It’s An Ill Wind …
4 Comments Published by DanM November 17th, 2008 in National and International Issues.… that blows no good at all.
The people of the Earth desperately need to start working together. There are global disasters happening as you read these words that, if they can be solved at all, will require – not ‘benefit from’; not ‘need’; require – all the people of the Earth if they’re going to be solved.
Six months ago, there was virtually nothing that even most people felt the same way about … unless you’re willing to count something like greed. Then Obama was elected. I admit, this is just a moment of celebration, caused mainly by the realization that we’re not going to have to suffer through another four years of Bush-like stupidity. The hard work is still to come and everybody won’t agree once we get down to cases. But, Hey! It’s a start.
Something just happened that might actually create another moment of unity. The Somali pirates might have just gone too far.
In case you haven’t heard, they just captured a Saudi oil tanker three times bigger than an aircraft carrier loaded with $100 million in oil. The previous shock of capturing a freighter loaded with Russian tanks, ultimately headed for Sudan, was mainly embarrassing because it caught people with their lies hanging out. But it has still created a situation where the US and the Russians are at least cooperating on something. (That situation is still a stalemate, by the way. The pirates are still holding the freighter and the warships are still just watching it.)
Taking the Saudi tanker was big enough to cause the world price of oil to reverse course and start going up again! Capturing your odd freighter or yacht isn’t going to move the real world power brokers. But this will. As I said, ‘greed’ does seem to be one constant that people can agree on.
The other unique thing about this incident is that it happened 450 miles out to sea! Military types agree that there’s really no way that all that ocean can be patrolled. If they can seize a ship as far away as Denver, they can’t be stopped on the open ocean. And once they seize it, the pirates really do have the upper hand. Remember, in spite of the fact that they’re surrounded by enough firepower to win a war, the pirates that seized the freighter are still holding it.
The only way the ‘world’ will solve this problem is to remove the safe haven in Somalia that allows the pirates to operate. That means going in and cleaning out Somalia once and for all. And that means that the ‘world’ is going to have to agree to do it.
That’s more than just a start.
Is the “world” going to do the cleaning out?
UN peacekeepers elsewhere in Africa seem to be as much a part of the problem than a part of the solution.
After our previous experience in Somalia and with our commitments elsewhere I doubt the US will do it. Besides, I don’t recall any US ships that have been taken.
The European countries in NATO seem to have their hands full in Afghanistan so they probably won’t want to.
The Saudi’s have a considerable military capability – maybe they should go get their tanker.
Or the oil sheiks can just hire Blackwater.
All just examples of the current lack of any actual agreement. All of these demonstrate what happens when half-hearted attempts are made instead.
The US does have a stake. The ship was “Aramco” – that’s “Arabian American Company”. Our shipping remains threatened just like everybody elses. And oil prices have gone up for us as well as the rest of the world.
Keep in mind, this is Somalia, not Iraq or Iran. They have no infrastructure. They’re tiny by comparison. All they really have is wild-eyed fanatics who don’t seem to care much about their own life or anybody elses.
You’re actually missing the whole point. Actual agreement and world commitment might be possible here — in contrast to virtually every other situation I can think of. If there really was agreement, the ‘world’ could do it with the cost of a few Superbowl commercials. When the US went in a few years ago, we were “lone rangers” again. Europe, the entire Middle East, Russia, and certainly Africa was standing on the sidelines just hoping we would fail. (And, much to their delight, we did.) This is an example of where an individual country wouldn’t even have to take the lead.
But your suggestion of Blackwater isn’t bad. The only thing I would add to it is that would still take world agreement to actually accomplish.
Pardon me if I have jumped to an unwarranted conclusion, but it almost seems like ‘the world’ agreeing on anything and working in unison rubs you the wrong way?
No — having the world agree on something and working in unison does not rub me the wrong way. I just have a problem envisioning it happening.
What do you mean by the world — the UN Security Council? General Assembly?
My point is that the world may be in favor of cleaning out the pirates, but the world is incapable of doing it. An individual country will have to take the lead even under the auspices of the UN, although I suppose some joint military planning group like NATO could.
According to the current UN charter, it would have to be the UN Security Council. The General Assembly can’t take actions like this.
However …
The UN most certainly can take actions like this and they have. The entire Korean War was “officially” a UN action. Even Bush’s war in Iraq is covered by a UN “fig leaf” resolution. (Which runs out in December and which, for some inexplicable reason, Bush is choosing to actually pay attention to. Funny. He hasn’t worried about following US law much.)
You’re right that in real, practical fact, even UN actions have been spearheaded by some specific leader. The legal technicalities force the Security Council to authorize an actual force to prosecute the war because there is no organization within the UN for doing anything like that. That’s what’s happening in Afganistan, for example. The Security Council authorized NATO to prosecute the war.
(The UN only does “peacekeeping” and forces under that authorization aren’t actually expected to fight. “Peacemaking” is an entirely different matter under international law and the UN doesn’t do that.)
You’re still missing the point, however. Breakthrough requirements create breakthough methods. The problem is that ‘the world’ hasn’t been able to agree on much of anything before so the motivation to create some breakthrough method for doing something has never been there before. In this particular case, there is the tantalizing possibility (tantalizing to me anyway) that the motivation might actually be there.