larger view

 Another blogger, tonyh, has blogged this subject already and has gotten a bit of flack from it. This post is just to back him up in one detail.

Independent sources quoted on "Democracy Now" have told the story: Somalians believe that European vessels are dumping waste in the waters off their coast and have been doing so for some time. They also observe foreign fishing vessels off their coast, often within their territorial waters, taking fish far beyond any controls that might have been imposed if there had been a viable national government to act on such things. Their fishing waters, they say, are being over-fished and poisoned.

Though this supports tonyh's claims, It seems to me that this is a self-serving rationale for some petty criminals who have found a high-paying gig. A good truth checker is to compare these statements against those of their neighbors. Those comparisons yield mixed yet very suggestive results:

Somalis see the pirates as a perhaps misguided but well-intentioned response to these pressures. http://www.democracynow.org...

"AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed Abshir Waldo, explain how what you call “fishing piracy” began.

MOHAMED ABSHIR WALDO: Fishing piracy means fishing without license, fishing by force, even though the community complains, even though whatever authorities are there complain, even though they ask these foreign fishing fleets and trawlers and vessels that have no license, that have no permit whatsoever, when they tell them, “Stop fishing and get out of the area,” they refuse, and instead, in fact, they fight. They fought with the fishermen and coastal communities, pouring boiling water on them and even shooting at them, running over their canoes and fishing boats. These were the problems that had been going on for so long, until the community organized themselves and empowered, actually, what they call the National Volunteer Coast Guard, what you would call and what others call today as “pirates.”

AMY GOODMAN: So you’re saying illegal fishing is happening off the coast of Somalia. What countries are engaged in it?

MOHAMED ABSHIR WALDO: The countries engaged include practically all of southern Europe, France, Spain, Greece, UK. Nowadays I hear even Norway. There were not many Scandinavians before, but Norwegian fishing now is involved in this, you know, very profitable fishing business. So, there are others, of course. There are Russian. There are Taiwanese. There are Philippines. There are Koreans. There are Chinese. You know, it’s a free-for-all coast.

And to make things worse, we learned that now that the navies and the warships are there; every country is protecting their own illegal fishing piracies—vessels. They have come back. They ran away from the Somali volunteer guards, coast guards, but now they are back. And they are being protected by their navies. In fact, they are coming close to the territorial waters to harass again the fishermen, who no longer have opportunity or possibility to fish on the coast because of the fear of being called pirates and apprehended by the navy, who are at the same time protecting the other side.

So the issue is really a matter of tremendous injustice, international community only attending and talking and coming to the rescue of the—of their interests and not at all considering or looking from the Somalis’ side. This does not mean I am condoning or anyone is condoning piracy or endangering the life of innocent sailors and crews or damaging the property of others, but these people, these fishermen-turned-pirates, had no alternative but to protect themselves, to protect their turf, to—you know, an act of desperation, you might call it.

AMY GOODMAN: What do people in Somalia feel about the pirates, the issue of pirates off the coast?

MOHAMED ABSHIR WALDO: A mixed reaction, I think, in Somalia. The people do not want the innocent sailors to be harmed. They don’t want any major environmental disasters to happen by blowing up chemical- or oil-carrying vessels. And they urge the pirates, or fishermen pirates, they urge them not to do any such things.

On the other hand, since there’s no sympathy, there’s no understanding, there is no readiness for dialogue with the coastal community, with the community in general, with the Somali authorities or the regional government or the national government on a joint action for solving these problems, then it’s each for his own way of doing. But the people are very concerned. On the one hand, they would like this to be resolved peacefully; on the other, they feel very sad for injustice being done by the international community.

AMY GOODMAN: A little more on the issue of toxic dumping, if you would, Mohamed Abshir Waldo. I don’t think people in the United States understand exactly what it is you’re referring to and how it affects people.

MOHAMED ABSHIR WALDO: Well, toxic dumping, industrial waste dumping, nuclear dumping, as you are probably aware and have heard and many people know, for quite some time, in the ’70s mainly, in the ’80s, in the ’90s, there was a lot of waste of all these kinds that companies wanted to get rid of, following very strict environmental rules in their countries. So where else to take but in countries in conflict or weak countries who could not prevent them or who could be bought? So these wastes have been carried to Somalia. It’s been in the papers. It has been reported by media organizations like Al Jazeera, I think, like CNN. Many had reported about the Mafia, Italian Mafia, who admitted it, dumping it in Somalia for quite some time, for quite a long time.

And as we speak now, I heard yesterday, in fact, another vessel was captured in the Gulf of Aden by community—this time not pirates, by the community, when the suspected it, and it was carrying two huge containers, which it dumped into the sea when they saw these people coming to them. They have been apprehended. The vessel had been apprehended. Fortunately, the containers did not sink into the sea, but they are being towed to the coast. And this community has invited the international community to come and investigate this matter. So far, we don’t have action. So this dumping, waste dumping, toxic dumping, nuclear waste dumping has been ongoing in Somalia since 1992."

The unfortunate downside to all this is that many Americans, following the Bush Doctrine of shoot first, dialogue and analyze later, and even the Bush sales job of create a fictional tie-in to terrorists, have already started the drum-beat of war along those lines.

Oddly, for students of African politics, this would not be the first time U.S.-backed troops invaded Somalia. The Bush administration backed a U.N. force led by Ethiopian Prime MInister Meles Zenawi to invade Somalia in 2006. The idea then was to clean out Mogadishu of Islamic warlords who Bush believed were tied to Al Qaeda; nevermind that they were, at that time, the legitimate government of Somalia and denied any terrorist connections.  The U.N. rationale for the invasion was expressed as putting an end to the ongoing anarchy and civil war. http://www.progressive.org/...

Incidentally, it was around this time that the infamous Blackwater corporation started forming anti-piracy units for hire. Few have been hired so far, as the implicit agreement between shipping companies and pirates has been toward non-escalation. Thus, while the seas were seeing a slow escalation of piracy, the efforts of the U.N. ousted the Islamist Government, which quickly became an insurgency and forthwith began developing ties with Al Qaeda, who opportunistically saw a force who would gladly attack U.S. targets.

So: unlike Iraq, Somalia represented a nation that really was led by an Islamist government. However, very much like Iraq, Somalia had no terrorist ties until after their government was destroyed.  Few will remember it now, but on May 1, 2008, the Bush administration sent a drone to bomb a target in Modadishu, killing Aden Hashi Ayro, a leader of Al Qaeda in Somalia. http://abcnews.go.com/Inter... Ayro was the head of al Shabbab, whose aim was to regain control of the government and install Sharia law. No one questions whether there was or was not Al Qaeda in Somalia by then.

The attack effectively eviscerated peace talks that were scheduled for later that month. Here we have another instance of the Bush administration's belief in guns over negotiations, in this case using the former in such a way as to   ensure, with or without malice aforethought, the latter doesn't work.

Speaking that week, "Thursday's attack has damaged the negotiations, said Rashid Abdi, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.

"However much the Americans claim the war on terror is one thing and the peace process is another thing, it's not that clear-cut," Abdi said. "This will definitely have political repercussions."

One of them was a continuation of the U.S. strategic policy of backing bad guys who will fight our enemies: "The U.S. has backed Somali warlords promising to fight the insurgents, including some accused of human rights abuses. But the strategy has deepened anti-American sentiment."

 http://abcnews.go.com/Inter...

Thus, over the years, many warlords were getting U.S. support, while others, who got too cozy with the government, got attacked, such as the attack on a southern Somali town by the Navy in March of that year (the target was a Kenyan by the name of Saleh ali Saleh Nabhan, who was suspected of being involved in the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassy). Also, and importantly, was the attack on the warlord Mohammad Farrah Aidid which led to the infamous "Black Hawk Down" incident during Clinton's administration.

These details are easily muddled, especially in the U.S. press, because the U.S. has had such a hard time picking a side in this conflict and sticking with them. We have worked with the U.N. and then scuttled their efforts; we have worked with warlords and attacked them later and intermittently; only the Islamist government has been our consistent target - but they have been removed by the U.N. by that Ethiopian force which has since been out of control, revenge-killing teenage boys and other civilians for their supposed support of the Islamist insurgency that has been ongoing ever since. http://edition.cnn.com/2007...

Now, the meat of the matter for us now in the post-Maersk Alabama attack era, is to remember that the self-serving rationale of the pirates is that they are fighting pollution and over-fishing. The recent interest in some sectors to equate these fishermen-pirates with terrorists has been largely an argument, as I mentioned above, aimed at starting a land war, in much the same fashion that Bush started the war in Iraq.

It seems apparent that the media is ready to debunk the 'imminent-danger-to-the-homeland-from-terrorists' spin 

http://finance.yahoo.com/ne...

http://blog.wired.com/defen... al.

as they have chased down the applicable intel already. Notably, however, the intel that informs us that there is not a current connection between pirates and terrorists, as:

"In one indication that the groups sometimes have conflicting agendas, members of the al-Shabab terrorist organization lashed out publicly at a group of pirates late last year after they attacked the Sirius Star, a Saudi oil tanker."

http://www.google.com/hoste...

also points out that the malleable, constantly shifting allegiances and territories of the warlords holds out the possibility of a future connection:

"Military and counterterrorism officials say that in the intricate tribal networks, one clansman could be out hijacking cargo ships, while his brother might be a member of the al-Shabab terrorist organization. And they both could be buying their weapons from the same traffickers operating in Somalia's vast ungoverned spaces."

(ibid)

It remains to be seen if Obama and the U.S. will follow the reasoned approach of dialogue backed by at least the threat of defensive force, but recent statements are promising: 

"Some military strategists believe it may ultimately be necessary to attack the pirates' bases in Somalia. But few international allies have the appetite for another land operation in Somalia, where a U.S. military foray in the early 1990s ended in humiliation. And the cost in civilian casualties would probably be high, some warn.

''That would be nuts,'' said Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent and State Department counterterrorism specialist. ''These people are not organized into any military force, they are intermingled with women and children. You're talking about wiping out villages.''

http://www.ohio.com/news/na...

Experts on the Somalian situation suggest that: 

"Efforts to find a link between piracy and terrorism also threaten to escalate the conflict. In a New York Times op-ed, for instance, Douglas Burgess, Jr. claimed last month that piracy is terrorism because both involve non-state actors and gangs of disaffected youth. But there's no evidence of collaboration between Islamists and the pirates, let alone evidence of ties to global terrorism networks.

It's important not to hype the threat pirates pose to the United States and international security. Vice Admiral Gortney, commander of the naval forces in the Middle East, estimated that only one-tenth of 1% of the thousands of ships that use the Gulf of Aden are in danger of being hijacked. Analysts estimate that piracy costs $1 billion a year in a global maritime industry worth trillions of dollars.

In a deal with Britain and the United States, Kenya has agreed to prosecute pirates caught off its coast. It isn't clear whether pirates captured in open waters or off the Somalia coast will be tried. Meanwhile, 22 African and Middle Eastern countries are meeting in Djibouti to craft anti-piracy laws. This is a step in the right direction, as it seeks legal and political rather than military solutions. In the final analysis, however, only a stable state in Somalia can effectively deter piracy.

The Obama administration should adopt a multipronged strategy that includes both traditional conflict management techniques such as peacekeeping and other strategies, such as incentives and sanctions. Piracy in the Gulf of Aden can only be effectively controlled on land. Thus, the most important step is to jumpstart the peace process by removing obstacles placed by the Bush doctrine.

The Bush administration's call for a UN peacekeeping force for Somalia at the eleventh hour seemed more like a publicity stunt than serious policy. This cynical strategy is designed to fail, but it creates the impression that something is being done. The Obama team will have to engage the parties in the messy and protracted negotiations. This may not be as sexy and media-friendly as mobilizing a peacekeeping force and launching an anti-piracy campaign, but it's the smart option.

The administration could offer incentives like political and economic support for governmental and nongovernmental organizations. Investment in strengthening women's, youth, and public health-related groups could reach people at the grassroots, where they're more amenable to change. Such engagement at the local level can build relationships and reduce support for radical Islamists.

These sanctions and incentives can be effective against regional players such as Ethiopia and Eritrea, which support rival groups in the conflict. The United States can no longer be held hostage to Ethiopia's ambitions in the region. The team must stop the knee-jerk support for Ethiopia's machinations. The breakaway regions of Puntland and Somaliland would also have to be included in the conversation, but strengthening the borders of these breakaway regions may be counterproductive.

Obama and his team have an opportunity to reverse the cynical policies of the last eight years and demonstrate the effectiveness of "smart power" in the Horn of Africa region."

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt...

In the meantime, "A key concern for the military, the official said, is the steady flow of black-market weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades, from Yemen into Somalia, where militants use them in both onshore and offshore crimes." 

http://www.google.com/hoste...