Abdirahman Mohamed Farole, the elected leader of a semi-autonomous region of Somalia called Puntland, was recently interviewed by Newsweek and gave his opinions on the recent uptick in piracy coming from his country. His advice was simple, giving in to the ransom demands will only strengthen the pirates, instead we must fight them. Of course, he took this opportunity to ask for international aid in order to fund an effective Somali Coast Guard that can deal with the pirates and with illegal fishing that occurs off their shores. In all, his statements, from the source of piracy, are a sober appraisal of this current crisis and how we can fix it.

On this point, I will give Obama some credit. In this case he pledged to crack down on piracy by using the military, international support, and stabilizing the Somali government. I only wish he would crack down on terrorism, communism, anti-Americanism, and nuclear proliferation by taking a similar approach instead of his usual foreign policy prescription: “listening,” bowing, criticizing America, direct talks without preconditions, and unilateral concessions.

Another idea floated by Ron Paul is to issue “letters of marque and reprisal” which allow the government to hire private citizens to act like bounty hunters in international waters and collect bounty for taking out pirates. It’s an intriguing idea and might serve as the best solution in terms of a way to get the government to spend less on military matters, but I don’t think it can work. The pirates have made piracy their lifestyle, if private commercial ships start carrying guns, the pirates will carry rocket-propelled grenades. if the private ships respond in kind, then you’ll have more pirate ships attacking from multiple vectors… and each escalation will make the pirates more and more sophisticated and effective, making the less guarded ships big soft targets. In the end, only a proper navy will be able to deal with such a threat… but that’s my opinion, and it looks like it’s Obama’s opinion too. In the spirit of fairness, here’s Ron Paul pitching his idea:

-AG