Piracy in Somalia

Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars has a reference to an opinion piece by Johann Hari which explores the origins of Somali piracy. Susie quotes great chunks of the article and then states that "in the big picture, the Somali pirates are acting in self-defense".

For the purposes of this post, I will stipulate that everything that Hari alleges about the conditions in Somalia, that European nations were both overfishing Somalia's fishing grounds and were dumping poisonous waste there, rather than pay for proper disposal, is true.

When you apply those facts to the ongoing piracy, the rationale does not pass the "so, what" test.

When a crime or offense has been committed against you, nowhere in any form of civilization does that permit you to strike out against those who had no culpability for what happened to you. The "poor Somalis are engaged in a form of rough justice and self-defense" argument is the same as saying that if someone were to break into your home and steal stuff, you would be justified in grabbing your gun and engaging in random carjacking.

The justification espoused by Somali pirates and their apologists is, when you get right down to it, the same rationalization that the Bush Administration used to justify the invasion of Iraq: "We've been wronged and we're going to strike out at the nearest suitable target."

To my knowledge, there is not a scintilla of evidence that ties the M/V Maersk Alabama or any of the other ships which were hijacked by pirates to any of the offenses alleged by the Somalis. The piracy has to be knocked back. It is time to start taking actions beyond patrolling the seas and looking for a bunch of thugs with AKs and RPGs.

Shoot the archers, not the arrows. (Not that there is anything wrong with also shooting the arrows.)