Radical Islamic Militant Somali Pirates!

It isn't, indeed. I only tried to answer your question.

You are correct. There was a great debate here, and in many respects it duplicated debates that went on in the councils of the British Empire and other powers that also paid the bribes.

Jefferson sought to exploit the distractions of a Europe caught up in the wars that followed the French revolution to advance his perceptions of the long-term interests of the United States in terms of both international recognition and the territorial expansion of this country. He was an opportunist who worked hard to stay out of European conflicts, while at the same time to exploit European distractions to our advantage. At the same time he regarded treaties with European governments as things to be avoided, preferring, particularly in maratime affairs, the self-interest of the parties involved in individual situations. These, sometimes contradictory, considerations influenced his actions with respect to the Barbary pirates.

This is your typically naive and ill-informed view of history, not different than your view of the middle-east situation, which serves your partisanship. While your pride in the fledgling United States Navy is understandable and touching, it is based on ignorance.

There was not a cohesive Barbary coast, something which the European powers recognized, even if you do not. Piracy was practiced by many "states," to whatever extent they could get away with it. It really began with the Turkish admiral, Hayreddin Barbarossa, and his career in turn was sparked by the conflict of the Turks with the Christian Knights of St. John on the island of Rhodes, who were barely "legal" privateers, operating against any shipping which was not immediately and obviously Christian--i.e., against the Turks.

When the Sultan Mehmed was besieging the city of Constantinople in 1452-53, and the last remnant of the Roman Empire appeared poised to fall, a handful of European volunteers came to the city to defend it. But more important than those few volunteers was the logistical support provided to the city by the Genoese. Mehmed made the decision to build a navy to put an end to that support. In secret, this fledgling fleet was moved overland to be put in the water to threaten shipping in the Golden Horn, and therefore circumventing the boom which had been constructed to protect shipping. Although Venice finally decided to send ships, the Genoese had slipped away, leaving their general and his volunteers behind, and the Venetians were to arrive too late. The fate of the city was sealed.

The city of Acre was the last holdout of the crusader states, and it fell to the Mameluks in 1291. However, before it fell, as the remnant of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, it issued letters of marque to the order of the Knights of St. John on the island of Rhodes (they were originally the Knights Hospitaller). Although they had only taken refuge there in 1309, and the letters of marque were issued before Acre fell, they continued to practice piracy under the guise of being privateers. The island successfully withstood sieges in the 15th century, and their galleys continued to harry Muslim shipping, both that of the Mameluks and of the Turks. In a sense, the Muslim learned piracy from the Christians. The great Turkish admiral known in the west as Barbarrosa became a devoted enemy of the Knights when he and his brothers were taken by a Rhodian privateer (a corruption of an honorific, he was called Baba Oruj, Father Oruj, by the Muslims he evacuated from Andalusia in the face of the Spanish reconquista--the Europeans corrupted that into Barbarossa).

Barbarossa promoted counter measures by Muslim rulers along the nothern African coast, leading to the establishment of havens of piracy at Tripoli on the African coast (as distinguished from Tripoli in the Lebanon), at Tunis and at Algiers. He was also responsible for the extension of at least nominal Turkish hegemony to these coastal cities. This was in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. As was typical of the times, Muslim leaders appealed to Christians for aid, and the reverse was also true. The squabbling drifted along the eastern Med from the Levant to Malta, Sicily, Calabria and Liguria. From there it drifted west, and Barbarossa eventually became, for practical purposes, the "king" of Algiers

Barbarossa and his brothers originally operated out of La Goulette, the port for the city of Tunis. From there they raided from the Levant to Valencia and Alicante in Spain, and took the shipping of Spain, France, Italy and even little England (not then a great naval power). Their reign as disputants for the naval mastery of the Med began in 1504, and Barbarossa rose to become the Admiral commanding all Turkish naval forces. He eventually made Algiers his home upon his retirement, and his son operated from there after his father's death.

The Turks usually made good on their bid to control the Med. Barbarossa even managed to defeat the fleet of the "Holy League" under the command of Andrea Doria in about 1540. (Andrea Doria was a famous naval commander and privateer in Genoa, and that was his only signal defeat--he is revered to this day by the Genoese.) Barbarossa took Turkish naval power to its greatest height, from which it would not fall until the great debacle of Lepanto in 1571. Turkish naval power would never rise again, but the nests of corsairs which grew up in the north African ports continued, and even thrived and prospered. Barbarossa on more than one occasion intervened in continental European affairs, usually as an ally of France, which opposed his enemies the Spanish.

So, in fact, it was Spain under their King Carlos, the HRE Charles V, which actually first fought the "Barbary" pirates, when he sent a successful expedition to retake Tunis (La Goulette) in about 1535, more than 250 years before the United States Navy even existed. As was so typical of relations between Muslims and Christians in Spain and the Med, Charles was moved to the expedition by the appeal of the former Muslim ruler of Tunis who had been driven out by Barbarossa.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the European powers paid bribes to the Barbary pirates, and so did the United States. Those bribes, however, were backed up by naval power. When corsairs ignored their agreements, as they inevitably would, and attacked the shipping of nations which had paid the bribes, the arrival of a French or English squadron in their ports would usually suffice to return them to a sense of their obligation.

And that was precisely what happened in the First Barbary War. Tripoli, Tunis and Algiers were independent of any control by the Osmali Turks, and it proved necessary to negotiate with each separately, and to pay tribute to each (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson conducted the negotiations, and were to successively serve as President of the United States in the period of negotiation, payment and betrayal which lead to these wars). Both Jefferson and Adams thought it a bad idea to pay the tribute, but Adams pointed out that until the United States could build a navy to deal with them, paying the bribes was about the only option.

The Knights of St. John on Rhodes been given Malta by the HRE Charles V in 1530, he having been impressed by their success against Turks and Mameluks, and they having been turned out of Rhodes when it fell to the Turks in 1522. The Knights (now calling themselves the Knights of Malta) began to make quite a lucrative living out to retaking Christian prizes from the Barbary coast, and making prizes of the shipping of the Barbary states whenever they failed to live up to their obligations. They got quite rich, because other European nations paid them for their services, and the Knights did not scruple to condemn recaptured Christian ships as prizes, and fill their treasury. During the period up to 1798, the United States benefited indirectly from this protection. By the late 18th century, the power, if not the wealth, of the Maltese Knights had waned, but they were seconded by the English and French Royal navies.

When the French Revolution ended the French Royal Navy, the Knights struggled on, with some assistance from the English Royal Navy, and after the King was executed in Paris in 1793, the English joined the First Coalition, and the Royal Navy began to operate in the Med, from its base at Port Mahon on the island of Minorca. (This was when Horatio Nelson was called back from half-pay, and began the incredible rise which would only end with his death 12 years later.) The Royal Navy, of course, made prizes of any French shipping they found, and being present in force, with a fleet to blockade Toulon, and a large squadron attempting to take Corsica under the command of Captain Nelson (with the courtesy title of commodore for the period that command), the Royal Navy was well placed to help contain the Barbary corsairs, and they did so with a will, upon the same principle as that of the Knights of Malta. Any prize recaptured which had been in enemy hands for at least 24 hours, could be condemned as salvage, and yielded a considerable sum to the officers and men of the vessel making the recapture, second only to the money to be made from a ship taken directly as a prize.

The French had retaken Toulon from the Anglo-Spanish occupation in 1795 (thanks to a young artillery officer named Napoleon Bonaparte), and 1796, Spain joined France and declared war on the Coalition. In January, 1797, therefore, Sir John Jervis, then commanding in the Med, was forced to evacuate Corsica and Elba, and to abandon Port Mahon. The Spanish, with 27 sail of the line, were sailing from Algeciras, opposite Gibraltar, to Cadiz, to escort a large valuable merchant convoy, when they were hit by a powerful Levanter (an easterly gale) and driven out into the Atlantic. Captain Nelson had taken his place in Jervis' fleet, commanding HMS Captain, 74, when that fleet too was driven into the Atlantic by the same Levanter. Nelson had Minerve (a captured French frigate, 38) as consort, and in the fog on February 11th, she passed through the Spanish fleet undetected. The Spaniards, of course, had shipped many lights and were firing signal guns to prevent collisions in the fog. Minerve reported her contact to Nelson, who had to decide whether to immediately sail to the West Indies to warn of a possible descent by the Spanish, to sail to join the Channel Fleet to warn of a possible attempt by the Franco-Spanish to lift the blockade of Brest, or to rejoin Jervis. Luck was with him (a quality which Napoleon said he valued above all others in his officers) and Nelson decided the Spaniard was headed for Cadiz, and to rejoin Jervis. On the evening of February 13th, the English fleet, joined by 5 sail of the line from the Channel Fleet, and with Nelson rejoined numbered 15 sail of the line, and had made for the coast of Portugal as the most likely place to find the Spaniard. They heard the signal guns of the Spanish, still sailing in a heavy fog, near the southern tip of Portugal, at Cape St. Vincent. On the morning of Valentines Day, 1797, Jervis decided to engage. ("There are eight sail of the line, Sir John"; "Very well, sir"; "There are twenty sail of the line, Sir John"; "Very well, sir"; "There are twenty five sail of the line, Sir John"; "Very well, sir"; "There are twenty seven sail of the line, Sir John"; "Enough, sir, no more of that; the die is cast, and if there are fifty sail I will go through them") This battle made Jervis' career, and he was made Earl St. Vincent as a result. Nelson, fearing the Spanish would escape, had run Captain into the tail of the Spanish fleet, which as it had worn in line, now contained their largest ships, which had previously been leading. This included the largest ship of the line in the world, Santísima Trinidad, 130, as well as San Nicholas, 84, and San Jose, 112. Nelson's ship was being pounded to splinters, being the target at some points of eight different ships. Several of the English captains, seeing this, and understanding the importance of Nelson's decision to break the line and intercept the Spanish, wore and joined him. Nelson, knowing his ship could not deal with the situation through gunnery, laid along side San Nicholas and boarded. As the captain surrendered to him, and with the rigging of San Jose fouled in that of San Nicholas, the commander of the former ship ordered a broadside of grape into San Nicholas killing and wounded dozens of the Spaniards, and killing and wounding about 20 of Nelson's men. So Nelson, nothing loathe, lead his boarders over the forecastle of San Nicholas and took San Jose. This made Nelson's career as well.

That has been an interesting diversion, but it brings up an important point. The Royal Navy was now gone from the Med, the French Fleet in Brest was not going anywhere now, and the French at Toulon scuttled back to port. The Spanish obviously weren't going to be threatening anyone for quite a while, so the Barbary corsairs decided it was party time. In 1798, another Levanter drove off the newly returned Royal Navy, th French slipped out of Toulon, and Napoleon's invasion of Egypt was under way. Along the way, they stopped and took Malta, and the Knights of Malta were put out of business for good (and Napoleon was able to send in treasure to the Directory to rival all the wealth he had stolen in Italy in 1796 and 1797).

There was now nothing to restrain the Barbary pirates, and given the situation of the war of the first coalition, the only merchant ships in appreciable numbers in the Med were the Americans and the Scandanavians--which explains why the Swedes sent three frigates to back up the Americans when they attacked Tripoli. I won't go into the history of the First Barbary War, but i will note that it was inconclusive, as defeating and humiliating Tripoli had no effect on Tunis or Algiers, other than to make them somewhat careful for a few years. By the time they were feeling their oats again, the United States Navy was on the alert for the possibility of war with England. In 1807, HMS Leopard laid to near Norfolk, to speak USS Chesapeake. Chesapeake had been preparing for a cruise in the Med, and her decks were crowded with stores, and she was not prepared for, nor anticipated an action. The commander of Leopard demanded the right to search for deserters, and when the commander of Chesapeake refused, she fired three broadsides into her in rapid succession, killing and wounding more than 20 men, at which point the American commander struck. Chesapeake was boarded, and four men were taken off, only one of whom as English, and as two of the three Americans taken were black, it was pretty obvious that they weren't English. The one Englishman was hanged at Halifax, but the sentence of 500 lashes for the three Americans was commuted, and they were then returned to the United States with an offer to pay compensation. Jefferson had a golden opportunity to get the nation behind him to declare war, and perhaps to end the practice of impressment of crew of American ships, but he played the fool, and passed a totally ineffective embargo act, which only served to alienate American shipping interests, who were disgusted with him. The upshot for the Barbary priates was that the United States Navy no longer showed its face in the Med.

The Royal Navy continued to take Algerine prizes, but Tunis and Tripoli had now restricted their operations to close inshore, where they could run quickly home--once bitten, twice shy. By 1812, the United States Navy and the Royal Navy were at war. It was only after the defeat of Napoleon and the end of the War of 1812 that the status quo ante returned to the Med. With the Royal Navy cruising there, and no other enemies at hand, the Barbary pirates had to be careful--but the Algerines were still contemptuous of the Americans. Therefore, the Second Barbary War took place in 1815. Stephen Decatur lead a fleet of ten ships to Algiers, because the Algerines had declared war on the United States for failure to pay tribute (which they patently could not have done while at war with England). Decatur captured two Algerine warships, including the Algerine flag, and then sailed to Algiers to negotiate. The Dey of Algiers returned American prisoners and ships, and exchanged all of his Christian captives for the captured crews of his two ships. He also agreed to pay $10,000 in compensation, to renounce tribute and to never molest American shipping. Decatur sailed off deal with Tunis and to enforce the agreements with Tripoli from the First Barbary War. The Dey of Algiers promptly repudiated the treaty which he had negotiated with Decatur, and displayed the quality of his intelligence by promptly seizing British shipping. In 1816, an Anglo-Dutch fleet pounded Algiers all day long, effectively destroying or neutralizing what passed for a navy there. The Dey was forced to accept a treaty which extended the terms gained by Decatur to all Christian shipping, and to reaffirm his treaty with the United States. He also agreed to end the practice of enslaving Christians.

The curtain now fell on the Barbary pirates. Relative peace had claimed Europe, and European navies now cruised the Med in force, making it impossible for the Muslim pirates to go back into business. There being no general war in Europe, and no war between the United States and England, the Barbary States were impotent in the face of force majeure, and fell into senescence. Within a generation, European powers (France and Italy) either colonized the nations of North Africa, or put them under "protectorates."

It is possible to effectively fight piracy, but it requires concerted action from several professional navies. Given the costs to be associated with avoiding the western Indian Ocean and sailing around the Cape of Good Hope rather than using the Suez Canal, the cost of such operations would be well worth it.

I don't for moment suggest that piracy can be ended once and for all. After the Barbary Wars, in the 1820s and -30s, the United States Navy began launching purpose-built sloops of war to deal with the piracy which had broken out in Spanish colonies in the West Indies, particularly pirates operating from the coast of Cuba. Spain was tied up in the civil wars between the Isabelistas and the Carlists, and the remaining Spanish colonies were basically left in a power vacuum, with no means of dealing with the pirates. The successful wars of independence in central and South America had not lead to effective governments on the old Spanish Main, so the United States Navy was obliged to protect her own shipping interests.

It would not be cheap and it would not be easy to deal with the Somali pirates, or the piracy in the Strait of Malacca. But as i pointed out before, that something is difficult is no good reason not to attempt it if it is necessary.

I totally agree with your analysis, Set.

(I find it interesting that those "Barbary pirates" were connected for a short period as well to "religious fighters" ... until it was noted that were nothing more than "ordinary pirates". Well organised and equipped, but just criminal pirates.)

That's what's going on here, too, Walter. The thread title is ludicrous. There is not Islamic militancy involved here, there is just simple greed. It has been noted in several accounts i've read, and i believe it has been commented upon in this thread that this piracy is being supported by organized crime. It makes sense, too, because you'd need a substantial capital outlay to purchase patrol boats (such as the one the Indian frigate sank) and speed boats. You'd also need the expertise of organized crime to get ransoms for ships, cargoes and crews.

That's why a concerted effort by professional navies could probably be fairly successful. Just a few years ago, these jokers were preying upon the coast-wise commerce of eastern Africa--it was all they could afford and as much as their organizational skills could compass. With some capital outlay and some operational help from organized crime, they've upped the ante considerably. But organized crime is not going to finance a continuing war with professional navies. It could take a while, but at the point at which the profits dry up, organized crime will pull out, and as they lose their resources (their vessels), the pirates will be run out of business.

Of course, i've we've to do with naval officers like O'George, nothing will be done.

Ha! I'm glad that 'I didn't want' to become a naval officer ("Seaman/Petty Officer/Chief Petty Officer Hinteler doesn't prove military appearance" - hell, I was a conscript in the navy and not in the military!). And as a Warrant Officer I only commanded soup bowls, in the mud flats. (That's LCM's, and in the Baltic and North Sea as well. )

Setanta,

I am neither naive nor ill-informed. Moreover, though I, like you (and almost everyone else) am partisan about many issues, I retain the ability to adjust my views based on events as they unfold. Overall, I haven't seen anything better on your part.

Though I referred to "the Barbary Coast" and the "Pirates of the Magreb", I never suggested that they were a cohesive, single entity. I am as familiar with the long history of the region and the details of Decatur's campaign as are you.

One of the central points of my earlier posts was that piracy is ubiquitous, persistent and difficult to eradacate, requiring only rich, available targets; and a few examples of success to get started and persist - all in a rather self-organizing way. It now appears from your rather extended remarks that you do agree with that observation - at least as it may apply in the Western Mediterranean.

You notably have not addressed what had been a central element of our discussion, namely the comparability (or lack thereof) of the evils of Somali piracy and those of Saddam's regime in Iraq. I take it that you believe you can score no points along that line and instead wish to pursue others to score the argumentative points you seem to love so well.

That's OK with me. I generally find your lengthy expositions interesting and informative -- even if I am thoroughly bemused by your evident motives in offering them and the sometimes childish accusations with which you preceed them.

I do appreciate and often enjoy your extended riffs into often only weakly related (to the points in question) details of history. I do accept that human history consists of a diverse set of related actions over time, However, I doubt the direct causality you seem to imply in your usually too categorical expositions of historical detail.

In the first place the targets of Somali pirates have NOT generally been ships headed for the Red Sea and Suez. Rather they have been headed generally from either Suez or the Persian Gulf towards the cape of Good Hope or the coast of east Africa. The approaches to the Red Sea are relatively narrow and easy to patrol - not advantageous pickings for the Somalis.

Until recently it had been relatively easy to avoid the Somali pirates simply by staying about 200NM off the coast. Now evidently with better navigation systems; better equipped mother ships and possibly better intelligence (and possibly control), they have greatly extended their reach.

From a purely naval perspective the severe reduction (not elimination) of this piracy would be a relatively easy matter - simply locate and preemptorily sink the mother ships from which the pirates operate. Alternatively we could discontinue the substantial naval effort now going into escorting the ships transporting free food and provisions to the Somali people - telling them to either set their house in order or starve.

That we don't now do this - or have not long since done so, given the huge, long-term presence of U.SA., French, British and even Soviet naval forces in the region - is purely the result of the political considerations affecting the nations with the power to limit the piracy.

That, of course, was my original point.

May I just add that the German navy as there, too (since 2001) as well as other national navies. (CTF-150 consits of ships, boats and personal from Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Additionally, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey comtibute[d] to it.)

No it wouldn't. When I was a logistics manager I dealt with both ocean and air freight and I don't think you understand the difference in cost. The cost of shipping that tanker's load by air is far far more than private security for the tanker should cost.

Professional navies are also not the solution, they themselves are telling merchants that they can't be everywhere and they are advising merchants to take on private security.

I was reading this morning how an American drone fired a hellfire missile at a house in Pakistan killing (among others) a radical islamist from Birmingham (UK). Leaving the extremely dubious circumstances of that attack aside, it occurred to me that a couple of these drone aircraft constantly patrolling pirate infested shipping lanes, could solve the problem overnight.

The frigate "Mecklenburg-Vorpommern" routed out two pirate ships yesterday, the frigate "Karlsruhe" saved the Ethiopian cargo ship "Andinet" and the British tanker "Trafalgar" from pirates last week in a quite spectacular way.

I have some doubts that unmanned aerial vehicles would be a big advantage to the systems used on modern warships. (Actually, I don't think any navy uses them.) Helicopters (like those stationed on our frigates for instance) seem to operate much better.

Besides that, the presence of some dozen - manned- ships patrolling was thought to work .... why should unmanned vehicles work better?

While combined international military and naval forces, such as the CTF-150 to which Walter referred, are a potentially beneficial palliative to the uneasy consciences of the major nations of the western world, they are almost always ineffective in accomplishing their missions -- as is amply illustrated in UN operations in the Congo and other areas. The reasons have to do with restrictions on the use of their forces imposed by contributing nations; the generally feckless incompetence of the various international bureaucracies we have created; and the basic elements of human nature - young men aren't as willing to risk their lives for the abstract goals of international politicians as they are for things of more visceral appeal.

Keeping a few aircraft (or drones) continually on station (24/7) in a wide area of the ocean, half way around the world in an area remote from available bases - is a much more difficult and costly task than Steve apparently acknowledges.

While air transport is indeed orders of magnitude more costly than transport by sea as Robert Gentel says, Setanta does have a point. The real cost of a Naval campaign sufficient to effectivelt suppress Somali piracy and subject to the political constraints currently imposed, would likely be very high indeed.

For those who believe Somali piracy is truly a transcendent evil that must be eliminated, I propose we simply announce our discontinuation of the international shipments of free food (which are at great expense, escorted by the CTF 150 ships that Walter cited) to Somalia until the Somali people themselves suppress the pirates.

You would starve the Somali nation because of the Darwinian behaviour patterns of a few young daredevils. No wonder the Republicans got stuffed if that's anything to go by.

Being there is not sufficient in itself to solve any problems like this. A willingness to solve them is required as well. The pirates might see their actions in the same light as toll collectors do on bridges.

That's just changing the toll collectors and a suspicion might arise amongst conspiracy theoriest that Blackwater has trained and facilitated the pirate's operations. Which might explain how easy it was to nick a large tanker 400 miles offshore.

The comparison wasn't between air shipping and a naval campaign, but air shipping and private security. The private security being offered is not intended to hunt down pirates, but just to escort.

In most of these cases we are talking about a handful of pirates with grenade launchers and automatic rifles using grappling hooks to climb aboard.

They usually face a handful of men (usually unarmed) in the crew and an escort of a dozen moderately armed men per ship would make this a lot less of a cake walk for the pirates.

This piracy is already costing shipping companies hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom and insurance. They should really have a bit more private security on board. That tanker is carrying millions in cargo, with a handful of crew and no security to speak of.

Armed escorts on board these ships would be the most effective and cost-efficient way of curbing this piracy.

Thanks for the endorsement, Mr. Gentel.

That's a moot point. How many armed men per watch? How many watches? How many ships? How much rotation of tours? Once they were up to strength Blackwater, assuming the conspiracy theory I mentioned, could stand the pirates down and sunshine cruises and shore leave in foreign ports would ensue for thousands of able bodied men for ever and ever. And a few other things.

BTW Bob-- did my missive on the Ignore function not soften your heart even a little bit.