Eugene Kontorovich, an expert on the law of piracy [yes, I too am disappointed that there’s more to it than “Catch ’em and hang ’em”], is unimpressed by The Administration’s Pathetic Piracy Policy:
In the wake of the sudden public attention generated by the seizure of the U.S. vessel, both the president and Secretary of State Clinton vowed to crack down on the international criminals. But the measures they promised are pathetic. The highlight of Clinton’s four-point anti-piracy plan is to “seize pirate assets.” I admit when I first heard this I thought it was a joke. Pirates do not have money in London or New York banks. Somalis are more likely to have asses than assets. The pirates put in their booty into mansions, cars, multiple wives and qwat. How will Clinton freezethat? . . .
I am not being unfair to Clinton’s plans. The asset freeze is the most aggressive of her proposals, the rest of which include holding “meetings,” a “diplomatic team to engage” Somalia’s transitional government; and tasking other officials to “work” with the shipping industry on their self defensemeasures. . . .
Indeed, as I've recounted elsewhere, since the beginning of the piracy epidemic last summer the United Nations has passed five Security Council resolutions on the subject– all under its binding Chapter VII authority. No other issue, not even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (to say nothing of the bloody civil war in Sri Lanka or the ongoing genocide in Darfur) has commanded as much of the Council’s attention. Yet the piracy epidemic has only increased apace. In the days after Obama announced that the U.S. would be getting tough on pirates, as if to mock his words several more vessels were seized, including another American ship.
It’s possible, though, that the Obama folk have accidentally hit on one effective anti-pirate measure. Commenting on the photos of the smiling survivor of the Maersk Alabama brigands, Mr.Kontorovich says,
One thing is certain. The defendant has won second prize in the piracylottery. . . . From the moment he was captured by US forces, the alleged pirate’s life expectancy went up by decades. In the coming months, years and maybe decades, he is likely to get the best nutrition and accommodation he or anyone he knows has ever had. Given that he did not kill or injure anyone, a life sentence is very unlikely. If he serves 15 years in a federal prison and is then allowed to remain in America, he will likely come out the healthiest, most educated and perhaps oldest former Somali pirate around.
That sounds like a reward rather than a punishment, and one’s first impulse is to deplore it. But let’s recall the old military maxim about building a “bridge of gold” for the enemy. Somali Pirates most likely don’t have strong ideological or religious motivations; they take up sea robbery as an easier and more lucrative trade than dirt farming or drug dealing. If surrender is attractive, and the alternative is a bullet in the head, their first reaction to resistance may well be to throw down their arms. At least, we can hope so. The rest of the Clinton-Obama strategy doesn’t bid fair to repeat the success of Pompey against the Cilician buccaneers.
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