somalia

The latest in a string of lawsuits challenging harsh interrogation techniques could fare better than similar cases.

You’re not going to believe this, but Scott Carney’s got a post up at Danger Room interviewing Somali pirates on their strategies for hijacking cargo ships, complete with video a pirate crew provided him. I hesitate to even describe this because it’s such a great get and you should just click through the link, but [...]

Richard Philips, the Maersk Alabama captain who endured a week of captivity by Somali pirates before U.S. Navy SEALs freed him, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today about what measures ought to be taken by commercial shipping to deter or defeat pirate attacks. Here’s Philips’ statement, on the question of arming crew members:
At [...]

A mysterious, and mysteriously detailed, email criticizing President Obama’s feckless decision-making during the Somalian pirate standoff has been making the rounds in the usual circles. But according to Louis Hansen, the email is probably bunk. It’s credited to retired Rear Adm. Lou Sarosdy, who says he didn’t write it.
“I don’t know any SEALs,” said Sarosdy, [...]

A new transcript of Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-Minn.) April 9 interview on San Francisco AM station KSFO yields yet another error:
On the station’s morning show, she recounted the 2006 controversy of the so-called “flying imams,” six Muslim clerics who were removed from a US Airways flight after passengers grew uncomfortable with their behavior. “The imams, [...]

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.

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 [...]

Charles Johnson of the war-on-terror-watching blog Little Green Footballs tells critics of President Obama to cool it over the resolution of the pirate hostage crisis.
President Barack Obama is the Commander in Chief of the US armed forces. I certainly don’t agree with a lot of his policies, but I’ll be damned if I won’t — [...]

… 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 [...]

After the rescue of Maersk Alabama captain Richard Phillips, some Somali pirates issued a predictable amount of bluster about reprisals. (”Every country will be treated the way it treats us,” said Abdullahi Lami, a pirate in the safe-haven Somali den of Gaan, according to The Associated Press.) Defense Secretary Bob Gates noted that the pirates [...]