Editor’s Note: DON’T MISS LARRY JOHNSON TONIGHT on the Batchelor show at 10:30 p.m. ET, via KFI 640 AM. Check out the full slate of guests and topics tonight. John Batchelor’s KFI show begins at 7:00 p.m., so tune in early. Here are the topics and fellow guests during Larry’s appearance:

Also: If this is your first time listening, you’ll want to come early in case you need to download an easily installed program to hear the show.

HERE is the full line-up of guests and topics tonight on KFI, from beginning to the program’s conclusion:

705P Pacific Time:  Nicholas Casey, Wall Street Journal, re next month, shipping giant AP Moeller-Maersk will make a move that was unlikely ten years back.  A line of 6000 container ships that now goes to Southern California will go instead dock at Seattle. Why?

 920P:  Joseph Sternberg, Asia Wall Street Journal, re Vietnam and the Obama administration, re Vietnam and the worldwide downturn in trade.

Below, you’ll see a fascinating description of the immense expanse of water — I heard that the coast of Somalia is as large as the entire U.S. Eastern coastline (!), and this video is even more descriptive:

For today’s A.P. story, “Obama draws praise, but piracy escalation feared,” Larry Johnson was telephoned and interviewed extensively by London-based A.P. reporter Gregory Katz:

[...]

Some military strategists believe it may ultimately be necessary to attack the pirates’ base in Somalia, much as the British used to do two centuries ago. But few have the appetite for another land operation in Somalia, where a U.S. military foray in the early 1990s ended in humiliation. And the cost in civilian casualties would likely be extremely high, some warn.

“That would be nuts,” said Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent and State Department counterterrorism specialist. “These people are not organized into any military force, they are intermingled with women and children. You’re talking about wiping out villages.”

He said the U.S. action—and a French attack a few days earlier on a pirate-held yacht with hostages on board—were corrective measures that did not solve the underlying problem.

“When you allow a bunch of Somali clans to grab their weapons and head to sea and collect millions of dollars in ransom, you can’t be surprised when it gets out of control,” he said. “You need an international coalition, with all the countries that have flag ships, to make it impossible for the pirates to get in a boat and leave the shore. Otherwise the ships will continue to be sitting ducks.”

Johnson has in the past criticized Obama as inexperienced, but he said the new commander in chief deserves credit for using established national security procedures to deal with the crisis while refraining from making comments that would have inflamed the situation.

“He stepped back and let the professionals do what they are supposed to do,” Johnson said. “Since the 1980s we’ve built national security doctrine for how to handle these matters, and Obama allowed these procedures to operate.”

Charles Heyman, a defense specialist and former British army officer, said the Obama administration showed its resolve by refusing pay ransom for Phillips’ release.

“That would have been disastrous,” he said. “America would have been a laughingstock and we really don’t need that.”

But he said history shows pirates can only be defeated if nations unite, which is not happening.

“As long as governments don’t come together and defeat it, it goes on like a plague,” he said. “People have to be very, very tough with this.”

The U.S. rescue effort was a clear success in tactical terms, but Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, warned that it could lead to increased violence in the region. … Read all.

h/t American Girl In Italy

Early Reports of a Navy Fight and a Rescue.

::::::

From The John Batchelor Show blog.

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.

[UPDATE: I found the video that gives a great tour of the interior of that lifeboat. It's immediately below the fold.] Here are several more great reports, with video updates, on the movement of both pirate and U.S. ships in the area:

CNN just gave a fascinating tour of the same lifeboat that the captain and his captors are in. What a change from the lifeboats of yore! If only the passengers of the Titanic had had these lifeboats (and plenty of them, ahem), so many more would have survived. However, there’s a problem for rescuers: The doors can be sealed from the inside. That video isn’t up yet, but i’ll keep checking. HERE’s THE VIDEO:

Say, below in the A.P. video report, just five hours old, there are great shots of the interior of such a lifeboat. There’s also a great report from WorldFocus, the recently launched PBS international news program, that gets into the terrorism vs. commercial enterprise argument:

Text:

The captain of a U.S. cargo ship tried escaping his pirate captors, but was recaptured off the coast of Somalia. While the military is massing more firepower in these waters, friends are not surprised at Richard Phillips’ action. (April 10)

DO NOT MISS THIS “PERSPECTIVE” discussion via WorldFocus:

The warships cannot solve the problem, because the answers  are on land.   The FT’s Robert Wright told us that there are two clans that dominate piracy, the Hawiye and the Darod, and they work in parallel.  The Hawiye command the Haradere area.  The Darod command the Puntland Coast around Eyl.  Only ground-based suppression will work, but that means Marines, air support, naval support, United Nations cooperation, civic and humanitarian structure — the comprehensive approach that the US has not wanted to risk since 1993.   Now the hostage scenario may force the Obama adminstration’s hand.   CENTCOM’s General Petraeus says that more ships are in-bound for the region, though this is an impotent and tardy gesture.  The FBI hostage negotiators are headed to the USS Belknap to open conversation with the pirates.  The demands are simple: food, fuel, cash and free passage back to our dens.  The Obama administration must now struggle with the policy that the US does not ransom hostages.   No appeasement, no concessions, no peace.  Surrender or die.  There is more than one hostage on that bobbing Maresk line lifeboat.  The US, the pirates, the POTUS and VPOTUS could become hostages, too.  It is not idle that the President would not answer a reporter’s question today about the pirates.  This is dangerous policy.  Blackhawk Down in deep water is make-believe, so far.    The pirates operate in packs; they may have land-based command and control; they may welcome jihadists into their mix; they know that one in two captured pirates have been set loose.   Easy to imagine there are tens of pirate boats pushing off from the coast and preparing to grab anything American.   Fat pickings, big pay-day possible, and the new bosses won’t shoot, will they?

From the blog and radio show site, The John Batchelor Show (with Podcasts). Larry Johnson is a regular guest Sunday nights on KFI-AM at 10:35 p.m. ET. Visit this blog on Sundays for promos that include the evening’s hot topics.

Today: “Pirates still hold ship captain, but running out of fuel (Roundup),” Africa News:

We are watching this very closely,’ US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in brief remarks in Washington. The lifeboat in which the captain was being held had apparently run out of fuel, she added.

Secretary Clinton was asked about the pirate takeover Wednesday during her meeting Moroccan Foreign Minister Dr. Taieb Fassi Fihri, during which she took the opportunity to mention that Morocco was the first nation to recognize the U.S.A. in the 18th century and helped our fledgling nation fight piracy long ago. (Special request to our Reader Historians: Please share those great stories!):

From the text of the press conference:

[...]

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, do you have any clarity on the Somali piracy situation?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we’re deeply concerned and we’re following it very closely. Specifically, we are now focused on this particular act of piracy and the seizure of a ship that carries 21 American citizens. More generally, we think the world must come together to end the scourge of piracy.

I think Morocco was the very first country that recognized us, going back a long time. And we worked together to end piracy off of the coast of Morocco all those years ago, and we’re going to work together to end this kind of criminal activity anywhere on the high seas. Thank you.

UPDATE FROM FOX NEWS / TIME-SENSITIVE:

Earlier, here’s a short Reuters video report that sums up the crisis: