Instead of sending more weapons to Somalia, as did the Obama administration recently, imagine a two-track benevolent campaign launched concurrently to positively impact hearts and minds.
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Somalis are given two alluring choices: join the Islamists' fight or head to the high seas. There's no state to either welcome them or be aligned with.
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Neo-Islamists can only win this war of ideas when they succeed in winning the hearts and minds of the Somali people, yet they seem convinced that sustained violence will achieve them that end.
I hesitate to say that Somalia is lost, but it is unlikely that it can be saved without major intervention from the West, which unfortunately, is unlikely.
What many Americans don't know about Somalia is that the US worked to undermine a charity that stepped in to provide aid to the chaotic state.
Somalilanders rightly pride themselves on succeeding without international intervention and they do not take their accomplishment of peace lightly but they may yet face one of their greatest tests.
The actions of some twisted soldiers are the effects, not the cause, of why this land of the free is now known as the land of torture. Releasing more photos will not help change that perception.
Many people would agree that modern-day Somalia represents a Hobbesian state of nature. But could anarchy strengthen Somalia's private sector? This ar...
Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Arab world. It faces corruption, malnutrition and water shortages. Its population of 23 million owns over 23 million firearms. It's a witch's brew of potential disaster.
Piracy is not only disrupting international trade, it is preventing the flow of humanitarian aid to several million Somalis and is perpetuating the very culture that kept Somalia in an abyss of anarchy.
Somalia has become the poster child for transnational threats emanating from Africa.
Piracy is unlikely to end until Somalia is restored as a functioning state, its people saved from misery, and its waters protected from plunder.
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A lot has been said about how Somali pirates on tiny single-engine outboard skiffs could continue to overtake huge cargo ships like the US-flagged M...
Pirates are in the news these days. So is torture. What a strange set of sentences that is to begin an article about the twenty-first century world w...
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Clarification: ... how to be helpful to the people of the region, some of whom may be/know/love pirates, others not. There seems to be a vast information gap about the people and cultures of Africa and we have a lot to learn.
Thank you for covering this story, and thanks to the HP for bringing some depth reporting to this issue. I've been following it through a Google News feed for awhile, but the stream of information has been thin and fairly shallow. We have a new administration, one we can trust to make an effort to undo some of the stupidity of recent years. This seems a good moment to get the pirates story out of the backwaters, so to speak, and try to get a better sense of what's going on, why, how to be helpful.....
The pirates are totally justified in their actions, no questions asked. I don't care who they pillage or plunder, it's only for their own benefit provided that we don't start killing them like the Israeli's did with the Palestinians.
The more crewmen they hold hostage, the more ransom they collect, the happier I feel seeing that the common peasant still wields a weapon over even the most powerful of governments and corporations.
You can't argue that they do nothing but paint a bad image for themselves. Only your impossible moral standards and brainwashing from the media tells you that.
"The more crewmen they hold hostage, the more ransom they collect, the happier I feel seeing that the common peasant still wields a weapon over even the most powerful of governments and corporations."
I am an American merchant mariner. I've sailed through the Gulf of Aden, and I've stayed up all night watching for them in order to protect my shipmates. The people being taken hostage are primarily mariners like me, who have no objective in Yemeni or Somali waters except to pass through to our destination. We haven't taken their fish or dumped toxic waste in their water. My employers are cargo ship owners and cargo ship operators with no affairs in Somalia except maybe delivering aid for the United Nations. You have just declared that you would like me, my shipmates, and my brothers around the world to be held hostage. You want us to be deprived of our freedom and wages, threatened with death, and kept from our friends and families for days, weeks, and months. All this, so that our captors can take money from companies that have nothing to do with the suffering in Somalia.
This isn't the solution to the problems in Somalia. Attacking innocent ships is no more noble or productive than hijacking random trucks because some deliver goods for Walmart. What Somalia needs is stability, local government, and economy. They need a lawful coast guard to protect their shores, and police to keep peace in their cities.
Excellent article. Thank you Johann.
Yet another reason to stop supporting the MSM. Thanks Johann Hari for enlightening us.
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