Somali pirates. It seems as if the unionized crew of the Maersk Alabama can take them one-on-one, but that’s not a systemic approach, and the fact that Capt. Richard Phillips is still held [...]