Uses for renegade pirates

#345: Ad-hoc SWAT Team

Last Wednesday I sent a mate of mine a sms enquiring as to just what the bleeding blazes was going on in Mumbai. I had for a while thought it was an elaborate ploy by the E.C.B. to divert attention from Kevin Pietersens teams apparent relish for a solid on-field rogering from Mahendra Singh Doni and his merry band of willow wielding sub-continentals, but alas it was not to be. This was real. “But why”, I asked. “Does the credit crunch not affect terrorist’s capacity for arms procurement? Or are jihads just much bigger than that? “

“I don’t know”, came the reply from said friend, “just send in the Somalis and all will be back to normal by morning”. I have to admit to having needed an indecent while to recover from my laughter induced spasm after reading this. Simply classic. But then I got to thinking, there’s more than a grain of sense in this. Somalia has a lot of well-trained, locked and loaded, Schalk Burger brave, highly organised and crucially, slightly manic individuals going around re-enacting Pirates of the Carribbean (sans Johnny Depps sashaying mincing manners) all over the (ever appropriately named) Horn of Africa.

I mean, if these okes can in a matter of minutes, take over a ship chock-full of advanced heavy duty armaments in little more than a motorised rubber ducky (those vessels they use won’t win you any bragging rights in any self respecting sailing and yacht club) can you imagine what they’d when properly equipped and backed? There is an opportunity here methinks. How about we channel this resource in a useful way? And get Somali some financial aid in return? They seem to have cooled down their internal issues somewhat there. Now throw some money at them whilst providing an outlet for their (currently) nautically inclined aggression and we may just get Somalia back on the road to recovery, and help them build some useful international relations.

Not to mention the obvious fact that conventional military operations seem to be struggling to contain let alone dominate terrorism if events in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the world are anything to go by. Everyone knows that often the best way to beat an enemy is to walk a mile in his shoes, and suss his thinking out. We have a ready made tool for that. And no-one would have seen it coming, and even if they had, how does an unpredictable foe plot against another?

Of course there’s probably all manner of bureaucratic and diplomatic red-tape that would get in the way of implementing this solution, but we must ask ourselves, did red-tape help the hostages, or was it immediate decisive action? Let the diplomats earn their supper by doing some actual relationship management while solutions are being effected.

Of course there’s always the small matter of whether they can actually be trusted to stay on the right side of the law, and who’d be willing to transport them to Mumbai etc in their own vessels? Certainly not SA, we are still paying (financially and politically) for ours.