Piracy–Hollywood versus Reality (Update II)

(bumped up from Friday early evening)

Boy, there is a garbage truck load of nonsense being bandied about on the blogs and media about what can and should be done to respond to the piracy against the U.S. flagged ship in the Indian Ocean. So permit me to try to clear up some of the more egregious goofiness.

My qualifications? I am a graduate of the Paul SEAL seminar. Paul SEAL? Paul is a retired Navy SEAL officer who, when he was still on active duty, worked with me at the Department of State’s Office of Counter Terrorism. Paul and I rode to work together for three years. I received the best education about maritime tactics and operations short of becoming a SEAL. Paul, a mustang, had extensive combat experience and has participated in operations against pirates.

(Some of Paul’s exploits are recorded in the book by Harold Lee Wise, Inside the Danger Zone: The U.S. Military in the Persian Gulf, 1987-1988.) I don’t know of a better SEAL officer who is qualified to comment on matters like these.

So what is to be done?

The Hollywood version would put a SEAL team in the water who would sneak up on the lifeboat and, in the dark of night, leap over the sides, kill the pirates and free the Captain. An alternative version would be to capsize the boat and snatch the Captain from the water. What says Commander Paul? Nonsense!!! None of these are valid options.

Apart from being very difficult to do you incur an unnecessarily high risk to your own personnel–although SEALs are physically fit they are not bullet proof nor knife proof. They do not believe in fighting fair. Instead, get a decisive advantage and employ massive, overwhelming force.

How about snipers from a helicopter platform? That is more realistic but it is tough in the dark, even with Night Vision devices, to identify the U.S. hostage and keep Captain Phillips alive. Also, there is an enclosure on the lifeboat that hinders our ability to identify the Captain.

Some, like my good friend John Batchelor, argue that the problem lies on the shores of Somalia. Yes, but that is not a problem we can handle militarily. We are talking clans that act like criminal mafias. They are civilians and there are no separate army or military targets to attack. Embroiling our forces in another futile insurgent war in Somalia is nuts. We could not do it in 1993 in Mogadishu and we cannot do it today.

The good news is that the lifeboat is out of fuel, can’t go anywhere and there is a U.S. Naval combat ship sitting nearby. Best and most likely option right now is to continue negotiations to secure the release of the Captain. We can offer food and water as a good faith offering and we can offer to let the pirates go once the Captain is free. At this point freeing Captain Phillips is the priority. Once the Captain is freed we can worry about apprehending the suspects and going after their mother ship.

Why is the FBI involved? First, the lifeboat is U.S. territory, as was the U.S. flagged ship. The FBI still has the investigative lead on these kinds of incidents when it occurs on U.S. territory. Even though the lifeboat and ship are in international waters they are still legally considered to be U.S. territory.

Second, the FBI are the best hostage negotiators in the Federal Government. No other U.S. Government agency outside the FBI has qualified personnel who routinely engage in this kind of activity as part of their daily routine.

I am sad to report that the Obama Administration is performing more ineptly than the Bush Administration in managing the crisis response. (Sad because I initially had high hopes that Jim Jones would bring some tough love to a broken interagency system.) So far they have not convened the necessary interagency video conference that should be used to coordinate a full up response and ensure that the White House has a full understanding of the options and capabilities. This is being handled as primarily a DOD operation with the FBI playing an ancillary role. I am surprised that NSC advisor Jim Jones and the NSC chief for counter terrorism, John Brennan, are acting like novices when it comes to handling the interagency responsibility competently.

I am still hopeful this will turn out well and the Obama team will declare victory. But it will be a hollow victory because it exposes how unprepared the Obama team is to handled a full interagency response.

If reports are true that other Somali pirate ships are en-route to the scene to attempt to rescue their colleagues then the Obama team will face a significant test of will. The appropriate response will be to declare the area off limits and shoot any boat out of the water that attempts to approach the lifeboat carrying Captain Phillips. If the Obama team does this they will earn some tough guy points and allay fears I’m hearing from military friends that this group has no spine. If the Obama team fails to stop such an attempt then Obama will have surpassed Jimmy Carter for being a surrender monkey.

UPDATE–There has been some silly complaining about Barack Obama’s silence. I dealt with the U.S. hostages who were held in Lebanon (e.g., Joe Cicippio, Terry Anderson, etc.) Barack is doing the right thing. The last thing we need is a President making a public spectacle of himself and commenting on hostages. That raises the value of the hostages to the hostage takers. Let the professionals handle this behind the scenes. That is happening, although the Obama team is still making the same mistake as the Bush team in parsing the words and defining piracy as something different then terrorism.

Here’s my prediction–we will see action during darkness tonight (or tomorrow night perhaps) to rescue Captain Phillips. He will be saved. The press will praise Obama and the crazed rightwing will be eating some crow. Although Obama does not have a clue about how to manage the interagency process he is smart enough to be quiet and let the guys who know what they are doing handle things. In doing that he’ll probably end up enjoying his first genuine foreign triumph.

And if Phillips dies in the assault? A tragedy but a reminder that Obama is a tough guy who won’t be bullied by pirates. I am betting that will be the storyline.

UPDATE II–There is no problem if this thing is strung out for a while. Unless there is clear evidence that the Captain’s life is in imminent peril it is better to stay calm, keep talking and let the realities of being stuck in the equivalent of a large floating toilet settle in on the pirates. They are accustomed to living in shitty conditions but even this will take a toll. Plus, they have probably used all of the khat they brought with them and are now jonesing for a new hit.

So far the international community has not come up with a credible policy or deterrent to dissuade the pirates from continuing their mayhem. Only when more of them are killed or thwarted in their endeavors, rather then raking in millions of dollars from insurance companies, will they back off and try to figure out a new scam to make risk free money.

U.S. policy remains completely disconnected in trying to figure out how to deal with the threat of terrorism vice piracy. There is an established body of doctrine and procedures for dealing with terrorism. The various U.S. Government agencies and departments generally know what their role and responsibility is. Not so on piracy. Here’s what is crazy. I was involved a few months back on a scenario similar to this. The only difference? We made the pirates adherents of Osama Bin Laden. Katie bar the door!! You wave that red flag and everyone jumped to. There was no hesitation in sending forces overseas. It was not just a DOD mission. Others participated–State Department, Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA and U.S. Central Command.

So now we have a real world incident and what happens? We ignore the so-called lessons learned from that exercise. Instead DOD does its thing and the FBI does its thing and no one is fully coordinating the effort. For example, a U.S. team should have been on hand in Mombassa, Kenya to receive the inbound pirated ship and crew, if for no other reason then to keep the press at bay and help coordinate the reunion of the crew with their loved ones.

Just like George Bush, Obama and his team are treating piracy as if it is something so significantly different from terrorism that the tools and procedures we have in place to respond to a terrorist threat are ignored as they struggle to figure out a response to the latest attacks. Piracy is not the same as terrorism. However, the systems and procedures erected in the Federal Government for marshaling all relevant Federal resources to be brought to bear on the issue are the same and should be used. So far they are not.

One other thought on today’s incident when the Somali pirates holding Captain Philips fired at a small U.S. Navy boat as it tried to approach the life boat. What was going on? Here’s one possibility. The U.S. boat was a diversion designed to distract the pirates while a Navy SEAL placed a listening device (or devices) on the hull of the life boat. Such devices will enable the U.S. hostage negotiators to figure out where they stand in the talks with the pirates. I do not know for a fact whether or not this happened. But anyone who has watched the movie, The Negotiator, can figure out that this kind of move is possible. Negotiators want inside dope in order to gain an edge over the hostage takers.