PrintBad idea of the week...well, maybe the year
What should we do about the Somali pirates?
If you're John Burnett writing in the New York Times, you pine for those peaceful days in Somalia back in 2006 when the al-Qaeda linked Islamic Courts Union were running that paradise of a country and piracy was virtually non-existent:
There was some semblance of law and order in 2006, when the Islamic Courts Union, loosely linked with Al Qaeda, took over much of the country and imposed Shariah law. Though there were cruel tradeoffs, the Islamists virtually eradicated piracy. (The crime was a capital offense punishable by beheading.)
When Ethiopian forces, supported by the United States, replaced the Islamists with an ineffective transitional government in 2006, piracy returned with an intensity not seen since the 17th century.
Is Burnett blaming America for the piracy? Certainly seems that he is. But what he really wants is to throw in the towel and invite the terrorists into the newest "new" Somalia government:
It is evident that no nation can impose its will on Somalia; the colonial British and Italians learned the hard way. And certainly no nation can force Somalis to stop the best business in town. But if the West really hopes to eliminate the scourge of piracy in these strategic shipping lanes, then it should consider involving the courts union, the only entity that has proved it could govern the country, and its militant wing, Al Shabaab, in a new government.
If there is movement to talk to the Taliban in Afghanistan, then there should be some effort to talk to the fundamentalists in Somalia. If the Islamists were permitted to form a viable, functioning and effective government, this shattered land might be able to return to the community of nations — and supertankers will be able to deliver oil to the United States without fear of getting hijacked.
Um - does anyone else think this very well may be the looniest, the nuttiest, the most outrageously stupid idea to come down the pike from anyone in a while?
It fails on so many levels that the entire edifice of Burnett's logic is hanging in mid-air with only his warm exhalations under it to keep it aloft. Aside from giving al-Qaeda a ready made base in a tellingly strategic part of the world, what gives us the right to condemn the Somali people to the brutality inherent in an Islamist system of government? The idea that the Courts will only be "part" of the government will last only as long as the rest of the parties and ministers can avoid being beheaded for their apostasy in opposing the jihadists.
Talking to the Taliban in Pakistan is not our doing nor do we necessarily endorse it. Afghanistan is a sovereign country and the US view is that if President Karzai wants to talk with those trying to overthrow him, it is an internal Afghan matter.
But agitating for the placement of the allies of terrorists into a government we would recognize is beyond stupid, beyond, idiotic, and enters the sublime milieu of Chamberlain at Munich or FDR at Yalta. Suggesting that we hand our enemies an advantage when there are other alternatives (taking out pirate infrastructure could be done if the will is there) marks Burnett as a defeatist, an appeaser, and an ignoramus of the first order.
