At Salon, Alex Koppelman makes a couple points about the media hysteria surrounding the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips from Somali pirates.
But am I alone in thinking that, especially now that Phillips has rescued, perhaps the level of attention given to the drama in recent days has been a little much?
That's especially true because it's not like anyone in the U.S. had really cared that much about the dire conditions in Somalia that have led to this situation, at least not until Americans were taken hostage. (Blame the media all you like for the lack of coverage before this, and I will too, but be honest -- would you have read it?) Hopefully now this will at least to some examination of U.S. policies in the region and what we can be doing to help the people there, not to mention stop the pirates. And there has been some sign of that coverage starting, but let's face facts: In a week or so, we'll have forgotten all about this, at least until the next time Americans are directly affected.
And for the usual suspects, who are, as usual, adding this incident to their Obama hagiography, Koppelman links to John Cole:
Maybe I am alone, but I hardly view this as a test of the President. Unless I am mistaken, all he had to do was sign off on rules of engagement and stay out of the way, and I don’t mean that to denigrate Obama, but because that really is all any President could do. We have a massive Navy with several hundred ships, highly trained professionals in the SEALS, highly trained professionals in the FBI and in the crews of the naval vessels tailing (and in one case towing) the raft, and you just need to let them do their job. This didn’t happen because heroic efforts by Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod in consultation with Obama produced a dashing plan a la the The West Wing. This happened because our very entrenched military and national security apparatus can handle little things like this without flinching.
Koppelman and Cole both link to the usual garbage we'd expect from right wingers, who are trying to misconstrue and misrepresent what happened, to their own political ends. But we expect that from right wingers. What we expect from our side is a little of that old reality stuff. So, kudos to the security professionals who planned and executed the rescue of Phillips. But even more importantly, isn't it about time our political leaders began to address the policies that enable the very existence of these pirates? In the above linked AP article, Phillips's first mate, Shane Murphy, is quoted urging President Obama to take the lead:
"It's time for us to step in and put an end to this crisis," he said. "It's a crisis, wake up."
Indeed.
Update [2009-4-13 13:29:57 by Turkana]: In the comments, the irrepresisble cskendrick gets to the discussion we, and our leaders, really need to have:
What are those conditions?
What are the possible scenarios for remedying them?
Absent a grand strategy, how about some way to change the economics of piracy? Some sort of carrot/stick approach?
My own view is that in past eras, the world did not fret over preserving national boundaries and identities in quite the same way.
Somalia's choices at the high level are rather transparent.
Somalia -
1. reunifies under a functional central government (someone would have to reinvent Somali nationalism from scratch against a great deal of external and internal resistance)
2. is calved in a looser association of tribal-based states (the various African regional powers would not like this precedent at all, yet if this was recognized as the reality on the ground some of these mini-states might form trade or other alliances more readily for their benefit and become nuclei around which to form larger political entities leading in time to full reunfication
3. in partitioned in the same fashion, only with zones of control by leading African states outside the immediate region, perhaps (or not) with backing from the world powers
4. is divided into zones of occupation by world powers
5. carved up by the neighbors
6. is colonized by one country or bloc of same, with current residents more or less in place
7. is colonized, but most of the current residents are run off
8. is embargoed, absolutely fenced in and shut from contact with the rest of the world
9. is ignored, save when it chooses to interact with the rest of the planet, and responses by the international community are ad hoc.
10. OR is depopulated, in portions or in full, then ignored.
Most of these are choices we shouldn't and won't see.
There are a lot of peace-minded particular scenarios built into #'s 1 through (maybe) 4, yet I wanted to list all the security-based categories for any approach to Somalia.
The one currently in force, sort of, is #9, though a blend of #3 and #5 would only require scaling up from existing operations to implements. That, and most likely significant financial backing from the USA and other world powers.
Update [2009-4-13 14:20:46 by Turkana]: A couple people have linked to this fine diary from Nulwee, from Friday: How About Knowing Of Which You Speak?
Update [2009-4-13 14:36:52 by Turkana]: The always outstanding Valtin has a live diary- Beyond Pirate Rescue: What's Really Happening in Somalia?