Obama faces pirate hostage crisis

 

WASHINGTON, April 9 (UPI) -- Barack Obama is facing his first national-security crisis as president of the United States. Richard Phillips of Underhill, Vt., the captain of a U.S.-flagged ship -- the Maersk Alabama -- is still being held by pirates who attacked his vessel hundreds of miles off the coast of Somalia.

The Somali pirates are now more brazen than ever. Their attack on the Maersk Alabama came after the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower was sent to the Gulf of Aden on a five-month mission precisely to protect American and international shipping from their depredations. But all the military power in the world is useless without the leadership and determination to use it. And so far, the unmatched power of the U.S. Navy has been sitting by impotently as the latest hostage drama unfolds.

The pirates were foiled in their efforts to retain control of the ship, not by the U.S. armed forces but by the bold actions of the 22-man American crew themselves. They fought back and regained control of their own ship -- but not before the captain was seized and held hostage.

The Maersk Alabama was carrying relief supplies to, ironically, Somalia and Uganda. The pirates had attempted to commandeer the ship and managed to hang on to Phillips and hold him in one of the ship's lifeboats. A U.S. destroyer is now at the scene, and indirect negotiations are taking place with the maritime marauders. The rest of the crew is safe.

The assault by four or five pirates in a fishing boat on the 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama took place Wednesday about 200 miles southeast of Eyl, Somalia. It was the latest in a long series of such attacks in the Gulf of Aden region. There were 50 takeovers and more than 130 pirate attacks last year, but this is the first time Somali pirates targeted a U.S.-flagged ship.

If President Obama fails to act forcefully against the pirates, even if Phillips is returned unharmed, he risks emboldening them. If that happens, major oil-producing nations in the region led by Saudi Arabia may seek to broker deals to protect their seaborne commerce with nations like India, China and Russia, which also have significant naval forces in the area and are more willing to use them.

The pirates seem to only want ransom. Last year, shipping companies paid more than $80 million to free their crews, ships and cargoes.

Several countries, including the United States, have military vessels patrolling the area to dissuade such attacks, but the Gulf of Aden covers an area of 2 million square miles.

There is also a political and security element to the attacks. The pirates have links to extreme Islamic groups. They operate out of the collapsed state of Somalia, where Islamic extremist forces have been gaining in military power and political influence. The government of neighboring Sudan is already carrying out virtually genocidal and brutal ethnic-cleansing policies against people living in Darfur. Sudan also has close military ties to Iran.

Security analysts say there is only one clear, sure and lasting way to stop the attacks. That would be either to send the U.S. armed forces in unilaterally to clean out their lairs on the Somali coast, or set up an international squadron that would do it.

The first way would probably be the only realistic one that could work. That was the option President Thomas Jefferson took more than 200 years ago when he sent a disproportionately large part of the infant U.S. Navy to clear out the Berber pirates who had been preying on American ships off the North African coast in the Mediterranean Sea. Through the first half of the 19th century, the British Royal Navy unilaterally suppressed the infamous international slave trade using its unchallenged global maritime supremacy.

Arming the crews of merchant ships would not end the menace. The pirates operate from fast speedboats and have relatively heavy weapons that can badly damage and disable slow-moving merchant ships with impunity.

Ultimately, only bold action will end the menace, and if Obama doesn't provide it, eventually someone else will. Until then, things will only get worse.