Gates: No Need To Bulk Up Response To Piracy

Source: Associated Press

(04-14) 12:45 PDT Dothan, Ala. (AP) --

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he doesn't see any immediate need to bulk up the military response to piracy on the high seas. Gates adds, however, that those decisions are being made moment by moment.

Gates is in Alabama on Tuesday to hear from future military leaders as he tries to sell his new $534 billion budget plan. He says his budget focuses on what those future warriors will need for the kinds of wars the United States is fighting now.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/14/national/w124152D91.DTL

Let's just stick our heads up our asses and pretend the problem doesn't exist.

in Somalia? How many Somalians are you hoping to kill?

Every time this happens.

equals how many Somalian lives?

that some kind of action should be taken so that this doesn't happen again. I would assume that to mean military action. I find it incredulous that anyone would advocate military action against any peoples because of one ship. Only in America.

;)

It's not really about one ship. It's one American ship so far, and many other ships. But it's also many lives. What's more important in this is people. And there's no good reason for hostages to be taken.

I support the international community solving this problem. I don't know if they have the willingness to do it, but if they don't it's going to keep happening. It's better to take military action now when there isn't a lot of pressure and much at stake, than to have to fight it out when there's hostages at play. I acknowledge that it's an incredibly difficult problem.

A question for you to think about... Do you think that someone should do something about the pirate situation? And if so, how do you think piracy can be eradicated? I think that's the difficult issue that people are facing. There really only is one answer to the second question.

to the United States, and the only response is military than it is what I would expect. Which is to say, any excuse to get in there and 'fix' things according to our goals. Kill however many people necessary to snip in the bud any chance of the Somalians having a Democratic Government, and put in place some right wing government sympathetic to United States business interests. It's been repeated so many times, so I see no reason why this should be any different. The American Exceptionalism, in advocating massive loss of life is just astounding. Too bad all of these countries couldn't form their own awesome military and show us what it is like.



http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/North_Africa/North_Africa_page.html
Somalia
The Long and Hidden History of the U.S in Somalia (2/02)
U.S. Secretly Backing Warlords in Somalia (5/06)
In Somalia, a reckless U.S. proxy war (12/06)
Somalia: US Foreign Policy and Gangsterism - Why the US supports the warlords (12/06)
More Blood For Oil (1/07)
Somalia and Ethiopia: a new front in the 'long war'(1/07)
America's interests in Somalia: Four major U.S. oil companies are sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions (1/07)
Somalia - Warlordism, Ethiopian Invasion, Dictatorship, & America's Role (2/07)
Somalia: The Other (Hidden) War for Oil (5/07)
Ethiopia in Somalia: One year on (12/07)
Somalia: Hidden Catastrophe, Hidden Agenda (5/08)
US' Somalia Policy Likely to Bring Blowback (9/08)
Somalia: Another CIA-Backed Coup Blows Up (12/08)

In any way, shape, or form. We have no current hostages and very few US owned ships pirated. That's why I don't think the US should act alone and I don't think "regime change" or full invasion should be part of it. It's up to the world community...Italy, Greece, France, UK, India, others. They should be the ones drawing up the plans. We're stuck unless this happens.

and all the others were from other countries? We're not stuck with anything. There are plenty of ways to ensure ships security without bombing Somalia.

I mean we can, but we can't and shouldn't.

Pip, Squeak and Wilfred, here - not even a small conventional navy, or a large organisation, however loosely coupled, of naval irregulars. They have no warships. And if they did, they'd probably have to steal the fuel from a conventional warship, or merchant ship, to operate it. Not that they'd have the equipment to siphon it!

It seems to me that the surgical precision and efficiency the servicemen showed, to achieve such a clean-cut result, is indeed something to be admired. But I think people are rapidly losing a sense of perspective, and getting ridiculously excited about a sad and minuscule incident. Any developed nation could blow all the pirates to smithereens in a trice, if they were really purposeful about it. And without "tooling up" with a dollar's worth of additional materiel. You probably have dozens of unused snipers rifles in stock, even in the Navy!

I suspect, however, they know that those Somalis and their countrymen have been the most injured parties via our own mega fishing piracy and dumping of toxic waste, and don't want to be the ogres who crush them without mercy in short order. I expect Obama will try to get them to see sense, before a coalition of nations does crush them. You had enough "ra-ra", imperial glory with Bush, didn't you?

so they're not willing to act?

explanation, bearing in mind that Liechtenstein, Andorra or Monaco, who I don't believe have navies, could presumably put an end to the piracy.

See! Even dolphins are stopping them now!

I don't think it's guilt. It will be difficult and there will be casualties. They're taking the path of least resistance.

in an earlier post, at least regarding the lack of will. But, really, it's a "Mouse that Roared" situation.

One small, naval vessel could blast them all out of the water, one after another, but since they have hostages and an ever-increasing number of them, high-level negotiations seems even more sensible. When it's put to them that what happened the other day to the crew of that little boat, would happen to all of them in one day, if they failed to release the hostages and end the piracy, it really should concentrate her minds.

A pledge of some economic help for Somalia or their own locality would probably help too. I expect Obama and his team are shrewd enough to credit them with too much intelligence to give themselves up to the US, with its domestic prison record, never mind GITMO. But it wouldn't be necessary for them to demand that they surrender themselves, anyway.

having been a soldier.

With all this hysteria over a tiny incident, I get the feeling there are a lot of young "wannabees" here dying of thirst for military glory by proxy.

One of your generals, I believe, pointed out and reiterated that they were untrained. If there is a better indication that the adults are in charge again, at last, I can't think of one. It was much in the diffident vein Obama had used.

Had it been a Republican administration in charge, your Republican, corporate media would have had the affair up there with Iwo Jimo or maybe WWII.

it needs an international solution just as President Obama has said. Every country needs to be working together to solve the problems surrounding the piracy itself and the conditions in Somalia which only encourage the pirates, imo.