This news is somewhat dated but I thought it a good illustration of the Obama adminstration's idea of foreign policy. (Note: Items in bold are my responses)
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| Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday unveiled a diplomatic initiative to thwart attacks on ships off Somalia's coast and combat what she called the "scourge of piracy." |
Bet your saying 'It's about time now' aren't you!
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| Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for measures to help combat pirate attacks off Somalia. |
Now onto the specifics of how we will carry out this initiative in the Obama administration. Get ready for it....
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| Clinton said the State Department will "explore ways to track and freeze pirate assets," similar to measures used against drug traffickers and terrorists. |
Oh Yeah!!! After all that has worked really well against the drug traffickers and terrorists after all. Why I bet those pirates are quaking in thier soggy boots.
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| Noting that the pirates have been buying more sophisticated vessels with the ransom money they have been collecting, Clinton said it could be possible to stop boat-building companies from doing business with pirates. |
Great idea! Let's thwart the pirates by preventing businesses from doing business with the pirates. In other words let's place more restraints on an already distressed and I might add lawful industry by forcing them to try and figure out if thier customers are buyng boats to use as pirate vessels or not. What genius. I'm actually astounded by the intellect involved here, seriously.[/b
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| Although she did not suggest the use of military force, she mentioned "going after" pirate land bases in Somalia, which is authorized in a U.N. Security Council resolution passed in December. |
[b]What? We're going to go after the pirates in thier bases (but we're not going to use force to do so). I guess we are going to cower them with stern looks and finger wagging.[/quote]
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| Clinton said the United States also will seek to beef up the capacity of Somalia's fragile Transitional Federal Government by participating in a donor's conference on Somalia next week in Brussels, Belgium. The State Department also will urge Somali officials and tribal leaders to take action against pirates operating from bases within their territory. |
So she wants to solicit other governments to join us in pouring billions of dollars into the failed state known as Somalia. Sounds like a good deal for the Somali government. I would take it if I were them. Nothing like getting a payday from the world's governments while allowing the pirates to continue to operate. That's what we call a sustainable business model.
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| "We have a pretty good idea where the land bases are and we want to know what the Somali government, what tribal leaders who perhaps would not like to have the international community bearing down on them, would be willing to do to rid their territory of these pirate bases," she said. |
They're getting kickbacks from the pirates most likely. Does anyone honestly think these tribal leaders are allowing the pirates to use thier land out of the goodness of thier hearts? The answer is simple Hillary. Pay them. The more the better. Maybe we should just skip the middlemen and ask the pirates how much "protection money" it will cost us to keep them from attacking any more ships. I bet we could work out a deal for less than it cost to keep all that military hardware that we are not going to use operating out there.
Or, before we throw more billions into that bottomless pit of a country we could learn a little something from recent events. That three modestly paid but well trained individuals with less than fifty dollars worth of ammunition did more to stop piracy on the high seas in a single instant than all the billions and months of diplomacy the apologist administration of Obama supports will ever do.I've said it before. The way to stop the pirates is to make it unprofitable and unhealthy to pursue such a vocation.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/15/clinton.piracy/index.html
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