The American crew of a hijacked U.S.-flagged ship retook control of the vessel from Somali pirates Wednesday but the captain was still being held hostage in a lifeboat hundreds of miles off the Horn of Africa, crew members said.
U.S. officials said an American warship and a half-dozen other ships were headed to the scene.
Ship operator Maersk Lines Limited confirmed that the crew had taken back the 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama and were unharmed but the captain was being held by pirates away from the cargo ship.
First of all, I'm glad the crew managed to retake the ship. That's really great. Kudos to the crew although the captain is still at risk.
But second, I know that American warships can't be everywhere. But why weren't they near an American-flagged ship. There aren't that many, after all. It shouldn't be too much to expect we'd look after our own while performing our international duties of defending freedom of the seas.
So will use this incident to go into Somalia and knock down the pirates and jihadis (as long as we're there)? It would be a good idea:
I've written for several years that I'd like to see a big effort, perhaps a multi-brigade operation in Somalia to strangle the growing jihadi presence there.
The Ethiopian foray that we supported two years ago is still clamping down in the Mogadishu area, but vast expanses of territory outside of effective control provide space for al Qaeda and their friends to regroup and plan. The impact of that intervention (backed by our special forces) is starting to wear off.
So why not get the Arab grouping to sign off on an Egyptian contingent of a marine or paratrooper brigade to go in with an American Marine brigade and an American paratrooper brigade, perhaps augmented by one or two EU infantry battalions, as the conventional hammer of an intervention force? Aircraft, ships, and special operations forces as needed would be part of this as well.
The idea wouldn't be for this force to be a permanent force but one that disperses and kills the pirates and jihadis who can--if they don't already--latch on to the piracy effort. Our going in with ground forces would be contingent on the African Union and UN scraping up a force that could then be brought in to crucial port areas to keep the weakened piracy and jihadi elements from coming back in once we leave after several months of operations.
I'm willing to go in even without a follow-up force. We have all the excuse we need for a good old fashioned punitive expedition. If we can't identify the best targets after all the effort we've spend monitoring the Horn region, I'll be upset.
At the very least, we need to teach the pirates that they should stick to non-American targets. We need to hurt them badly. And if any jihadis die, too, we're in bonus territory.
