Admiral stunned by reach of pirates

AFP:

The top US military officer said Monday he was "stunned" by the reach of the Somali pirates who seized a Saudi supertanker off the east coast of Africa, calling piracy a growing problem that needs to be addressed.

But Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there were limits to what the world's navies could do once a ship has been captured because national governments often preferred to pay pirates ransom.

"I'm stunned by the range of it, less so than I am the size," Mullen said of the seizure of the Sirius Star Sunday by armed men.

The huge, oil laden prize, which is three times the size of a US aircraft carrier, was some 450 miles east of Kenya when it was boarded, he said.

That is the farthest out at sea that a ship has been seized in the latest surge of piracies, according to Mullen.

The pirates, he said, are "very good at what they do. They're very well armed. Tactically, they are very good."

"And so, once they get to a point where they can board, it becomes very difficult to get them off, because, clearly, now they hold hostages.

"The question then becomes, well, what do you do about the hostages? And that's where the standoff is.

"That's a national question to ask based on the flag of the vessel. And the countries by and large have been paying the ransom that the pirates have asked," he said.

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Handling the pirates is bogging down in lawfare. What is needed is an attack on the base of the pirates and their boats that they use for their piracy. We could wipe these guys out in an afternoon if there was a will to do so by the international community.

Meanwhile the pirates have anchored a tanker three times larger than an aircraft carrier off teh coast of Somalia while waiting to be paid for their illegal activity. Waiting until this point is too late for a reasonable outcome. Piracy flourished in the Mediterranean for centuries until Thomas Jefferson loosed the US Marines on the pirates bases. You would think the world would remember lessons like that rather than making the mistake of feeding the monster with payments to pirates.