Editorial: Pushing back against Somali pirates

The Grand Rapids Press By The Grand Rapids Press
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on April 19, 2009 at 3:00 AM, updated April 19, 2009 at 3:01 AM
Suspected pirates were arrested by French commandos off the Somalia coast in January.

Despite hand-wringing and second-guessing from some quarters, President Barack Obama deserves only praise for his decisive action last weekend against Somali pirates.

The president authorized the bold move by Navy SEALs to take out the three thugs holding Capt. Richard Phillips hostage. It was a gamble. The pirates held Capt. Phillips at gunpoint in a bobbing lifeboat 75 feet off the stern of the USS Bainbridge. The SEALs had to fire their shots under darkening skies on unsettled seas.

They hit the targets -- proof that the elite Navy unit comes honestly by its reputation for iron determination and precision.


Somali pirates will continue to threaten U.S. citizens until the brigands see clearly that there are deadly consequences for their lawless actions.

Complaints that followed, especially from the shipping and insurance industries, held that the spilled blood will yield only more violence among trolling Somali hooligans. Could be. But the alternative to this kind of action against the captors of Capt. Phillips and his ship was to allow shake-down bullies to continue to board American vessels, hold American citizens at gunpoint and demand ransom from American businesses.

That route leads inevitably to more extortion. The United States had to draw a line in the water.

That doesn't mean that the U.S. Navy ought to be the prime police force against high-seas lawlessness. Even in a multi-national fleet there aren't enough vessels to patrol the million square miles off the coast of northeast Africa and the Gulf of Aden where piracy prevails.

Other solutions have to be found. The first is for shipping companies to hire professional guards, something they have been reluctant to do because of cost and safety concerns, and because of narrow interpretations of international treaties. The crew of the Maersk Alabama reacted with cunning and courage when the pirates started climbing aboard their ship, grabbing whatever make-shift weapons they could find, including knives and ice picks. Capt. Phillips' personal sacrifice in offering himself as a hostage and sparing his crew that fate can only be admired.

But as crew member William Rios pointed out, "All we had were knives. They had AK-47s." Trained, armed guards on the side of the good guys might have made a big difference, and likely would have kept the ship's captain from a five-day gunpoint ordeal.

Keeping ships clustered together in convoys is another action the United States should push on international partners. Commercial vessels in convoys could be more closely guarded against Somali water lords, who have rested their extortion campaign on cheap armaments aimed at lone ships vulnerable to wide-water attack. Also, the Navy ought to seek and destroy the pirate mother ships that tow nimbler and smaller vessels into the shipping lanes for attacks. Certainly, the U.S. should freeze pirate assets, as the Obama administration plans to do, and work to establish and train an effective Somali coast guard.

The most drastic and effective solution would be to strike at pirate bases within Somalia, rooting out the evil element where it lives. That alternative would be more attractive, however, if there were something like a stable Somali government to support the action and quash criminality in its wake. But in the stateless state where the pirates now thrive, chaos, not containment, is the most likely outcome of a systematic ground campaign.

For now, the United States needs to assert its right of self defense on the seas. As with Barbary pirates in the early 1800s, the country will continue to pay into the pirate blackmail scheme until we raise the stakes for the criminals. They have operated with too much impunity and too little fear of consequence.

The equation changed last Sunday, when President Obama, relying on the skilled action of the SEAL snipers, decided the country wasn't going to take it anymore. It's about time.
