Somalia Targeted – Ecoterra Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor - 27th Press Release (Part 2)

By: Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

[ Posted On: 2009-05-05 ]

Impacting reports from the global village

The Crisis in Somalia: US-NATO Plans to Control the Indian Ocean by Rick Rozoff

Cold War Origins

For the past seven months world news outlets have provided daily coverage on what has been described as escalating piracy off the coast of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden and attempts by international, primarily Western, military vessels to combat it.

Absent from such reporting, as the exigencies of commercial news broadcasting inevitably entail, is how and why the situation in the region reached the impasse it has and what its broader significance is.

Instead the picture presented is, according to the standard formula, a point on a blank canvas with no historical depth, no geo-economic and geopolitical width and no strata of diversified and interrelated causes that contribute to and dynamics that result from what is in truth a lengthy and complex process of developments.

In short the Somali situation is portrayed as a simple and self-contained event that at a seemingly gratuitous moment was declared a crisis.

There are dozens of comparable cases in the world, analogous in the general sense of presenting economic, security, national and regional threats to other nations and their environs, but these have not been declared crises and so aren't given world attention.

The determination of what constitutes a crisis, and a world crisis at that, since the end of the Cold War is a prerogative of the United States and its allies, the governments of which render the verdict, with their own and much of the world's news media echoing the claim.

And the evaluation is inevitably a one-sided affair. What has been observed about Europe's most mature writers - Shakespeare, Goethe and Balzac, for example - that their antagonists were never mere villains, that they reflected the complexity and even ambiguity of real life with no character monopolizing the virtues or the vices - is summarily discarded and a broad panorama of multifaceted motives, players and conflicts reduced to an banal pseudo-morality play with just three actors: Evil culprits, innocent victims and valiant heroes.

The first category is assigned to any individual or group which is opposed to the designs on their nation by major Western powers or, what is interpreted by the latter as the same thing, pursue a policy of protecting local rights and interests. The second is comprised of whoever can be cast into the role to arouse indignation and hostility against the first, currently the crews of Western commercial vessels in the Gulf of Aden. And the third is led by the United States, NATO and the European Union, the self-deputized military vigilantes of the world.

That many of those off the Somali coast capturing foreign, mainly Western, vessels and holding them, their cargo and their crews for ransom are reported to be former fishermen driven out of their sole occupation by years of intrusive and illegal large-scale poaching by world commercial concerns or affected by eighteen years of toxic, including nuclear, wastes dumped off their shores isn't acknowledged. To do so would complicate the narrative contrived by those who have with disastrous consequences interfered in the internal affairs of Somalia and its neighbourhood for several decades and are in large part responsible for the current crisis.

Instead the action begins where the governments of the Western states that have deployed warships, helicopters, snipers and bases to the region script its opening act: With pirates.

As though a director would begin a production of Shakespeare's Hamlet with the protagonist thrusting his sword through Polonius and not with the visitation of his father's ghost, so that Hamlet appeared as a brutal murderer and not a reluctant avenger of parricide and regicide.

The national tragedy of Somalia didn't begin last summer with an increase in the seizure of foreign vessels off its coast; it didn't begin with the armed conflict between the Transitional Federal Government and the Islamic Courts Union in 2006 and the invasion by military forces of the US proxy government of Ethiopia; it didn't commence in 1991 with the ouster of long-time president Siad Barre and internecine fighting between militia groups.

It started in 1977.

Eight years earlier, almost forty years to the day, a military government headed by General Siad Barre came to power in Somalia. Anticipating what would become a general pattern in Africa and indeed throughout most of the non-Euro-Atlantic world, the government pursued a path of non-capitalist, avowedly socialist development. The term Barre and his allies used was scientific socialism; that is, Marxism.

In the decade between 1969 and 1979 similar political and socio-economic transformations occurred throughout Africa, resulting in socialist-oriented governments allied with and receiving assistance from the Soviet Union. In addition to Somalia, nations matching this description included Angola, Benin, Capo Verde, the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), the Republic of Guinea (Conakry), Guinea Bissau, Libya, Madagascar, Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe, with Namibia, Rhodesia, South Africa and Western Sahara poised to follow suit.

The pattern also emerged in Asia - Vietnam with its unification in 1975, Laos, Cambodia (after the ouster of the Khmer Rouge in 1978) and Afghanistan; on the Arabian peninsula with South Yemen; and in Latin America and the Caribbean with Chile, Nicaragua, Grenada, Jamaica and Surinam during the same period.
What was progressing at an apparently inexorable pace was the integration of the Soviet-led socialist bloc, including Cuba, with the entire developing, non-aligned world which coincided with and gave substance to the demands for a New International Economic Order advocated by the developing nations through the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and supported by the world socialist community.

Demands included the replacement of the US-enforced Bretton Woods system - the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in the first instances - in a revision of the entire international economic system that would elevate the nations of the South from mere monoculture exporters to diversified and modernized countries with industrial bases.

On March 25, 1975 the Second General Conference of UN Industrial Development Organisation, meeting in Peru, adopted the Lima Declaration and Plan of Action on Industrial Development and Co-operation which included the following provisions:

"That every state has the inalienable right to exercise freely its sovereignty and permanent control over its natural resources, both terrestrial and marine, and over all economic activity for the exploitation of these resources in the manner appropriate to its circumstances, including nationalization in accordance with its laws as an expression of this right, and that no state shall be subjected to any forms of economic, political or other coercion which impedes the full and free exercise of that inalienable right".

"That special attention should be given to the least developed countries, which should enjoy a net transfer of resources from the developed countries in the form of technical and financial resources as well as capital goods, to enable the least developed countries in conformity with the policies and plans for development, to accelerate their industrialization".

"The new distribution of industrial activities envisaged in a New International Economic Order must make it possible for all developing countries to industrialize and to obtain an efficient instrument within the United Nations system to fulfill their aspirations".

One objective of the plan was to insure that by 2000 25-30% of world industrial production was to occur in the developing world - and not in the manner that has ensued in the current neo-liberal order with the transfer of manufacturing to underdeveloped states in a manner that has rather intensified than diminished exploitation of both labor and resources.

With the rising tide of political changes in the developing world during the same time, a shift from neocolonialist dependency toward genuine independence and development, and the support of the Soviet-led socialist bloc - which with its industrial base was issuing long-term, low interest loans to southern nations for infrastructural and industrial projects - the prospects for the creation of new global economic and political order was on the near horizon.

But not everyone was pleased with this development.

The US - alone - opposed the Lima Declaration and the follow up New Delhi Declaration and Plan of Action four years later.

America's NATO allies, almost to a member at the time former colonial powers bent on maintaining historical prerogatives over their former possessions, were no less dissatisfied.

And the People's Republic of China, having lost earlier bids to dominate the world communist movement and what it deemed the Third World alike, was focused entirely on combating what it derided as "Soviet social imperialism" and after the secret meeting of Henry Kissinger and Chou En-Lai in Beijing in 1971, followed by Richard Nixon's meeting there with Mao Zedong the next year, worked hand-in-glove with the US to counter Soviet influence around the world, including providing joint support to armed groups fighting against the governments of Angola, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Ethiopia.

With what would in the 21st Century be called the US's hard power/soft power duality and rotation, the Nixon era method of dealing with the reorientation of developing nations away from the West and toward the East - most cynically and brutally exemplified by its support to the military overthrow of the elected Salvador Allende government in Chile in 1973 - gave way to that of the Carter administration and its foreign policy grey eminence and all-purpose Mephistopheles Zbigniew Brzezinski in January of 1977.

The Carter administration had barely moved into the White House when it began to bribe the governments of Somalia, Afghanistan, Egypt and Iraq into entering political and military alliances and in several cases giving notorious "green lights" for military invasions of other nations. Its foreign policy architect was not Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, but the man who brought about Vance's downfall and resignation over the Operation Eagle Claw fiasco in Iran in 1980: Brzezinski, an arch-Russophobe during the Soviet period and ever since even onto the grave.

Somalia is the main subject of investigation, but a brief review of similar cases is in order.

In its first year in office the Carter administration bought off Egypt's Anwar Sadat, splitting the Arab world, destroying any unified approach to the Palestinian catastrophe and the realization of UN resolutions 242 and 338 and ousting the Soviet Union as the fourth partner in the Middle East peace process, leaving Israel and Egypt armed and backed by the US and the rest of the Arab world, including Palestine, unrepresented, unprotected and defenseless.

Since 1979 Egypt has been the second largest recipient of US military aid in the world, with only Israel besting it in that category. Over the past thirty years Egypt has received more US aid, over $30 billion, than any other country.
In the period between Anwar Sadat's visit to Israel in November of 1977 and the Camp David Accords of September of 1978, in March of 1978 Israeli launched an invasion of Lebanon, Operation Litani, with over 25,000 troops, a warm-up exercise for the full-fledged attack of 1983.

This was one of the green lights given by the Carter administration.
A year later Washington gave a green light to China to invade Vietnam, according to Beijing to "punish" the latter for its role in helping drive the Khmer Rouge from Cambodia the previous year.

In the summer of 1978 US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, emulating Kissinger's trip in 1971, paid a secret visit to Beijing to normalize relations with China, leading to recognition of the People's Republic and de-recognition of Taiwan on January 1, 1979.

On January 29, 1979 Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping arrived in Washington, the first visit by a senior Chinese official to the United States since 1949.

According to former Balkans hand and current US Afghanistan-Pakistan point man Richard Holbrooke, the trip "began with a private dinner at Brzezinski’s house". [1]

Deng left on February 6 and eleven days later China launched an invasion of Vietnam along its entire northern border.
Reports exist that in July of 1980 US CIA officials - some rumors say Brzezinski himself - traveled to the Jordanian capital of Amman to meet with high-ranking officials of the Iraqi government. Then Iranian president Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr claims the meeting included both Brzezinski and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. [2]

As recently as March of 2009 Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei renewed the accusation, stating that "They gave Saddam the green light to attack our country. If Saddam had not received the green light from the U.S., most probably he would not have attacked our borders".

Later the first Reagan administration secretary of state, Alexander Haig, wrote in a memo to Reagan that "President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through [Saudi Arabian Prince] Fahd".

In appreciation of Somalia's geo-strategic importance, in the first days of the Carter-Brzezinski administration efforts were made to wean Somalia from its pro-Soviet stance and to secure military, mainly naval, bases on its territory.
The covert campaign was largely conducted through the mediation of Saudi Arabia and in July led to the Somali invasion of the Ogaden region of Ethiopia with tens of thousands of troops, tanks and war-planes.

"Somalia had mounted its major offensive in Ogaden because of a U.S. promise to furnish arms aid. The U.S. policy had resulted from Ethiopia's decision to expel U.S. military advisers from the country and its successful bid for aid from the Soviet Union.
"According to the report, Somali President Mohamed Said Barre had received secret U.S. assurances that the U.S. would not oppose 'further guerrilla pressure in the Ogaden' and would 'consider sympathetically Somalia's legitimate defense needs'. [3]

The Soviet Union and its Cuban ally assisted Ethiopia and the US and China, mainly through Saudi Arabia, provided arms to Somalia.

Brzezinski urged the deployment of the US aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk to the region as a show of support to Somalia and an act of defiance toward the Soviet Union and its Ethiopian ally and, referring to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks of the time, said "SALT lies buried in the sands of the Ogaden", as a report of the time phrased it "signifying the death of détente".

Somalia was defeated and withdrew the last of its military forces from the Ogaden Desert in March of 1978. Estimates are that the war cost Somalia one-third of its army, three-eighths of its armored units and half of its air force.

In marked the beginning of the end for Barre and for Somalia itself. Barre would linger on as president of a weakened Somalia until his overthrow in 1991, yet another former client cast off after having served his purpose.

His ouster would be followed by years of conflict between rival armed militias and US military intervention that caused the deaths of thousands of Somalis.
Yet for all the horrors US administrations from that of Carter to the current one have visited upon the Somali people, Washington gained what it intended to: Military bases and forces astride many of the world's most strategic shipping lanes and choke points in an area encompassing the Suez Canal and the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.

In 1977 the Carter White House issued a presidential directive calling for a worldwide mobile military force which in October of 1979 Carter would officially designate Rapid Deployment Forces (RDF).

The site for its first deployments were to be the recently acquired military client states of Somalia and Egypt along with Sudan, Oman and Kenya.

The initiative was inaugurated as the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF) on March 1, 1980 and according to its first commander, "It's the first time that I know of that we have ever attempted to establish, in peacetime, a full four service Joint Headquarters". [4]

Originally envisioned to focus on the Persian Gulf, the RDJTF was expanded to include Egypt, Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia as well as Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, the People's Republic of Yemen [Aden], Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and the Yemen Arab Republic.

That is, from the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf to the eastern coast of Africa to the western one of the Indian subcontinent with the northern half of the Indian Ocean and its seas and gulfs included.

Carter's announcement of the launching of the Rapid Deployment Forces preceded by three months his 1980 State of the Union Address in which he laid out the doctrine that has since borne his name.

Coming less than a month after the first Soviet troops entered Afghanistan, Carter's comments included this disingenuous hyperbole:

"The region which is now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan is of great strategic importance: It contains more than two-thirds of the world's exportable oil. The Soviet effort to dominate Afghanistan has brought Soviet military forces to within 300 miles of the Indian Ocean and close to the Straits of Hormuz, a waterway through which most of the world's oil must flow".

That at the time a small handful of Soviet troops had arrived in Kabul, the capital of a landlocked nation hundreds of miles from one of the world's five oceans, could in no conceivable manner affect the Straits of Hormuz.

Carter continued: "An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force".

Brzezinski claims credit for authoring the second half of the above sentence, modeling it on the Truman Doctrine "to make it very clear that the Soviets should stay away from the Persian Gulf". [5]

It is exactly the Carter Doctrine that was employed by the US for its two wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003 and for its ongoing military presence in the Persian Gulf in preparation for aggression against Iran.

As "soft power" Carter was succeeded by "hard power" Reagan, the Rapid Deployment Forces were converted into Central Command, the US's first new regional military command since World War II, under Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger.

Central Command (CENTCOM) has as its area of responsibility twenty nations: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. It also takes in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and western portions of the Indian Ocean.

It also included the only African nations not formerly assigned to the European and Pacific Commands - Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia and the Sudan - until all 53 African states were turned over to the new African Command last October.

CENTCOM was the main force in the 1991 and 2003 wars against Iraq and the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Both Iraq and Afghanistan remain in its area of responsibility and its current commander, General David Petraeus, is in charge of operations in both nations.

It has bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Pakistan and Central Asia and until recently at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, now part of African Command.

The Command's zone of operations is in fact the northern half of the Indian Ocean from the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz where some 40% of the oil shipped in the world passes to the Gulf of Aden where, as recent reports frequently repeat, ten percent of all global shipping occurs to the Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia where 25% of world trade, including half of all sea shipments of oil and two-thirds of global liquefied natural gas shipments bound for East Asia, pass.

In addition to the US, NATO launched its first naval operation in the Gulf of Aden last October and has now resumed it with the deployment of the Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 (SNMG1).

The SNMG1 held naval maneuvers with Pakistan last week off the coast of Karachi in the Arabian Sea.

These deployments are a continuation of NATO's plans in the region described last year by veteran Indian journalist M K Bhadrakumar in an article titled "NATO reaches into the Indian Ocean":

"By October 15 [2008], seven ships from NATO navies had already transited the Suez Canal on their way to the Indian Ocean. En route, they will conduct a series of Persian Gulf port visits to countries neighboring Iran - Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which are NATO's 'partners' within the framework of the so-called Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. The mission comprises ships from the US, Britain, Germany, Italy, Greece and Turkey.

NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General John Craddock, acknowledged that the mission furthers the alliance's ambition to become a global political organization.

By acting with lightning speed and without publicity, NATO surely created a fait accompli.

NATO's naval deployment in the Indian Ocean region is a historic move and a milestone in the alliance's transformation. Even at the height of the Cold War, the alliance didn't have a presence in the Indian Ocean. Such deployments almost always tend to be open-ended.

In retrospect, the first-ever visit by a NATO naval force in mid-September last year to the Indian Ocean was a full-dress rehearsal to this end. Brussels said at that time, 'The aim of the mission is to demonstrate NATO's capability to uphold security and international law on the high seas and build links with regional navies.' In 2007, a NATO naval force visited Seychelles in the Indian Ocean and Somalia and conducted exercises in the Indian Ocean and then re-entered the Mediterranean via the Red Sea in end-September.

[An] Indian warship [dispatched off the coast of Somalia] will eventually have to work in tandem with the NATO naval force. This will be the first time that the Indian armed forces will be working shoulder-to-shoulder with NATO forces in actual operations in territorial or international waters.

The operations hold the potential to shift India's ties with NATO to a qualitatively new level". [6]

Securing the safe passage of vessels in the Gulf of Aden and particularly those delivering United Nations World Food Programme aid is a legitimate concern.

Plans by the United States and NATO to turn the whole Indian Ocean into its military and global energy war lake are not.

Notes

1) Project Syndicate, December 28, 2008

2) My Turn To Speak: Iran, The Revolution And Secret Deals With The U.S, 1991

3) Newsweek, September 23, 1977

4) Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies Journal, June 1981

5) Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser

6) Asia Times, October 20, 2008 Global Research Stop NATO

EU and NATO: Interlocking or Inter-blocking? ask Stéphanie Hofmann and Ken Weisbrode - both fellows at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute - in World Politics Review and elaborate:

With many of the world's navies engaged in anti-pirate patrols off the coastal waters of Somalia, it's no surprise to find French, German and Spanish frigates among them. The frigates are there, though, not under their respective national commands, but rather under that of a joint EU naval force, whose mission is to protect World Food Program vessels delivering food aid to Somalia, as well as commercial and other vessels threatened by pirates in the Gulf of Aden.

While EU NAVFOR Somalia is the EU's first maritime operation, it is not its first military operation, whether in Africa or beyond.

The EU might lack major permanent military capabilities and assets, not to mention a strictly unified foreign policy. It has also yet to formulate clear agreements for joint operations with other military organizations, most notably NATO.

But it has had the power to deploy expeditionary forces over great distance for some time. EU troops have deployed under the EU flag to Chad, Darfur and Congo, not to mention Bosnia, Kosovo, Palestine, Afghanistan, Aceh, South Lebanon and a host of other places -- as observers, peacekeeping "monitors", police trainers and soldiers.

In almost all of these instances, the EU has operated in support of U.N. Security Council resolutions, often alongside U.N. troops, and in some cases, such as South Lebanon, as part of a U.N. peacekeeping mission. It has also frequently operated alongside NATO troops, despite the two organizations sharing many member states. Indeed, 21 countries are members of both NATO and the EU, but you wouldn't know it by observing their coordination in real time.

Does it matter which organization the troops adhere to? To some people it does.

After the Cold War ended, policymakers designing European security architecture seemed to agree that NATO should operate "out of area", that is, on expeditionary missions, while continuing to provide for Europe's external defense. For its part, the EU was expected to develop the capacity to take care of problems closer to home. The architectural mot du jour was "interlocking institutions".

This did not happen as planned, in part because NATO was forced to step in when the EU proved unable to intervene effectively in the Balkans. NATO enlargement also proceeded faster than that of the EU, despite the wishes of many people -- particularly in the U.S. -- that the process happen the other way around.

As a result, NATO and the EU now coexist with a confusing and ambiguous set of overlapping tasks, with no clear functional or geographical division of labor in the cards anytime soon. Nor have they signed any formal agreements regarding information sharing, security guarantees and a code of conduct, despite having troops, often from the same country, serving side by side in harm's way. Playing it by ear is the order of the day. Instead of interlocking, the two institutions have become inter-blocking.

Bureaucratic inertia is not the only reason. The architects have a point.

Each organization serves different aims and national constituencies. Historically, NATO's purpose, in Lord Ismay's famous epithet, was to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down. That formula is no longer valid. The Americans are still in, but the Germans are now up for good and the Russians are far less menacing. So NATO, apart from serving as the world's expeditionary force of last resort, seems to linger on in order to keep the EU out of the security business.

Apart from that, both organizations have suffered from a lack of determination and clear vision. NATO has not managed to formulate a clear set of guidelines for "out of area" deployments, while discussions about a new strategic concept for the alliance continue inconclusively. As for the EU, its nascent security role seems rather unserious, in spite of its token deployments, mainly because hardly any European governments are willing to put their money where their mouth is -- with many still paying lip service to NATO as being primus inter pares in the security realm.

Decision-making in both organizations can also be held hostage to the whims of its members, a problem exacerbated by conflicts that overlap the two bodies, such as that between Turkey (NATO), Greece (NATO and EU) and Cyprus (EU). Neither organization has proven greater than the sum of its parts so far as global deployments are concerned.

A single Euro-Atlantic expeditionary force would be too difficult to establish in these circumstances. But the two organizations could improve communication and coordination -- both before and during crises -- by integrating, to the greatest extent possible, relevant personnel in the various national foreign and defense ministries. The same officers ought to oversee both NATO and EU deployments, something that only happens now in a few governments, notably the British. On the ground, troops might even use the NATO and EU flags interchangeably, or even both simultaneously. There is a long precedent for this within NATO itself, where the American Supreme Allied Commander wears two "hats" as head of the U.S. European Command and as NATO's top soldier.

But that would only be a temporary solution. A few more pirates with much bigger weapons could be enough to convince both NATO and the EU that they can no longer afford the luxury of lousy coordination and mismatched agendas. Having entered a policy field traditionally occupied by NATO, the EU needs to take more responsibility and get its defense house in order. And NATO must accept that it cannot remain the only player in Euro-Atlantic security forever.

Somali piracy: A seagoing anomaly in maritime law, says Edward White, a Florida Bar Board certified attorney in Admiralty Law

We have all read about the seagoing hijacking of the U.S. container ship "Maersk ALABAMA" by Somali pirates, the hostage taking of Capt. Richard Phillips and his rescue by the United States Navy and Navy Seals killing three of the pirates with one being captured. As a former Marine officer, this saga brings back into mind the successful attack by United States Marines on the Barbary pirates ordered by President Thomas Jefferson in 1804. It is memorized in the opening words of the Marine Corps hymn in the words "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli". The first Navy warship to carry Marines was the U.S.S. Enterprise which took part in the Barbary Pirate invasion. I was privileged to be given a scale model of the Enterprise by the Southeastern Admiralty Law Institute. I have been asked to comment on the aspects of the current Somali pirate situation from a maritime law aspect. The fourth pirate, Abduwali Muse, in the "Maersk ALABAMA" attack and attempted hijacking is subject to U.S. law because it is an American flagged and owned vessel with an American crew.

Piracy is a crime under 18 United States Code, Section 1651, entitled Piracy Under Law of Nations and provides: "Whoever, on the high seas, commits the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations, and is afterwards brought into or found in the United States, shall be imprisoned for life". As to ships engaged in piracy, the United States Courts in the early 1800s were presented cases seeking forfeiture of vessels used in piracy. In the first case the vessel was Spanish owned, and operating as a privateer under a Spanish Royal Commission. The U.S. Circuit Court held that the vessel was not subject to forfeiture under the piracy statute because of the Spanish royal commission. The case went to the Supreme Court which divided evenly on the piracy issue and the vessel went free.

In the next case (The Brief Malek Adhel 43 U.S. 210, 1844), the vessel was seized for "piratical aggressions and condemned, with the owners protesting and claiming they had no knowledge the acts of piracy; there was no royal commission to justify the acts of the vessel" The Supreme Court through Justice Story held: "The vessel which commits the aggression is treated as the offender, as the guilty instrument or thing to which the forfeiture attaches, without any reference whatsoever to the character or conduct of the owner. It is not an uncommon course in the admiralty, acting under the law of nations, to treat the vessel in which or by which, or by the master or crew thereof, a wrong or offense has been done as the offender, without any regard whatsoever to the personal misconduct or responsibility of the owner thereof".

Now, to the anomalies presented in the current acts of piracy off the coast of Somalia. The case of the "Maersk ALABAMA" involved citizens of Somalia attacking a U.S. flagged, owned and operated cargo vessel in international waters of the Indian Ocean. A legal anomaly arises because Somali has no real operating government and presumably has no anti-piracy treaty with the United States. If a country has an anti-piracy treaty with the United States, its citizens or subjects conducting piracy are subject to the same life imprisonment penalty under 18 United States Code Section 1653. In recent reports of piracy attempts of the coast of Somalia where the piracy has been thwarted the vessel has been saved and the crew members/hostages have been freed. But, then paradoxically the pirates are released. This seems to fly in the face of the Law of Nations and universal condemnation of the Somali pirates.

On April 18, Dutch commandos from a Dutch frigate with NATO forces rescued 20 [in reality 16] Yemeni fishermen whose boat had been seized by pirates. Then the Dutch released the Somali hijackers “because they had no authority to arrest them”. [the following sentence by the author is simply not fact: "Recently a Belgian flagged vessel was seized by pirates near the Seychelles Islands, a NATO patrolling warship came to the rescue, freed the foreign crew, disarmed the pirates and then released them because they had "no jurisdiction to try them"]".

The NATO reports patrolling forces do so because "NATO does not have any detainment policy. In the case of the Dutch frigate the Dutch authorities stated they could not arrest the pirates because none of the hijack victims or the vessel or the pirates were Dutch. On April 19, a similar result occurred when U.S. and Canadian warships and helicopters thwarted the attack on a Norwegian tanker by Somali pirates. The Canadian ship a part of the NATO force interrogated, disarmed, and then released the pirates "because they could not be prosecuted under Canadian law". Obviously the problem of the current Somali pirates is complicated by NATO policy. It is further complicated by the fact of multiple jurisdictional aspect of international shipping. It is common for vessels to be flagged by countries where the licensing is easy, cheap and taxes are low, such a Liberia, Cyprus, Panama, Togo, etc.

The vessel is normally owned by a corporation headquartered in another country, it is chartered by a company from another country, and the crew is made of other foreign nationals. Many vessels have their officer staffs from one country (for example England, Greece, Norway, etc.) and the remainder of the crew are from other countries, such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Croatia, Romania, Greece, etc. The jurisdictional aspects are mind boggling, and most of the countries either have no piracy laws or conflicting laws. The shipping company elects to negotiate and pay the ransom for the vessel and crew. Last year reportedly $1 million was paid for the release of a Saudi supertanker. As a result, the piracy is rewarded, the pirates become rich and the hijacking goes on. The government of Somalia, if any, does nothing, and the pirates are local heroes. This, of course, encourages the pirates, and in Somali it is reported that pirates are on the highly favored list of Somali women for marriage, because of the easy money and their rich life style. Until there is some agreement and enforceable international policy and law against piracy the paradoxical situation of interception of hijacking, rescue of the vessel and crew and subsequent release of the pirates will simply go on.

There are exceptions, the French have an absolute policy of deterring piracy and eliminating pirates by force. They board the hijacked vessels when they approach the coast of Somalia, a red line status. French commando units board the vessels and attack the pirates. This has of course lead to loss of life for hostages as well as the pirates. In one case the pirates escaped ashore in Somalia, and the French pursued them into the desert. There are currently 12 captured pirates in French custody being returned to France for prosecution. The U.S. policy was defined when the order came to permit the Navy seal snipers to fire when Capt. Phillips' life was in imminent danger from a pirate aiming an AK-47 at his back. Before that the U.S. negotiation terms were no ransom, surrender by the four pirates, they be arrested and tried in a U.S. court. Of course they would not agree to these terms, and three of them paid the ultimate price. On the subject, President Barack Obama has stated: "We are resolved to halt the rise of piracy in that region. We're going to have to continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks. We have to continue to be prepared to confront them when they arise".

The German Dilemma
by Edouard Husson

German society values peace more than anything, as opinion polls show. The Germans have been overwhelmingly rejecting the sending of Bundeswehr troops to Afghanistan since 2001. In 2002 the German voters reelected Chancellor Schröder, against all forecasts, because he was strictly against Germany’s participation in a new war against Iraq. And the Social Democratic candidate this time (general elections will take place next September), German Foreign Minister Steinmeier, who happens to be Schröder’s former closest advisor, is trying to repeat Schröder’s tactics by pleading, a few weeks after Barack Obama’s speech in Prag, for Germany’s denuclearization. Steinmeier may gain a few points in opinion polls by doing so because this would be one of the few areas where the voters would notice a real difference between the two currently ruling parties (Social and Christian Democrats). But even if Mr. Steinmeier reiterated Schröder’s success thanks to his plea for disarmament — a very unlikely perspective — would it change anything after the election? After all, Germany’s opposition to the Iraq war did not fundamentally change the course of German foreign policy, which does not take much in account the views of German society.

Germany’s reunification brought in 18 million new citizens who were still more pacifistic than their West-German cousins — a result of the former GDR’s peace propaganda. But Berlin’s policy went in the opposite direction after 1990 — against the will of its own people. German troops participated in most conflicts which were led by NATO or an American-led coalition since 1990: in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan etc…If you have a look at the excellent website www.german-foreign-policy.com , you will see that German military advisers are today active in Mongolia, in Central Asia and in Africa. Germany is leading in trying to destabilize the Sudanese government in order to get access to Sudan’s energy resources. The German Luftwaffe played a key-role in recent military exercises in Abu Dhabi (a preparation of a possible war against Iran?).

This is a very paradoxical evolution. Germany rejected militarism after 1945 through "westernizing" itself. But the German role in NATO is bringing militarism back into the core of that nation’s politics and economics. Without its integration into NATO structures, the German government would not be able to develop its current military strategy. First, the German voters would not allow huge military expenses; secondly, the German economic model (Wilhelm Röpke’s conservatism) is strictly against huge government spending. This is the reason why today’s Germany is developing a kind of political schizophrenia.

Officially the military service is still at the core of the Bundeswehr’s spirit, contributing in an essential way to the rejection of militarism, through the teaching of "Innere Führung" (the soldier’s freedom to disobey an order he would disagree with); but the government cares only about the modernization of the professional troops which are taking part in wars in which Western countries are betraying their own ideals. Officially, Germany did not take part in the Iraq war; but the German secret services were cooperating with the Americans during the war’s preparation; and American war planes were allowed to fly over Germany during the invasion of Iraq. Officially (due to 1990’s reunification treaty) Germany has to remain a non-nuclear military power; but some German Tornados would be equipped with nuclear bombs if NATO decided to launch a nuclear attack. And Mr. Steinmeier, if elected Chancellor, would not challenge this reality since he would never dare have Germany leaving NATO.

German politicians are overwhelmingly NATO-orientated, in a perfect symmetry to the society’s overwhelming pacifism. My question is: can a democracy afford to live for a long time in such a contradiction? Germany runs no risk of backsliding into militarism. But the country could become in coming years the best example of a democracy losing its substance because of a double standard, an essential contradiction between the values of the ruling elite and those of the common man. You will never lead ordinary Germans to supporting a large-scale conflict. But the nation’s vulnerability lies in its economy. Germany has been proud of its prosperity for decades. The totally destroyed country of 1945 had become an economic giant as early as 1970; and it has been resisting the gradual disintegration of the global economy (I have in mind the terrible effects of the destruction of the Bretton Woods monetary system from 1971 on) through a policy which remained much more authentically market-orientated than in most other Western countries.

But the country is nearing the end of its capacity to resist, in this regard. It is much more severely weakened by today’s global crisis than expected. And a country which already ranks in third place internationally, as far as arms sales are concerned, could be tempted to increase its contribution to the Western military-industrial complex. If the global crisis worsens and the international community remains unable to agree on new rules for the global economy, German business would certainly be glad to take advantage of State contracts — following a trend of the last 15 years — and ordinary people would be grateful to escape unemployment. Such a perspective does not concern Germany alone, but the contrast between the values on which the country has been resting since the 1950’s and today’s consensus among political rulers is very striking. It means that Germany is a kind of laboratory’s of Western democracy’s future.

This future is still very open. Hartmut Mehdorn’s fate is one of the best examples of what is at stake. The CEO of the Deutsche Bahn (German railway system) was forced to resign a few weeks ago after it had been discovered that he had organized a sophisticated global spying system of the company’s own employees. Mrs. Merkel has been defending Mr. Mehdorn as long as she could. Like her predecessor Gerhard Schröder, she was impressed by the former Luftwaffe officer style of leadership. After leaving the Bundeswehr and before taking charge of the German railway, Mr. Mehdorn had been one of the executive officers of Daimler’s arms production sector.

He brought to civilian industry a pronounced taste for hierarchy at any cost and saw the conquest of foreign markets as a priority — reducing the company’s investments in Germany to the point of disorganizing the whole railway system. As a result trains are always late in today’s Germany — against the society’s love for punctuality. While rejecting Mr. Mehdorn’s methods so loudly that the Chancellor had to abandon him, German public opinion expressed its distaste for every remnant of "Prussianism" and what could recall Germany’s authoritarian past. But what will happen on the long run? In a democracy, the ruling elites are being recruited — theoretically — from the entire society. What if the ruling classes’ fascination for Western Kriegsspiele gets anchored more and more deeply, bringing a majority of the voters to a passive acceptance of what they disapprove? This is no typically German dilemma but, maybe; what is going on in Germany is of particular importance for all of us.

Britain’s special forces to have new weapon, reports Matt Bingham in the Sunday Times. The 'shallow water combat submersible' is lightweight mini sub with sonar sensors to detect and evade enemy pre-landing. The combat divers of Britain’s Special Boat Service (SBS) will soon be getting some new transport. The “shallow water combat submersible” (SWCS) will be able to carry six frogmen for 100 miles at depths of up to 300ft. Studded with sonar sensors, the lightweight mini-sub is designed to detect and evade an enemy, before landing special forces under its nose. Somalia’s pirates won’t know what hit them.

It is surely no coincidence that the development of the 30ft submersible is being fast-tracked just as maritime piracy rears its head again. Brought to a war zone by a larger submarine, a surface vessel or even an aircraft, the stealth-equipped mini-sub will take specialists in reconnaissance, assassination or demolition close to a hostile coast or vessel. It is being designed for America’s equivalent of the SBS, the Navy Seals. The latter were in action last month in the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates; Seal snipers shot dead three kidnappers. The mini-sub will replace the Seals’ and the SBS’s US-made “swimmer delivery system”, known as the Mk VIII boat. The 22ft, electrically powered Mk VIII is ridden by a crew exposed to the sea and owes a design debt to the midget submarines developed by Britain and Japan during the second world war.

Sadly, its electronics are nearly as old, dating back to its conception in the mid-1970s. Its replacement, which will also doubtless be shared by the two forces, also “runs wet” — that is, floods with water once launched, saving the trouble of fitting an airlock. It will benefit from recent developments in electronic warfare, possessing a miniaturised Doppler sonar, the sonic equivalent of radar, able to provide a three-dimensional image of the sub’s surroundings. Coupled with data provided by motion sensors, it will allow the boat’s powerful computers to navigate underwater in zero visibility and with unprecedented accuracy, without the need to surface to obtain visual references or a sat nav fix.

Unlike the Mk VIII, the submersible will have the ability to raise a periscope — but this won’t be an old-school optical version. Instead it will use video imaging technology. Before the main part of this sensor mast even breaks the surface, a whisker-like antenna attached to the top will poke above the waves and sniff for radar activity. If it detects an enemy sweep, the boat dives and moves somewhere safer before repeating the process. Passive sonar sensors on the exterior and a sound-absorbing fiberglass hull help it to evade detection underwater, and battery-powered electric motors allow it to run almost silent. The mini-sub will be equipped with a pair of smart, torpedo-like probes. Using side-scanning sonar, they can scout the waters on each side of the boat, returning either to the mini-sub or its host vessel at the end of a mission.

The stealthiest way of launching the mini-sub will be underwater, via another submarine. Like the Mk VIII boat, it will emerge from a dry deck station, an airtight cylinder that can be fitted onto a larger submarine in hours, or even dropped directly into the ocean from a cargo plane. Two such stations will be piggy-backed on the US Navy’s new SSGN boats — Ohio-class nuclear missile submarines that have been fitted for Seal operations. “SSGNs are a brilliant idea”, says Lewis Page, defense correspondent for The Register, a technology news website. “The navy had these four boats lying around after the Salt arms reduction talks made them redundant, so they stripped out their ballistic missiles and replaced them with 154 non-nuclear Tomahawk cruise missiles. This also left enough space to accommodate more than 100 Seal frogmen and mission specialists”. The first underwater cruise missile launch from an SSGN took place last year, and a base is now being built for them in Diego Garcia, the British-controlled island in the Indian Ocean. This would put the boats within operational reach of Somalia, as well as Iran, where they could lurk offshore for months at a time, inserting and recovering Seals via mini-subs. Britain, meanwhile, will be launching its first SBS stealth sub by 2013 from the Royal Navy’s latest Astute-class nuclear submarines, the first of which is expected to go into service this year.

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About The Author: Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis - is Orientalist, Assyriologist, Egyptologist, Iranologist, Islamologist, Historian and Political Scientist. Dr. Megalommatis, 52, is the author of 12 books, dozens of scholarly articles, hundreds of encyclopedia entries, and thousands of articles. He speaks, reads and writes more than 15, modern and ancient, languages.

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