I think the problem with the pirates(world wide, not just Somalia) is the Willingness on their part to use fear and terror, and the unwillingness of the "civiliized " nations to use the same tactics. The United states Government did some pretty brutal things in the South during Sherman's march to the sea, and to the Indians, and later, to other countries that we had problem with. The difference was everbody knew we did those things, but no one talked about them. Viet nam changed all that.We all know that the Viet Cong were terrorists, by the modern definition. Not really even insuregants, but more like terrorists. They would gladly kill civillians if it spread a fear of co operating with the government of South Vietnam or the U.S.But we only saw the bad things that US Servicemen did.We saw the bombs that missed thier targets and killed innocent womem and chidren, but no one wanted to talk about the bombs tha VC plnated on purpose to hurt the innocwnt as well as the soldiers.
If We sent a destoyer to level the miserable villages that these animals live in, there would be pictures all over tv and the internet, showing the disparity of force, the innocent children blown up, and generally making the US, or any other modern nation look really bad.
The question I have is just the opposite. When are we going to pick out some one, somewhere, who needs a good whipping, and unleash on them? Why do we have the best military in the world, if we are not going to use it? I say come home to Norfolk with a few human heads hanging from the bowsprit of one of those ArleyBurk's , and make a post card out of it. send it to what's left of the pirates. Merry Christmas, Habib! Jesus loves you,and I will too, as soon as I have killed all the pirates over there! We'll be back, soon as we get around to it, and this time, we will send a battallion of Marines to have supper with you.We have inclosed a copy of Emily Post's latest book on manners, and A Bible. The first is so you don't offend some of the Marines with your bad table manners, and the second is in case you do. It would be good for you to read the parts about Jesus, because if you F^^* up one more time, you are going to meet him the same day. Your's truly, The President Of the United States.
There was a day when we had a president with the cojones to send a message like that. There was a day when we had a marine Corp officer corp filled with men who would have been glad to march up to Habib's house and hand deliver a message like that, unescorted. Teddy Roosevelt was that Kind of President. The officers who served under him were those kind of officers.There are still soldiers, marines, airmen, and even sailors who would fight for the honor of pissing on some chicken sqat war lord by delivering him a message like that. But the higher you get in rank, the fewer there are. The higher ups are all trying to be "nation builders", just like the people in the white house.
There was a day when our armed forces were call to mess things up, not try to do the least amount of damage possible, but the most. Boxers shouldn't be dentists. Let the boxers knock the opponents teeth out, get the dentist to fix them. I don't think we should ask our armed forces to be "nice". I think we should allow them to kill every thing that moves, until the other country has had enough. We should probably keep on killing everything that moves for another week or two, just to be sure the other guy really realy does want to quit.And if he wants to quit, and has some terms for surrender other than unconditional, we should tell him the quit window is closed, come back in three or our months, and it might be open on a wednesday afternoon.