Clifford May: A great power subjects itself to the mercy of pirates

Commentary

Not long after achieving independence, the United States faced its first foreign threat: pirates off the coast of Africa seizing American ships.

As Michael Oren recounts in "Power, Faith and Fantasy," his sweeping history of America's involvement in the Middle East, American vessels were abducted beginning in 1784, their crews enslaved and held for ransom.

One local despot, Hassan Dey, paraded his American captives "past jeering crowds" and "spat at them, 'Now I have got you, you Christian dogs, you shall eat stones.'"

This crisis, Oren writes, "raised fundamental questions about the nature, identity, and viability of the United States. ... Would Americans imitate Europe and bribe the pirates, or would they create a revolutionary precedent and fight them?"

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both believed it was necessary to use military force. But not until 1794 would Congress create a Navy. And not until 1805 would U.S. Marines fight on the "shores of Tripoli."

Today, American ships are again falling prey to pirates off the African coast. This time, however, the buccaneers are setting sail from Somalia rather than from the territories that are now Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.

Just last week, Somali pirates seized a vessel that was being sailed around the world by two American couples who were stopping along the way to donate Bibles to far-flung churches. As American naval officials attempted to negotiate their release, all four were murdered.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded: "We've got to have a more effective approach to maintaining security on the seas."

Ya think?

At this moment, Somali pirates are holding more than 30 vessels and more than 600 hostages. They have been collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom -- the figure has been growing year after year.

As Tara Helfman and Dan O'Shea report in the February issue of Commentary, these pirates are not "merry brands of lucky amateurs. They are organized militias with informants in foreign ports, and networks of ransom negotiators, money launderers, and arms runners abroad. Moreover there is mounting evidence of collaboration between militant Islamists and pirate militias."

Helfman and O'Shea write: "Whereas the Romans used to crucify pirates and the Carthaginians used to flay them alive, the UN Security Council's crowning achievement in its campaign against piracy is a recent report detailing the successful 'business model' adopted by Somali pirates (or, as the report termed them, 'shareholders')."

Such dithering is emboldening the pirates.

Last week, one of their spokesmen issued new threats specifically against Americans in reaction to a New York court sentencing Somali pirate Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse to 33 years in prison for the 2009 hijacking of the Maersk Alabama.

Maj. Gen. Tom Wilkerson, a retired Marine, is CEO of the U.S. Naval Institute. He believes it is high time for a new approach. The United States, he says, could and should raise the risks of piracy and lower the rewards.

That means taking the offensive: killing pirates at sea, in the harbors where they dock their vessels (and those they seize), and in what are now their safe havens and homes in the coastal areas of northern Somalia.

Helfman and O'Shea add: "Seen from the perspective of an Islamic world that is testing the will of the democratic West to prevail over terrorism, the spectacle of captured pirates being allowed to slip through the cracks of international law is proof that Islamists are poised to prevail."

We know what Washington and Jefferson would do. The question now: What will President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton do?