Gates: Stop Paying Ransom To Pirates
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
"Part of the problem is that the number of companies, not countries, companies that are prepared to pay the ransoms as part of the price of doing business and clearly if they didn't pay the ransoms we'd be in a stronger position," Gates told the audience.
Gates said that reducing the number of hijackings and hostage takings will require the combined efforts of the private and public sector and will necessitate the both military and diplomatic efforts.
"We can put a lot in jail and we can kill a lot but there will still be more," Gates said. "Until we can do something to provide some kind of stability on land and some prospects for these people it's going to be a tough problem."
At the heart of the issue, is that the people living in many Somali villages are "unspeakably poor," according to Gates. This makes piracy one of the only attractive options for young men who lack prospects.
In the short term, Gates said he was considering partnering with local Somali governments to try to curb piracy and to try to find neighboring countries to partner with – something that he acknowledged would be difficult as many countries in close proximity to the African nation have weak governments. He described Somalia's central government as being unstable.
Gates said that he was confident that the United States could "at least make it a lot more dangerous and a lot tougher for these pirates and then address some of the longer term problems."
This morning's talk was given as part of Gates' four-day tour of the military's war colleges.
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Posted by Nikos_Retsos
The good news is you're retired...the bad news is the untold numbers of young minds you poisoned before you retired.
Now, thats what I call "fuzzy thinking".... Sorry Nikos, the US didn't "disband" the Somalian Govt!
and exacerbating the problem by making the pirates millionaires. But the lawlessness in Somalia is the result of the U.S. foreign policy to disband any government controlled by Muslims - regardless if it is Iran, Somalia, or from taking over in Afghanistan.
Piracy in the high seas used to be a crime off the coasts of South East Asia where the pirates preyed upon fishermen and migrant refugees on unseaworthy boats. But the piracy off Somalia is a scourge, and the result, of a shortsighted U.S. anti-terrorist policy.
After the fall of Somali's president Shia Barre in 1991, and a failed U.S. intervention by Bill Clinton, Somalia convulsed into an anarchical feudal territory. In the end, the Islamic Court (IC) militia wiped out the feuding warlords and established order. But the U.S. didn't like Islamists controlling any territory in Africa. It labeled the Islamic Courts as "Al Qaeda linked," the typical enemy designation that justify as military response, and arranged with Ethiopia to send its army in to disband it with U.S. air support from A-10 aircrafts. The Ethiopians went in with heavy armor, the Islamists run out of the cities and reversed into guerrilla warfare, and some who run into Kenya were arrested by U.S. special forces who were waiting on border crossings. "Mission Accomplished?" Yes, but only in Bush's delusive mind who orchestrated the Ethiopian invasion.
The Islamic Courts was not linked to Al Qaeda, but anything Islamic has been designated a U.S. enemy and legitimate target. Muslims do not believe the recent statement by Obama "the U.S. is not, and will never be, in war with Islam," because the current piracy scourge off Somalia is the result of the U.S. war on Islam. And if ever a government is established in Somalia, it will be by Islamists only because they are not corrupt, and they will be accepted by the people for the equality they enforce. I think the time has come for the U.S. to take its head out of the African sand, and support the establishment of order in Somalia, yes, by Islamists, because there are no alternatives.
The Ethiopians eventually were tired of fighting a Somali insurgency on behalf of the U.S. and withdrew - as Bill Clinton had done before. And what happened then was the same than happened when the Russians under Boris Yeltsin withdrew from Chechnya in 1996. The Chechen militants, unemployed, with no money, and with no government or infrastructure in place, they started kidnapping for ransom to make a living. And that what is happening in Somalia now, but since nobody has money inside Somalia, hijacking the ships passing by has become the only source of income - and wealth for successful hijackers. If the Islamic Court militia was not prosecuted and overthrown by the U.S. with Ethiopian help, the tragedies now playing off the Somalian coast would not have happened.
Now, those who think that declaring war on anything Islamic makes the U.S. safer can look at what is happening off Somalia and admit their delusions. An introspection - and some undoing - is urgently needed! Nikos Retsos, retired professor