Pirate Problem? by Colt Ables

Was published in my school paper also: http://www.theshorthorn.com/content/view/16766/71/

Over the past few months, if you have been listening to the news, you know that there has been a rise in the number of ships that have been hijacked by pirates. Last week when pirates attempted to hijack the American flagged ship the Maersk Alabama the crew members fought the pirates back and they abandoned the operation, only after taking the captain of the ship hostage onto one of the ship’s lifeboats. After American Navy ships made it to the area, it took five days for the Captain to be rescued. Three Navy Seals simultaneously shot three of the four pirates that were on the lifeboat, rescued the Captain and currently is holding one of the pirates to face criminal prosecution in American courts. Mission accomplished. What now?

Sadly, the French also tried to rescue four hostages being held captive by three Somali pirates just two days before the successful recovery of Captain Phillips, but their operation ended in the death of one of their hostages.

What are we to do to fight against piracy in that area of the world where many ship and crew have been held for ransom, grossing the pirates close to $100 million in 2008. This is the first time in almost two hundred years that an American flagged ship has been taken or its members held for ransom by pirates. Is this a national security issue? Essentially, yes, because just as the terrorists on 9/11 took over four planes to cause harm to America and American lives, pirates could hijack an oil tanker (as has already happened last November but a ransom was paid to get the Saudi oil tanker back) and detonate the contents in a port taking the lives of many innocent people and also disrupting trade. This is already a disruption to trade as hijacked ships are held for more than just days. Currently, there are over 300 hostages being held by Somali pirates and on Monday alone, the pirates had already hijacked four other vessels, their crewmembers, and also it was reported that the American vessel the Liberty Sun was fired upon by the pirates.

The real question, as afore mentioned, what do we do now? Can we afford to send in the Seals every time there is a hostage crisis to take out the pirate or should we attempt to end this nonsense all together? As reported by Bloomberg, a self-proclaimed spokesperson for the pirates, Mohamed Hashi Yasin, declared on Monday, “France and the U.S. will encounter unforgettable lessons… We will treat every country as they treat us.” It was even said that they will target U.S. and French ships now to get their revenge. Can piracy be called terror? Should these men be treated as terrorists and we go after where we know they operate their training camps and dock their boats in Somalia? Yes.

If we want to crack down on this threat to human lives and which slows transport in an area where about 1/10 of trade passes through, we must put an end to these acts of terrorism. They may not be destroying property, but they are putting innocent lives in danger to exploit for financial gain. We must end it, and we must end it now.

Strike the training camps, the “mother ships”, and safe havens with aerial strikes and cut the threat off at its base and possibly allow the ships to carry weapons to defend against these threats on the seas. Killing five of them may send a sign and deter them, but we must take this seriously and the threat by the self-proclaimed spokesman doesn’t really assert that these situations will be ending anytime soon.