BlackFive

We have been letting the pirates run the ocean for too damn long. Our occasional feats of brilliance, like when the SEALs wished the Maersk hijackers a Happy Easter, are brutally overshadowed by episodes like the recent slaughter of four Americans while we motored along behind them, and the more recent capture of seven Danes. We have had a few successes trying these wankers either in African courts or bringing them to the US, but both of those plans are full of holes. Kenya decided they didn't want to be our trash disposal service and for most of these Somalis, US prison would be a Shangri La.

No the real problem is interdiction. We don't want to be negotiating with pirates holding hostages, ideally we should be circling over wreckage counting dead pirates before the sharks get there. We have made some tentative baby steps in that direction and the Navy has floated the idea of hitting the pirate base camps, which prompted the following response from our resident SEAL.

Froggy said... Existing technology cannot measure the level of AWESOME that would be Navy SEALs on a Somali pirate hunt.

Now I am not holding my breath that our government is going to unleash the SEALs of War against these parasites, it goes against too many diplomatic and international niceties for our timid leaders. You would think this is the simplest of problems and custom-built for one of these trans-national collections of tea-sippping, petit-four nibbling, meddlers telling formal lies in formal wear. I mean if we can't agree that piracy is a scourge and all necessary means should be employed to stop it, then WTF good are these groups? I answer my own question.

So cue the scary music and enter the bad guy. Erik Prince is a super villain, he is a Christian crusader with a private Army to do his bidding, he is a cold-blooded uber-mercenary, and purveyor of evil. I know this is so, for I have read it in the NY Times. Apparently now he has made common ground with the pirates and will be assisting them in their predations.

Erik Prince, the founder of the international security giant Blackwater Worldwide, is backing an effort by a controversial South African mercenary firm to insert itself into Somalia's bloody civil war by protecting government leaders, training Somali troops, and battling pirates and Islamic militants there, according to American and Western officials.

Wait, what's that you say? He is working against the pirates? Why would he want to do that? Oh yeah, because nobody else will. It shouldn't really surprise anyone that a man who has spent his adult life working in the field of maritime badassery would have an objection to piracy and would be willing to help eradicate it. But that is not the media narrative, so we get spin and hit pieces rather than analysis.We have quite a few well informed, experienced folks around here who think that Congress ought to be cranking out a few Letters of Marque for pirate hunting. If Mr. Prince can organize a posse and help take care of this problem, well fine by me.