I had to bite my tongue as I read about “a stunning rise in pirate assaults” in a new AP article about a New US-led naval force to battle Somali pirates. The rise in piracy was not only tracked and I would argue predictable (as I argued back in January of 2006!), but it also followed the intentional disintegration of the situation in Somalia by US and Ethiopian intervention. Correlation? I think there is ample reason to see causation. Notice how the AP article concludes:
The flagship, the USS San Antonio, is an amphibious ship capable of bringing hundreds of Marines ashore.
This is the type of action needed to truly rattle the pirates, said Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center.
“Right now there is no major deterrent,” he said. “The military maybe chases away the pirates, but they regroup and come back for another attack on another ship. Piracy will continue until their networks and bases are hit.”
In other words, they found a convenient place to build networks and bases — a set of vulnerabilities they could exploit. It is hard not to get into hindsight mode, but the suggestion that stability and security in Somalia will cut down the piracy is surely a way of questioning the tactics that undermined the formation of a popular government. I guess the question is whether the cost of piracy and related activity, such as the Mumbai attacks, is higher or lower than if the US had allowed a hostile but potentially stable Islamic state to form?
I’m not talking about your belly button. The Navy CyberSpace Blog provides an anecdote about an anecdote that tries to make light of the word SHIT:
I said, “yes Sir, back in the days of wooden ships occasionally the cargo would be pressed cow manure stacked on pallets and placed in the hold. During the deployment the bilge would start to gain water and the hold would become very humid. The manure would start to decay and produce methane gas. When the Sailor would enter the space with a lantern the hold would explode. Once they realized the reason for these mysterious occurrences of fire they started to place banners on the sides of the pallets, (I demonstrated it graphically on the dry erase board) “Store High In Transit”. That Sir is the origin of the word, so feel free to express the word sh*t anytime you feel appropriate.” Everyone laughed and we got back to work.
The strange part of the story is how “The Admiral during one of his many questions said the word “Sh*t” which was followed by dead silence”. Dead silence? Why so uptight?
Anyway, this story illustrates humor as a key to authorization. The Admiral was allowed to use this word only after a humorous story has been provided.
She will kiss you ’til your lips bleed
But she will not take her dress off
Americana, Tropicana
All the sailor boys have demons
They sing oh Kentucky
why did you forsake me?
If I was meant to sail the sea
Why did you make me?
It should’ve been another state, oh state
Because Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Does it matter that our anchor
Couldn’t even reach the bottom of a bath tub?
And the sails reflect the moon
It’s such a strange job
playing Black Jack on the deck
Still, atop this giant bottle
dressed in white we quietly huddle with our missiles
And we miss the girls back home
Oh home sweet home
Because Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
She will kiss until your lips bleed
But she will not take her dress off
Americana, Tropicana
Americana, Tropicana
Americana, Americana
I posted this poem because I really love the imagery and the twists of bottles and tubs, missiles and kisses. Her words are as sweet and varied as verses — sung in staccato, spiccato, and legato. She’s so very prescient, but my favorite work of hers lately is actually Fidelity. I wonder if there is any connection since the guy in Fidelity resembles a Russian sailor…
The latest in anti-pirate satellite imaging has led the UN to make some interesting conclusions about security programs, according to the Danger Room from Wired.com
There have been a total 84 reported pirate incidents in just the last three months, UNOSAT says. Half of them occurred in or around the shipping “corridor” sent up by the international community to protect commercial vessels. And that corridor didn’t seem to do much to deter the pirates; their rate of successful attacks dipped only slightly (37 percent, versus 42 percent) inside the protected area. What the corridor did do was concentrate the pirate strikes. “The mean distance between reported attacks has fallen from 30.5km… to 24.6km after,” UNOSAT says.
Perhaps this has been asked elsewhere and I haven’t noticed but, if the corridor is successfully concentrating attacks, should we now expect a navy to deploy heavily-armed decoy ships to trick the pirates and destroy them upon contact or start taking hostages? I’m just reading out of the old anti-pirate playbooks at this point, and wondering when history will repeat itself.