April 19, 2009
Pirates An Old Scourge
The attack last week by Somali pirates against the American cargo ship Maersk Alabama has focused world attention once again on the scourage of robbery at sea.
Such crime is as old as sailing -- vicious and costly.
The unarmed 507-foot Maersk was carrying emergency food aid to Mombassa, Kenya, on the eastern shore of Africa, for the World Food Program.
Piracy by six or seven Somali in open fishing boats has been going on for years. Armed with rifles, they throw grappling hooks to the deck of an unarmed ocean-going ship and scramble aboard to take possession.
Under threat of deaths to un-armed crew, the ship is halted and a multi-million-dollar ransom demanded.
INSURANCE RELATIVELY CHEAP
For the last few years, owners of pirated ships have paid the brigands. Insurance mitigates the profit lost of cargos.
When the Maersk Alabama was boarded --and the 19-man crew threatened with death -- the ship’s captain, Richard Phillips of Underhill, Vermont, offered himself as a hostage in return for safety of his ship and crew.
The pirates agreed on condition they were also given the ship’s covered lifeboat.
Thus began three days of standoff while the American Navy destroyer USS Bainbridge raced to the scene and began negotiations.
Aboard the destroyer were three sharp-shooting “Navy SEALS” trained for dangerous missions.
At dark, in roiling sea, the Seals waited until all four pirates showed their heads. On silent command, the Seals simultaneously shot three of pirates in their heads. The fourth pirate – no dummy – instantly threw up his hands in surrender.
SOMALIA AGAIN
Those of us with long memories remember the fiasco of dealing with Somali troublemakers in 1993. Lawless thugs took over that little country and the United Nations urged the United States of America to send in American soldiers to drive out troublemakers.
President William Clinton obliged with a small contingent of “special forces.” The other United Nations wished us well.
Our brave, but limited, forces were overwhelmed. Eighteen U.S. Marines were killed. One of our Black Hawk helicopters was brought down. The pilot was killed, stripped of his American uniform, and his naked body dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.
The degradation is known as “Black Hawk Down.” President Clinton ordered the Marines to leave Somali.
AMERICAN RESPONSIBILITY
War against international terrorism – by Americans virtually alone – is a tradition harking back to the early days of the United States when the infant Marine Corps earned its proud hymn:
“From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, we will fight our country’s battles on land and on the sea!”
European countries had been paying “tribute” to Barbary Coast piratical states of Algiers, Tunis, Morocco and Tripoli for years before Americans got riled up about taxation without representation.
It was considered less troublesome to pay protection money than to lose merchant ships with valuable cargo and then ransom prisoners.
The upstart United States of America – without a potent Navy – went along with practice for a few years. However, its independent spirit – honed by revolution and meager treasury – grew increasingly restive as the Barbary Pirates briberies grew larger.
MOROCCO TREATY
H. Lee Munson, a noted Marine Corps historian, records a “treaty” with Morocco whereby a cash purse of $40,000 supposedly would guarantee no more tribute.
Nine years later, however, Morocco was paid the same amount of cash – plus artillery, rifles and gunpowder – for renewing the treaty. Four more years later, Algeria demanded, and got, the 36-gun frigate Crescent.
The next year, a merchant ship Handullah, and $8,000 in gold, was delivered. This was final payment for 119 American merchantman hostages, some of whom had been slave prisoners for 12 years.
COLONIAL PIRACY PROBLEM
President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 ordered the U.S.S. Constitution and U.S.S. Philadelphia to resume a blockade of Tripoli. The Philadelphia ran aground chasing a shallow-draft corsair raider.
Tripoli guards promptly captured the Americans.
Tripolitans re-floated the Philadelphia and berthed it in Derne Harbor. There, it constituted a potent threat to the Constitution and any other U.S. Naval vessels.
During the night of February 16, 1804, Lt. Stephen of the Constitution led a small group of commandos into the harbor. They boarded the marooned Philadelphia stealthily, overwhelmed the Tripoli guards, set the American frigate ablaze and escaped.
BARBARY AGAIN
When in 1815 the Barbary Pirates again attacked American ships, President James Madison requested – and received – Congressional approval to send Commodore Stephen Decatur with a task force of warships to force an end to pirating of American ships – for a few years.
TODAY
President Obama -- and other world leaders with substantial overseas shipping responsibility – must continue the never-ending fight against piracy. Oil and food require first priority.
The United Nations talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.
Only fleets of fast, military ships -- with sharp shooters on the fantail – can keep a global economy functioning.
A global economy requires a global response.
By Lindsey Wilger Williams, retired newspaper publisher and syndicated columnist
