In the midst of all the hoopla about the incredible job everyone all around did in today's amazing rescue little has been said about the Somalian pirates response.
Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding the Greek ship anchored in the Somali town of Gaan, said: "Every country will be treated the way it treats us. In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying," he told The Associated Press. "We will retaliate (for) the killings of our men."
Jamac Habeb, a 30-year-old self-proclaimed pirate, told the AP from one of Somalia's piracy hubs, Eyl, that: "From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill them (the hostages)."
"Now they became our number one enemy," Habeb said of U.S. forces.
Could these threats spell the beginning of the end of piracy in Somalia and the perfect chance to put a nail in the coffin of the Republican meme that Democrats are weak on foreign policy?
If the U.S. shipping is threatened, which it is, then it becomes the responsibility of the U.S. Navy to protect such shipping. Afterall, that is the purpose of controlling the high seas, is it not? Thus it seems only a matter of good prudence to park a few ships off Somalia and conduct area control operations.
Piracy would become a very expensive proposition at that point. How long can the likes of Habeb hold out when their livelihood is under seige? How long before our own people sniff him and the other pirate leaders out and put an end to them?
For the pirates, it is a losing proposition.
Meanwhile, on the diplomatic front, Obama can initiate measures the try to solve the Somalian situation and by making them economically stable and under an orderly society.
Unlike two previous presidents named Bush who each, in their own way, went into the heart of the oldest civilization and reduced it to the stone age.
We can't get out of Iraq soon enough for them to begin undoing all the damage we've done them. But we CAN do a service to Somalia and sailors all over the world if we lend a hand in a nation that hasn't got any, you know....OIL.
