Unanswered Questions on COIN in Afghanistan

I just got done listening to the President's speech on Afghanistan this morning. Unfortunately, I didn't get what I was looking for out of it.

To me, the big questions on Afghanistan are (1) What are our strategic goals in the Afghanistan conflict and (2) what strategy will we use to achieve those goals, and (3) why is this strategy superior to our other alternatives? What I got out of the speech did more or less answer (1) and (2), but the answer to (2) was lacking and (3) was non-existent.

The President does seem to think that preventing another attack is the primary strategic goal, and I think that's appropriately narrow. In theory, we could go for a "integrating the gap" goal as well, although that's probably too ambitious at this time. But, that leads us to the deficiency in the second answer. A COIN strategy will be pursued--much like in Iraq--perhaps too much like Iraq. But a COIN strategy is very likely above and beyond the level of commitment necessary to achieve the stated strategic goal, and is more in line with a grander objectives of bringing Afghanistan into the community of nations and improving regional stability--objectives which are not on the table.

I would like to hear from the President (or the Pentagon) why alternative approaches wouldn't be better. Why is it vital to our security interests that Afghanistan's current government retain power (or perhaps it would be better to say, gain control of the "nation")? Sure, we don't want the country to become a haven for terrorists again. But it's not like the "nation" of Afghanistan (without our help) will have the military might necessary to keep us out. So where is the "safe haven?" We can have ISR assets there at any time, operators on the ground at any time, bomb a training camp at any time, arrest suspected terrorists at any time, etc. etc. Obviously, from a legal perspective, that wouldn't involve treating Afghanistan as a co-equal Westphalian nation-state--which makes perfect sense, because it is not.

Hence the problem with a COIN strategy. Missing completely from the President's speech was any statement suggesting any consideration of the differences between Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq has been a relatively stable united nation-state with a well-developed national government and an educated middle-class. Success of COIN in Iraq comes largely from providing security to allow the political process to run its course so that the new government can do its job. Afghanistan is entirely different. It isn't a nation-state at all, but a collection of tribes, none of whom care about the non existent "nation" of Afghanistan. There very little civil society or government institutions to build on. A COIN strategy in Afghanistan isn't just about providing security, it is attempting to fundamentally transform the Afghan society in an incredibly radical way. It is an enormous task that is going to take an incredibly long time to achieve, assuming that it can be achieved at all.

And for the President to insist that we can achieve this, with short-term timetables about creating a domestic security force, like Iraq, and benchmarks for political progress, like Iraq, just seems disingenuous. There is no way an Iraq-style surge is going to work as well in Afghanistan. So what we have here is a strategy that is going to require a massive, open-ended, long term commitment, but we are obviously not committed to the level of effort it's going to take.

This administration needs to take a long look at what we need to accomplish, what we can accomplish, and what we're willing to accomplish, and fit our strategy to those parameters. Funny, but I thought that's what we were supposed to be doing with our review of the Afghanistan strategy.

Don't Rush to Condemn Kane

It's amazing what people will believe.

Buffalo police say Patrick Kane beat a cab driver over not being able to get 20 cents in change. 20 cents, people. That is incredible and warrants some skepticism.

What's happened since then?

Jan Radecki, the cab driver has hired an attorney, Andrew Lotempio. But, instead of seeing dollar signs and signing up a personal injury attorney to go after Kane, the cab driver hired a criminal defense attorney. That suggests, of course, that the cab driver is worried about going to jail over this. So there is definitely a possibility that the cab driver was the one in the wrong.

Said attorney then goes public, saying the incident is "overblown" and definitely "not a robbery" as had been accused. Again, consistent with the theory that the cabbie was in the wrong--because if LoTempio can get the prosecutor to drop the charges against Kane, Kane can be persuaded not to go after the cabbie. If LoTempio wanted cash in a civil suit, it would not be in his interest to diminish the criminal case. The civil case would be much stronger after a conviction, obviously.

Now, ABC is reporting that a witness stated that the Kanes were the victims, and Radecki's neighbors are accusing him of "having a short temper and being involved in disputes with customers in the past." And that he locked the pair in the cab while "waiting for payment." But even according to the police, the fare was paid, with change due.

My theory: Mr. Radecki wasn't pleased with his tip, and locked the pair in his cab to try to extort more from them. The Kanes then resisted with force. It fits the facts, makes more sense than the $.20 motive, and explains why Radecki hired a defense attorney who has been playing this incident down.

Golden Mori---"Maersk II?"

Found an interesting link regarding what could become a pirate standoff similar to that of the Maersk Alabama. This time, the ship is Japanese with a mostly Phillipino crew, so our press probably won't touch it much. Unfortunately, this story is already several days old...

The U.S. Navy said Thursday that it intended to remove pirates from a hijacked Japanese tanker monitored by American warships off the coast of Somalia. A crew member's sister said negotiations were under way for the release of the ship.

The Navy came to the aid of the chemical tanker this week, at one point opening fire to destroy pirate skiffs tied to it.

***

Negotiations have started for the release of the Japanese tanker, anchored in Somali waters with 23 crew members from the Philippines, South Korea and Myanmar, said Josefina Villanueva, whose brother Laureano is a Filipino supervisor aboard the Golden Nori.

"The pirates are still on board with the crewmen. They can't leave," she said, relaying information families had received from the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs.

She said there had been no ransom demand from the pirates. "The talks are just starting. I think the pirates will later on demand something," she said.

Another interesting tidbit from the same story: The USN rendered assistance to a DPRK ship attacked by pirates. First time I heard it. I suppose it's possible that I'm lagging behind on current events, but it seems these are pretty important events that aren't getting much coverage.

It also helped a North Korean ship whose crew overpowered pirates in a clash that left several crew members wounded and one hijacker dead. The hijackers were being held aboard the ship until they can be handed over for prosecution at a port. After the clash, Navy personnel boarded the North Korean boat to treat the wounded.

H/T: Subsim

Photo of the Year

Sweet!!!

Here's the article.

Iran "Crackdown"

Depending on the source, the Ayatollah's crackdown has netted anywhere from a handful to 200+ fatalities. It's hard to tell for sure as most information is coming out through Twitter instead of news organizations, and there isn't much to corroborate claims.

Except this one. Her name was Neda. Apparently her only "crime" was observing a protest with her father.

Facta Non Verba

Funny how the athletes with the biggest mouths are the ones who always end up eating their words:

[Willie] Mitchell may have given the Hawks some bulletin board material when he dissed Kane, who scored two goals in Thursday night's 5-3 Vancouver win.

"He was Johnny on the spot," Mitchell said of Kane, a 70-point player for the Hawks in the regular season.

"That's his thing, he got a gift on a turnover on one in front of the net and the other one was just a power play and it was kind of a rebound that went right to him. That's kind of his game, he's kind of like [Sidney] Crosby that way. Crosby will stand off to the side of the net and not really be involved in things and get a lucky rebound and put it in the net. He kind of has that puck luck.

"Like I said, I think he got a gift on both goals and he was really quiet, I thought, and for the most part their team was really quiet. He's a fine player, but I think where he is going to do his damage is on the power play. He is not a guy who is really going to hurt us even strength, so that is kind of where we have to be aware of him."

Later that night, Patrick Kane responded with deeds instead of words:

Per 3

Time 5:48

Str EV

Team CHI

Goal Scorer 88 P.KANE(5)

Assist 19 J.TOEWS(5)

Assist 22 T.BROUWER(1)

VAN on Ice 1, 8, 13, 17, 38, 55

The reason Kane was able to get this goal? Willie was covering him, then decided to stop paying attention to him, and left him alone in the corner. (Willie is #8.) Kane took a pass and got to the net unopposed, thanks to Willie having better things to do than cover his man.

How's that taste, Willie?

Honor: Never Do Anything Today That You Won't Be Proud of Tomorrow

As humans, we are all fallible.

Such was the case two nights ago when New Jersey Devils Goaltender Martin Brodeur blew a gasket over the official not calling interference over a bump outside the crease, just prior to the Carolina Tropical Storms* scoring the game-winning goal.

Brodeur had a fit, swearing at the officials in his native French, smashing his stick against the boards, and then throwing it to the ice.

After that, he had to answer to a power higher than the referees, or even the commissioner:

And when he woke up at home in New Jersey on Wednesday morning, his youngest child, Annabelle, walked into his room and said:

"I saw what you did last night, Daddy," Brodeur recalled.

The goaltender then asked his daughter what he did. She refused to say.

"So I said: 'OK, I won't do it again, sorry,"' Brodeur said with a laugh indicative of a proud father.

I think he gets it.




*The team formerly known as the Carolina Hurricanes has been downgraded. See this and this.

Morality of Interrogation: A Thought Experiment

I have always been a person who believes that the United States should always hold the moral high ground, and I didn't change my mind about that after 9/11. If there is anything revealed by the debate sparked by the "torture memos," though, it is that it is hard to see where that moral high ground is. In this post, I'm going to try to work through this and see if I can arrive at a conclusion.

I watched a great debate between FNC anchor (and attorney) Megan Kelly and Sr. Legal Correspondent Judge Andrew Napolitano on Beck yesterday. As interesting as it was, it also demonstrated the limits of using legal thought to work through this issue. The debate came down to an argument about the definition of torture. Kelly relied on a definition created by Congress that is used for interpretation of the Torture Convention, a standard which the Judge correctly pointed out is so narrow that it wouldn't include medieval torture devices. The Judge offered up a universal standard, “Any intentionally inflicted cruel or inhumane or degrading treatment, unauthorized by a court of law, perpetrated for the punishment of the victim, to extract statements from the victim, or to gratify the perpetrator,” which IMO makes a lot more sense intuitively. So I think in terms of definitions, the Judge has it right (although in legal terms, the "universal" definition doesn't have the weight that Congress' definition has, so Kelly won on the law).

Unfortunately, I don't really care that much about the law or the definition for their own sakes. I care about knowing where to draw the line, and that isn't necessarily determined by a definition. And the law should be based on that line, not the other way around.

I think the Judge's definition of torture makes sense linguistically, but morally, I cannot say that it is categorically wrong to "inflict cruel or inhumane or degrading treatment to extract statements" from a terrorist. (I can say that it is categorically wrong to do so for the purpose of punishment--without authorization by a court, or for the gratification of the perpetrator). Which means this definition isn't the last word for the purpose of drawing any lines. I think we need another principle.

What principles should be in effect for the boundaries of interrogation? Well, going back to the definition for what it is good for, I think it should be a principle that we do not punish a person without sanction of a court. This is the same principle that forbids vigilantism and is one of the pillars of the Rule of Law. A second useful principle we can take from the Judge's definition is that we should never inflict harm/cruelty/inhumanity/degradation/whatever on a person for sadistic purposes. Again, this should be obvious, the interrogator is an agent of the state and must act in the interests of the state, not his/her own. These two principles are easy because they both involve purposes which are illegitimate.

But the other purpose--extracting information--is a legitimate purpose because it is a necessary part of the executive's responsibility to protect the lives of its citizens. Knowing that the state has the power to do this, we must use the rights of the individual to define the boundaries of this power. The rights I think applicable here are life, and what I'll call a freedom of bodily integrity (which would be violated by, e.g., a battery). Liberty might be applicable in some cases, but since this issue is based on detainees being terrorist suspects or enemy combatants, the confinement of both are questions settled epochs ago. Life might be easy enough because of its magnitude. Or is it?

I do see a balancing relationship at work here, involving the weighing of the state's duty to save innocents (indeed, we could even weigh the lives of those innocents themselves) and the rights (including the lives) of the suspects/detainees. And I feel it necessary to point out that it is universally accepted in civilized countries that it is NOT wrong to kill when it is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to an innocent, or sometimes even to prevent a forcible felony. So, although I feel a natural urge to categorically say it is wrong to kill a suspect/combatant under any circumstances short of a capital conviction, the aforementioned principle gives me pause. Of course, this principle usually applies to a criminal being killed while attempting a crime, while what we are considering involves a suspect/combatant that is in custody, while his/her comrades are attempting an attack. Is that an important distinction?

Perhaps it is. In the case of a criminal in the middle of a crime, there is no doubt. Whoever is using deadly force to stop the criminal knows the person he/she is about to shoot is the the criminal and knows what harm is being threatened if he/she does not act. When a person is in custody, there is always the question of whether we have the right person. We also cannot always be sure what the person knows, and whether obtaining that knowledge will be sufficient/timely enough to prevent an attack. We may not even know that there is an attack planned to begin with. There is an enormous difference between killing someone knowing it will save an innocent and killing someone hoping that it will. Also, when a person kills a criminal to prevent a crime, the criminal being killed and the person threatening the harm are one and the same person. A terrorist/combatant in custody is not the person threatening the harm; his/her comrades are. The issue here is one of (potential) innocence. So, we have at least two useful principles here.

One principle involves third parties. As mentioned above, the suspect/combatant in custody is not the one who will carry out the attack. In other words, the person who might be killed to prevent the attack may be innocent of the planned attack, while in the justifiable homicide example the person killed is not innocent. The third party issue also comes up on the issue of death, and perhaps harms less than death as well, because death would have to be inflicted on a person other than the person who has the information if the interrogators had any hope of getting it. (Threatening death unless the person talks doesn't work, because killing the person with the information will not result in getting the information, therefore, the purpose of killing must have been punitive, sadistic, or some other illegitimate purpose). I see a bright moral line against harming innocents in order to extract information from another. Doing so would be to become the very evil we are fighting against. However, it should be noted that co-conspirators are NOT innocent. So threatening to kill a suspect's/combatant's family is out-of-bounds, while threatening to kill another member of the plot may not be.

The other principle we can derive from the homicide justification is that that one of the key lines in this issue is formed by what we know. When we know that there is an attack planned, when we know that the attack would kill a large number of people, when we know that a suspect/combatant in custody has knowledge of the attack, and when we know that we could prevent the attack if we obtained that information, it is morally justified to kill to obtain that information. A fortiori, (and for the sake of avoiding the logical absurdity of a dead person giving up information), harms less than death are also morally justified. But, as our knowledge decreases, then so does our justification.

I can think of a few key points on the scale that would effect the balance and determine the level of coercion that would be justified. Permanent injury would be a big one. Like death, permanent injury is an extreme violation, where the rights of the suspect/combatant are at their highest ebb. Arguably, some sorts of permanent injury may be worse than death. So this has to be off the table in all but the most extreme circumstances; i.e., cannot be done unless the interrogators know for sure that inflicting the harm will save many innocent lives.

If the interrogators know for sure that a suspect/combatant has knowledge of an attack, but do not know enough about the attack to know whether the information the suspect/combatant has will enable them to prevent it, the government's interest is still at a very high ebb. Some level of coercion is therefore justified in these circumstances. Death and permanent injury are not. But I cannot say it is wrong to inflict pain, discomfort, humiliation, etc. upon a person who has information about an attack and refuses to disclose it otherwise.

In the vast majority of cases of individuals being detained, we will not know what information they might possess. The will of course still be interrogated. But without knowing for sure, or at least having probable cause to believe that they have information, inflicting any sort of harm upon them cannot be morally justified. In these cases--the vast majority of cases--the lines that Judge Napolitano described are appropriate. Whether criminal suspects or enemy combatants, they should simply be detained and questioned prior to being charged or detained for the duration of the conflict, respectively.

Summary

• The debate about interrogation should be on moral, not legal terms. The law should be written such that it tracks the moral boundaries at issue.
• The moral boundaries of this issue are defined by a balancing of the duty of the government to protect innocent lives (and the value of those lives themselves) vs. the rights of the suspect/combatant in his/her own life and bodily integrity.
• Purposes such as punishment and sadism are illegitimate in the context of interrogation. Punishment may be inflicted only upon sanction by a duly authorized tribunal. Sadistic purposes are never legitimate.
• The principle of justifiable homicide, widely accepted in the civilized world, is assumed to be morally correct and is used as a benchmark. It is morally justified to kill when doing so is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm to innocents, and when the person to be killed is involved in bringing that threat of harm upon the innocents.
• Therefore, it is morally justified to harm or even kill a terrorist/combatant when doing so will prevent the death of innocents. This assumes (1) actual, certain knowledge of the interrogators that the knowledge obtained will in fact prevent an attack, and (2) the person the harm will be inflicted upon is culpable in a meaningful way for the planned attack (i.e., a co-conspirator). This combination will almost never be occur in reality.
  
• The balancing of interests and rights tips in favor of the suspect/combatant as the interrogators' knowledge becomes less certain. "Enhanced interrogation techniques" that do not cause permanent injury can be justified when the interrogators know that the suspect/combatant has information that, if obtained, might lead to innocents being saved.
• Any infliction of harm, pain, cruelty, degradation, etc. is inappropriate in the majority of cases where interrogators have no knowledge that the suspect/combatant has information about a planned attack and is simply being subject to routine questioning.

Closing Remarks
I think the tactics revealed in the "torture memos" are consistent with what I've concluded can be justified when the interrogators have specific knowledge that the suspect/combatant has information about an attack. According to the memos, the interrogators did in fact have such knowledge. I therefore do not morally condemn what was done, but rather applaud the use of these techniques, within the boundaries described in the memo, as being quite reasonable and appropriate, especially if they prevented planned attacks. I do worry, however, that there is a danger that these techniques might be used more routinely, which would be a problem.

When I started this, I thought I would end up condemning waterboarding and the "caterpillar treatment." The justifiable homicide benchmark was not something I had thought about until I was halfway through this, and it's changed my mind about the issue. I think I had an association in my mind between "torture" and our enemies--our enemies use torture, therefore torture is wrong and we should not do it. This is faulty reasoning, as our enemies also do things like punish murderers and enforce contracts, but those are obviously not wrong. By analyzing this issue on purely moral terms, I was able to dispense with this association.

I don't think "enhanced interrogation techniques" makes us evil or more like our enemies. I don't feel any moral outrage over the idea that someone in the DPRK, for example, harmed a domestic terrorist to prevent a bombing that would have killed hundreds--that is not evil. I feel outrage over the idea that someone in the DPRK was mutilated to get a family member to confess to a thoughtcrime against Dear Leader--that IS evil. The moral boundaries I've outlined prevent us from crossing the lines that our enemies cross. We will still hold the moral high ground.

I'll close with a quote I read about the piracy issue that is equally poignant here:

Piracy, of course, is hardly the only form of barbarism at work today: There are the suicide bombers on Israeli buses, the stonings of Iranian women, and so on. But piracy is certainly the most primordial of them, and our collective inability to deal with it says much about how far we've regressed in the pursuit of what is mistakenly thought of as a more humane policy. A society that erases the memory of how it overcame barbarism in the past inevitably loses sight of the meaning of civilization, and the means of sustaining it.
--BRET STEPHENS

Blame Canada! (Counter-terror edition)

When I heard that our DHS head said that the 9/11 terrorists were among those who supposedly crossed into the US, the South Park song "Blame Canada" came to mind.

So, I thought I'd share my version of the song. Disclaimer: It's about as PC as the original, so if you thought the original was insensitive, just skip this post.

Times have changed
Terrorists are pouring in
We won't kill them overseas anymore
So how do we hope to win?
Should we blame the government?
For our lack of security?
Or should we blame our open society?

Frack no! Blame Canada!
Blame Canada!
With all their Mounties getting high
Letting terrorists drive right by
Blame Canada! Blame Canada!
It's not a baseless insult
It's Canada's fault!

Don't blame me
For my son Stan
He met someone from Canada
Then left for Afghanistan

And my boy Eric once
Only made fun of Jews
But now he's paying Hamas and Hezbollah dues!

Well, blame Canada!
Blame Canada!
It seems that everything's gone to shit
Since the Pentagon took a hit
Blame Canada!
Blame Canada!
They're too polite to get angry anyways.

My son could have a doctor or a lawyer straight and true
Instead his name is coming up on the suicide bomber cue
Should we blame bad intelligence?
Should we blame the Koran?
Or should we blame the troglodyte running Iran?

Fuck no!
Blame Canada!
Blame Canada!
With all their pacifist hullabaloo
And that bastard Bertuzzi too!
Blame Canada!
Shame on Canada!

We'll make up the facts
About 9/11 attacks
Drug smuggling and guns
Terror Infiltration
So the real problem border won't be closed
Whatever it takes to win the hispanic vote!

A Confusing Lack of Policy

Twice in the last several days, our allies have captured pirates, only to release them:

The Netherlands nabed seven, and had this to say:

He said the hostages had been held since last week. The commandos briefly detained and questioned the seven gunmen, he told Reuters, but had no legal power to arrest them.

"NATO does not have a detainment policy. The warship must follow its national law," he said.

"They can only arrest them if the pirates are from the Netherlands, the victims are from the Netherlands, or if they are in Netherlands waters."

The Canadians got a few too, with the same result:

Lt. Cmdr. Fernandes said Sunday that the pirates were released because they cannot be prosecuted under Canadian law. He said the decision to detain pirates was a matter for national authorities not NATO.

What the hell? Before, it seemed the normal M.O. for the US, UK, and EU was to send these guys to Kenya for prosecution. Maybe there is something weird going on, with different commands having different policies. There are at least 4 different task forces (CTF150, CTF151, NATO Standing Maritime Group, and EU NAVFOR) operating in the area.

The Dutch ship, HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën (F802), is part of the NATO group, and the only Canadian ship on the OOB is the HMCS Winnipeg (FFH 338), also in the NATO group. So, I'm guessing that the NATO chain of command hasn't bothered with setting a policy here, while the CTF's and possibly EU NAVFOR probably have.

In any case, both the lack of a NATO policy, and the lack of domestic univseral jurisdiction anti-piracy laws in the Netherlands and Canada, is appalling.

An Ounce of Prevention... (updated)

An important victory for the French was reported today. Maybe there is something to a pro-active approach after all.

Somali pirates vowed to hunt down American ships and kill their sailors and French forces detained 11 other brigands in a high-seas raid as tensions ratcheted up Wednesday off Africa's volatile eastern coast.

* * *

The French forces launched an early morning attack on a pirate "mother ship" after spotting the boat Tuesday with a surveillance helicopter and observing the pirates overnight.

A "mother ship" is usually a seized foreign vessel that pirates use to transport speedboats far out to sea and resupply them as they plot their attacks. The ship was intercepted 550 miles (900 kilometers) east of the Kenyan city of Mombasa.

The French Defense Ministry said the raid thwarted the sea bandits' planned attack on the Liberian cargo ship Safmarine Asia. The detained pirates were being held on the Nivose, a French frigate among the international fleet trying to protect shipping in the Gulf of Aden.

It's encouraging to see that naval forces were apparently able to tell pirate from fisherman before an attack ever took place. And that they did it with only air assets is even better, because it means a larger area can be searched.




UPDATE:
CNN is now reporting the same story, but according to them, the pirates had already attacked:

The Navy tracked the pirates overnight after they attacked a ship called the Safmarine Asia. The French launched a helicopter from the frigate Nivose to head off the attack Tuesday night, then seized the suspected pirates Wednesday morning, the statement said.

So which is it? Did they "head off an attack" that had taken place, or did they "prevent a planned attack?" There is a huge policy difference between the two.

Details, Details...

The Navy has released 3 more pictures from the Maersk standoff since the release of the Scan Eagle pictures. One of them in particular tells a bit of a story.
Note the grouping of 3 bulletholes on the starboard window. (You can see the whole image here)

It's possible that those were outgoing rounds, but otherwise it would seem that the SEALs did not take out all 3 pirates with single-shots.

Hail to the Engineer!

CNN has filmed some interesting footage of the crew of the Alabama Maersk. The crew emphatically states that the pirates, contrary to early reports, never had control of the ship. As the bridge was being taken, Captain Phillips directed his chief engineer to take control, and the bridge controls were taken offline.

This explains why the pirates left the ship on a lifeboat with only Phillips as a prisoner. And it suggests that the one pirate the crew captured may have been overpowered when he was separated from the others while searching the engineering spaces.

Captain Phillips played his hand brilliantly, but it appears it was his chief engineer that dealt him that hand.

Every Kirk has his Scotty.

Never Waste a Good Crisis

Now that the USN has successfully rescued Captain Phillips and eliminated or captured all four pirates, we should be using the increased public awareness of the piracy problem to improve our anti-piracy policy. A few remarks:

Implications of Somali Piracy
1. Piracy in and of itself represents a threat to the economic interests of the United States. In addition to shipping companies paying out ransoms, insurance rates are going through the roof, and in some cases shipments are being re-routed, making the voyages longer and more expensive. Quite simply, piracy is an intolerable drain on commerce.

2. Although it is my opinion that the Somali piracy is organized crime, not terrorism, the success of the pirates thus far highlights weaknesses of the sort that terrorists can exploit. We should anticipate that terrorists will hijack vessels in the future, but with much more sinister intentions than holding the ship and crew for ransom. Possible terrorist missions could include threatening execution of hostages in exchange for political demands being met, causing a massive oil spill, sinking a ship in a narrow channel to block it, exploding a liquefied natural gas carrier, or attempting to collide with other vessels. It should therefore be a high priority to develop effective anti-hijacking tactics, as well as deploying technologies appropriate to this mission.

3. The limitations of the USN in dealing with piracy was demonstrated by this situation and others. Pirates are well-aware that they can succeed provided they are able to stay in possession of the captured ship and crew, allowing them to get to land.

4. The lethal violence used by the French Navy and USN may have second-order effects. On one hand, it may deter pirates into finding another line of work (this would surely happen if enough pirates met their demise that they could could count on being killed or captured). On the other hand, the pirates have already vowed revenge against US and French mariners. The gauntlet has been thrown, and over the short term, we should be prepared for an escalation of violence against US and French targets.

Developing Anti-Piracy Policies
1. Current ROE: CTF-151 will come to the aid of ships in distress and attempt to capture pirates caught in the act. This represents an evolution from previous ROE where pursuit was not authorized. Captured pirates are usually handed over to Somali authorities in Puntland, or to Kenya.

2. I agree with other commenters that the protection of US-flagged ships should be a priority for the US Navy. I am all in favor of our warships continuing to act to protect international trade in general, but, when a US-flagged ship is transiting this area, US assets should be allocated to them first, and to other traffic second. The vow of the pirates to take revenge upon US mariners should underscore this imperitive.

3. Merchant ships are generally unamred. This is not due to any international law prohibiting the carrying of arms, but rather because of legal difficulties that would arise in various destination ports. The use of small/mounted arms has been successful in preventing successful boardings, as the attempted attacks against the USNS John Lenthal and a German supply ship. The pirates use small, open skiffs to approach their targets, often having to chase them and overtake them slowly. They are relatively easy targets and will usually turn and run if fired upon. The lack of defensive arms on merchant ships is one of the principal factors enabling piracy, and is likely the lowest-cost solution (not considering legal difficulties or increases in insurance rates---i.e. legal BS).

In my opinion, arming merchant crews is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, foreign laws will likely make that impossible, and little can be done about that. It is a shame, because the purpose of law is to protect the lives and rights of people, and to facilitate efficient business. In the case of piracy, these laws are making people vulnerable while making business more difficult. These laws ought to be changed, but there is no way to "reach into" the domestic sphere of foreign states to change these laws.

Perhaps, alternatives could be considered. For example, private security firms could embark teams on merchants at one side of the transit, and disembark them on the other side. Cost, of course, would be a major factor, because this would require substantial logistical support. Another option may be to embark a small craft on which the weapons could be disembarked when the merchant makes a port call. The downside of this would be that some crew would not be available for loading/unloading operations while they "babysit" the weapons.

4. The current "area patrol" defensive tactics are clearly inadequate to deal with piracy. More effective tactics are needed. However, it must also be observed that the area is simply too large and too populated to completely lock down with any defensive tactics. Our goal should not be to stop every instance of piracy, but to deter it. Deterence will be acheived by killing and capturing enough pirates that the risk is not something that can be ignored. Therefore, our defensive tactics should be oriented towards apprehending as many pirates as possible.

5. Rather than responding to distress calls as the primary means of attempting to prevent hijackings/capture pirates, I propose a more pro-active approach. Merchant traffic should be corralled into designated corridors, chosen for their distance from heavily-fished areas. This should not be terribly difficult, because they already more or less use known shipping lanes. Those lanes might just need to be moved a little. CTF-151 and other anti-piracy vessels will then actively scout those sea lanes. Using ISR assets such as P-3 Orions, UAVs, and shipborne helicopters, vessels in those lanes should be identified. Those craft will then be subject to search, prior to the merchants arriving. If any craft is found with weapons, or especially ladders and grappling hooks, the occupants would be arrested. The motherships and skiffs should be seized, and, after checking to make sure any motherships aren't themselved captured craft, burned.

This approach poses two problems: logistical and legal. Legally, a navy cannot board a ship without consent, unless that ship flies the flag of its navy or is inside the territorial waters of that navy. So, a UN Security Council resolution will be necessary to carry out this strategy. Although, frankly, I think we'd be better off carrying out the boardings anyways. The consequences for illegally boarding some fishing boats is far less than the cost of allowing hijackings to continue.

Second, there is the logistical problem of getting out the boarding teams to the site. It will not be possible to saturate the sea lanes such that all potential pirate craft can be searched. But this is no reason not to do it. CTF-151 ships should patrol in the designated lanes, casting dragnet as they go, sprinting from craft to craft and sending out RHIBs to inspect them. Additionally, helicopter carriers like the Boxer can be used to transport small boats and crews greater distances than can be done with a frigate or destroyer. US ships should prioritize sanitizing the area ahead of US-flagged merchants.

Going forward, the DoD should take note of the kinds of platforms that are useful for sanitizing these sea lanes. As remarked earlier, we may need to develop these operations for counterterrorism at some point, as well as maritime security operations, or perhaps even protecting an amphibious operation from irregular or hybrid warfare. The more boarding teams and helicopters, and the better protected our people are, the better. And all the antiship missiles in the world aren't as useful as a well-trained sniper team.

6. A legal framework for trying pirates needs to be developed. Is this something the ICC could handle? The best option would be an international tribunal of some sort. Alternatively, I don't see any reason why Congress couldn't amend our own antipiracy statute to confer universal jurisdiction to the Federal courts as against pirates (edit: it would appear that the statute as written already does confer universal jurisdiction). I'd also be in favor of nonjudicial punishment at sea of pirates, but somehow I doubt that would happen in this day an age.

What not to do
While an ultimate solution to piracy must be on land, now is not the time to carpet-bomb Eyl or anything else we're hearing from the hawks along those lines. One thing to consider is that the pirates currently hold more than 200 hostages. There would also be a lot of collateral damage, which is bad enough on its own, but in addition, laying waste to pirate strongholds would have the 3rd-order effect of strengthening the fundamentalist terrorist insurgents to the south, possibly allowing them to sieze control of Somalia. A more responsible approach would involve an all-out nation building strategy, which no one has the resources or the stomach to follow through on.

I think our best bet is to reduce piracy through deterrence, and that the pirates will then turn to other ways to eke out a living, such as fishing and trade. If that transition is gradual, then soft-power techniques might be useful in slowly civilizing the area.

Questions About Controlling the Scene of a Hostage Situation at Sea

This post raises questions about the tactics employed in a counter-piracy hostage situation, such as the one ongoing right now. Before I get into the substance, I feel it necessary to express some reservations about going here. I think that uninvolved commenters like myself need to show deference to the people who are involved, both because we don't know the facts and because we don't know what it takes to run a command. That being said, I think the situation as it has unfolded over the last 24 hours warrants some pointed questions being raised.

My understanding is that in a hostage situation, the first order of business of the police is to isolate the hostage takers, and take tactical control of the environment surrounding the area controlled by the hostage takers. For example, police will evacuate all civilians to a safe distance, prevent any non-LEO personnel from entering the area, prevent the hostage-takers from leaving the area, occupy the area, observe with all means any activity within the area under control by the hostage-takers, and be prepared to react.

I don't know what steps the USN did to maintain tactical control over the area surrounding the Maersk lifeboat, but I think when this is over the Navy owes us all an explanation. What we do know is that Captain Phillips was able to temporarily escape his captors, get off the boat, and get into the water. Captain Phillips was taken back into pirate custody after a pirate swam after him, and after shots were fired by the pirates. This outcome suggests, to me, that the Navy did not have tactical control of the surrounding area.

Imagine, for a moment, the situation is on land. A hostage is being held inside a school, surrounded by a SWAT team. The hostage runs outside. But, no SWAT member is there to take the hostage into custody. Worse yet, as the hostage is running towards the police in the distance, one of the hostage-takers appears behind the escaping hostage and begins firing his weapon. And the police do nothing.

Unless there is something about this situation that I don't understand--and I recognize that there may well be--I find this outcome to be appalling. And our government owes us an explanation.

Specifically, I want to know:
(1) What was done to contain the pirates to the lifeboat?
(2) What methods of observation were used to observe the situation on the lifeboat? Was the boat constantly illuminated at night? Were personnel stationed close enough to the boat to observe the situation well?
(3) What plan did the Navy have in case the hostage escaped the boat? What would have been there response time?
(4) What plan did the Navy have in case they observed a weapon being discharged? What would have been their response time?
(5) What prevented the immediate elimination of all pirates on the lifeboat once the hostage was no longer on it?

and also, although it is not implicated yet, but soon may be:
(6) What was done to prevent non-Coalition platforms/personnel from entering the area isolating the lifeboat?

Because I am an uninvolved civilian, I will pose these as questions and will not speculate about the answers nor second-guess the commanders.... at least not until all the facts are known. But I think when this is all over, we are owed these answers.

Update 11 Apr 09:
We have a new fact and a rationale courtesy of the AP:

Sailors on the USS Bainbridge, which has rescue helicopters and lifeboats, were able to see Phillips but at several hundred yards away were too far to help him. The U.S. destroyer is keeping its distance, in part to stay out of the pirates' range of fire.

I am not comfortable with this. If the question is, "why wasn't the Bainbridge close enough to rescue Phillips and suppress/deter/eliminate his pursuers?" then the answer "we didn't want the Bainbridge to get shot at" is impotent. They are 4 guys with rifles; they do not get to push a US Warship (nor its helicopters [if it had any], nor its armed boarding parties) around.

This does raise some interesting questions about littoral warfare, though. Assume for a moment that returning fire is not an option; that the apparent "rule set" here is that the pirates are allowed to take pot shots at USN platforms and personnel but the USN cannot respond for fear of triggering the execution of Capt. Phillips. In the analogous SWAT situation, the police would not retreat to a distance greater than the effective range of a Kalashnikov, they would get behind cover. At sea, the only cover is the ship itself. Thus, this incident may be teaching us that a true littoral combatant needs to have armored gun positions and/or guns fired without exposed crew, and should probably also not have large, expensive, sensitive sensors or other things on deck that "don't react well to bullets." Just like insurgency at land, we are seeing the irregular warfare at sea requires armor, not speed.

Qat-Chomping Scumbags Rock Out on the Yasa Nesliham

Possible Escalation of the Pirate Situation

Some disturbing news:

The pirate, speaking to Reuters from Haradheere port, also said other pirates were taking a hijacked German ship, with foreign crew on board, toward the scene in the Indian Ocean where the lifeboat is floating, watched by U.S. warships.

"Knowing that the Americans will not destroy this German ship and its foreign crew, they (the approaching pirates) hope they can meet their friends on the lifeboat," said the pirate, who has given reliable information in the past but asked for his name not to be used.

{snip}

The 20,000-tonne German container vessel, Hansa Stavanger, was hijacked a week ago, about 400 miles off south Somalia, between Kenya and the Seychelles. It is thought to have 24 crew, of whom five are German.

This is a rather clever approach. Pirates know they have the advantage when they have people on a captured ship. They didn't have the luxury of that situation here, and it looked like the USN had a very strong hand to play, with the lifeboat out of fuel (or running out of fuel, depending on the report). The pirates, hundreds of miles out to sea, are in every bit as much need of rescue now as Captain Phillips. A fishing boat or skiff would never make it past the Bainbridge and USN air assets, but how do you stop a 20,000 ton ship, short of sinking it?

The Tom Clancy in me wants a SEAL team to come up underneath the ship and sabotage the shafts, stopping it dead in the water, but I have no knowledge whether we have the capability to sabotage a ship while it is underway.

Physically blocking a ship that size is not an option. Could naval gunfire disable the engines? Probably, but flooding or even fire would likely result as well. Can the crew perform damage control? Would the pirates execute a hostage if the ship was fired upon?

And that's what bothers me the most here--the implication that this may be an escalation by the pirates. Previously, hostages were simply detained for ransom. There was never any demand other than money, and there was no threat of execution if that demand for money wasn't met. The hostages would simply continue to be detained. If it is the case that the pirates have a new demand--to be allowed to rescue their comrades adrift at sea--and if this demand is not met, hostages will be executed, then the pirates will have crossed a very, very important line that so far they've stayed away from. They will have crossed from organized crime into terrorism.

I hope they understand the implications of crossing that line and fear its consequences.

Then again, with the current administration no longer describing our situation vis-a-vis terrorists as a "war," I'm not really sure what those consequences are anymore.

U.S. Weapons Being Smuggled to Mexican Cartels?

There's been some back-and-forth going on over the last few weeks over whether the majority of weapons used by Mexican drug cartels came from American dealers or came from South America or the Mexican army itself. Neither side had any meaningful numbers to back up their claims. Until now:

You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

{snip}

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.

Video:Click here to watch more.

A Look at the Numbers

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

Full article here.

Unbelievable!

I've been watching FNC's coverage of the Maersk Alabama incident, and they've got LTG Tom McInerney (ret.) on making recommendations on how to deal with this incident.

His suggestion? Use the F-22.

What would it do against pirates? They'd be on patrol, and since they can fly at Mach 2, they could respond quickly. Respond and do what, you ask? Answer: strafing runs. And the good General doesn't even think the F-22 could hit the pirate skiffs, just put fire in their vicinity.

Unbelievable. How many US commanders would risk a $178 million fighter (and that's not counting "sunk costs") on a strafing run against a pirate skiff that may have SA-14s on board? Are we really so desperate to plug the F-22 in the wake of the Gates recommendation that we're making these claims?

The F-16 has the same gatling gun the F-22 has for strafing runs, and can shoot it just as accurately. You can get 10 $18 million F-16s for the price of 1 F-22. Having 10x more aircraft on patrol will improve response time a hell of a lot better than the extra .2 Mach or so of speed. And if we get unlucky and lose an F-16 to a shoulder-fired SAM, it will be a major loss, but not the fraking disaster losing an F-22 would be.

Apparently, the case for the F-22 is so weak that we need to pretend we need it as an anti-piracy weapon.

M/V John McClane?

This morning, I awoke to learn that a US-flagged cargo ship with a US crew was hijacked.

Now, we're being informed that the crew took back control of the ship. At least one pirate is in custody.

That's.... amazing. Thought that shit only happened in Die Hard movies.


Photo: A rigid hull inflatable boat leaves USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) on its way to FGS Hessen (F 221) during the Neptune Warrior training course. Neptune Warrior is a course designed to increase interoperability in NATO coalition forces. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Coleman Thompson

Strategy Makes A Comeback

Secretary Gates presented his recommendations for the restructuring of our armed forces to the president today. Overall, it's a sound, bold new plan. The best thing about the plan is that it comes from a strategic view, not politics, ambition, or...whatever the hell it is we base our procurement on these days.

The Big Winner in all of this is the small-wars crowd, while the Cold Warriors take quite a thumping. Gates summarized the strategy that the force will be built on as: "we must rebalance this department's programs in order to institutionalize and enhance our capabilities to fight the wars we are in today and the scenarios we are most likely to face in the years ahead, while at the same time providing a hedge against other risks and contingencies." Short and sweet, that means small-wars, crisis repsonse, counterinsurgency and the like is the new "meat and potatoes" of our armed forces. The Cold Warriors who wanted to maintain a high-end force that could hand China's ass to it with 0 casualties are not going to get what they want. Which is as it should be, since major wars are rare and becoming rarer, while our military in constantly invovled in crisis response and small wars.

Last week, in his statement to the HASC, Thomas Barnett aptly described this choice:

It is my professional opinion that the United States defense community currently accepts too much risk AND casualties AND instability on the low end of the combat spectrum while continuing to spend far too much money on building up our combat capabilities for high-end scenarios. In effect, we over-feed our Leviathan force while starving our SysAdmin force, accepting far too many avoidable casualties in the latter while hedging excessively against theoretical future casualties in the former. Personally, I find this risk-management strategy to be both strategically unsound and morally reprehensible.

Gates shares the same sentiment:

But, it is important to remember that every defense dollar spent to over-insure against a remote or diminishing risk – or, in effect, to "run up the score" in a capability where the United States is already dominant – is a dollar not available to take care of our people, reset the force, win the wars we are in, and improve capabilities in areas where we are underinvested and potentially vulnerable. That is a risk I will not take.

Here are the highlights of the recommendations:
*Army and USMC come out ahead in personnel.
*Moar Choppars for the army, lots more ISR, including UAVs and some turboprops that I'll need to look into. I'm guessing relatively cheap aircraft with modern IR sensors.
*Improved air/sea lift capabilities
*Reaffirmed committment to LCS
*F-35 comes out as a winner
*F-22 to end at 187.
*Land and Sea Based theatre missile defenses reaffirmed (winners: SM-3, THAAD. Losers: Alaska, ABL, Multiple Kill Vehicle)
*Reaffirmed KC-X
*Replacement for Ohio SSBNs
*NO NEW (nuclear?) BOMBERS
*10-carrier Navy
*CG-X delayed
*DDG-1000 ended at 3, DDG-51 class restarted
*Reduced procurement of the surface fleet
*Amphib programs delayed (this surpises me)
*VH-71 Cancelled
*CSAR-X Cancelled
*FCS to be replaced with a new program

ACQUISITION REFORM
*Wants mature technology requirements, realism in anticipating threats, end requirements-creep
*more acquisition staff, greater oversight, stricter contact terms

For the most part, this looks like a very sensible plan. My only major concern is that we over-emphasize air supremacy over what we do when we have that supremacy. Between the F-22 and F-35, it makes some sense that the F-35 comes out the winner, but what we really need are dedicated CAS aircraft (although, to be fair, the plan does call for an increase in Army helicopters) and high-endurance bombers. The report does say no new bombers, but I'm not clear if they mean no bombers at all or no new bombers as part of our nuclear forces. I don't think we need nuclear bombers; SSBNs and ordinary strike aircraft can take care of that. What I don't want, however, are high-end aircraft like the F-22 and F-35 loitering over countries like Afghanistan or Iraq waiting for a call to go drop a JDAM on some insurgents, burning millions of dollars of jet fuel while they wait. I want a cheap aircraft like a dedicated CAS plane or a high-endurance plane like a bomber (more loiter time=less sorties=less operating costs and less wasted fuel) or even a high-endurance armed UAV to do that. The good news on this front: increased ISR, including UAVs and high-endurance turboprops. The bottom line is that once you have air supremacy, you don't need to be flying every mission with superfighters that can handle MiGs, SAMs, jamming at the same time while supporting the troops on the ground. You can fly the support missions with cheap planes designed for the specific missions they're going to be performing. Something like an A-10 or AC-130, even a B-52. Just have a few superfighters flying CAP on the borders to keep the airspace safe for the support aircraft and you're golden.

I'm also having some difficulty reconciling how Gates says his missile defense focus "on the rogue state AND theater missile threats" while funding only the theatre-defense programs but not those designed to protect against long range missiles from, e.g., Iran or the DPRK. I would be OK with focusing the technology on the theatre threat, while leaving the long range threat from the rogues to deterrence/preemption/anti-proliferation, but that's not what Gates said.

Those gripes aside, this is a very welcome change.

AIG: A Joke of a Scandal

This whole thing is stupid.

The Federal government knows how to, and is quite good at, placing conditions on receiving federal funds. Don't tell me that they couldn't have expressly required that the cash they gave to AIG did not go to bonuses, or anything else deemed wasteful. Of course they could have.

They chose not to. It was deliberate.

And now that the funds are being used for that, everyone's pissed at AIG, and it's Congress rousing the rabble.

Does anyone else find that at least a little disconcerting?

RKB Nunchaku?

Didn't see this coming. I expected that, after incorporation, the Heller line would go after other gun bans. Perhaps targeting state-level handgun or "assault-weapon" bans. Or, instead of focusing on the scope, they'd focus on getting an explicit ruling requiring Strict Scrutiny, and proceed to go after laws placing an undue burden on the right.

But now it appears that the next case is going to be about your right to keep and bear Nunchucks. And the case is being appealed to SCOTUS by none other than "BigLaw" Kirkland & Ellis, LLP.

Technically, it's an incorporation case, because that was the ground it was decided on under appeal. So, if it gets to the issue of scope, it will probably be after remand and coming back up again. But it is interesting nevertheless.

Heller contains some problematic and self-defeating language. The scope of the 2A, according to Heller, is weapons "in common use." The problem is that the government can regulate/ban weapons to make them NOT in common use, and having done that, those weapons are removed from the protection of the 2A. I call this the circularity problem. And it's something that needs to be addressed before the Heller line implodes on itself before it can effect meaningful change in the law. What we need is a holding that expressly defines common use around prior laws; i.e. common use includes weapons that were in common use prior to government intervention or would be in common use but for government regulation. Without this, the government gets to define the limits of its own power, which is a constitutional absurdity.

What does this have to do with nunchucks? Everything. As I mentioned earlier, the most likely route to the Heller line seemed to be to go after something like an AWB. There is a problem with that strategy, both politically (such a ruling would be controversial and contentious) and legally (Justice Thomas inserted some language which might have been an endorsement of bans on M-16s). Enter the nunchaku. These are not "especially dangerous" military weapons, nor do they provoke controversy the way so called "assault-weapons" do. That makes them fertile ground for a relatively safe "common use" argument.

Are they in common use? Probably not. But, the facts on the appellate record suggest otherwise. The challenged law prohibiting nunchucks was actually enacted because they had become prevalent, both among gang members and martial arts enthusiasts. The do-gooders got nervous and enacted the ban. So there's that. But, in all likelihood, "common use" will be a national, not local standard ("...being necessary to the security of a free state..." speaks to national security, not local security). Nevertheless, we don't know how "common" is "common." Martial arts enthusiasts around the country could well be common enough. As a generally nonlethal weapon, nunchucks aren't "particularly dangerous" in the meaning of Heller.

Bottom line: arguing about common use for martial arts weapons is a safe, conservative approach to expanding upon the Heller precedent. If the case loses, it would not be likely to reinforce the circularity problem, but to lose on a "safe" ground (not common enough, not related to militia service---yes, Miller is still alive, and this area was referenced in Heller and was the basis for the common use scope---etc. etc.).

No word on whether Chuck Norris plans to file an amicus brief.

New Star part II

China Summons Russian Ambassador

BEIJING - China summoned Russia's ambassador Friday to express shock over the sinking of a Chinese cargo ship by a Russian warship and urge a thorough investigation, the foreign ministry said.

Eight of the 16 crew members on board were killed when shots from a Russian naval vessel sank the Chinese-owned cargo ship the New Star off Russia's east coast on Sunday.

Russia has blamed the cargo ship's captain for the incident.

"The Chinese side expresses shock and deep concern over this incident," china's Vice Foreign Minister Li Hui told Russia's Ambassador to China, according to a foreign ministry statement.

"The Chinese side... strongly urges the Russian side to... quickly and thoroughly investigate this incident.

"We call on the Russian side to begin with a humanitarian spirit... and continue to make all efforts to find the missing personnel."

Russian diplomatic spokesman Andrey Nesterenko expressed regret over the incident, but said the Chinese ship had failed to heed warning shots.

"We regret the tragic consequences of this incident," he told the Ria-Novosti news agency.

"But at the same time, we put all the responsibility on the captain of the New Star, who acted in a totally irresponsible manner.

"We took exhaustive measures to stop the boat: the border guards fired warning shots, but the New Star continued on its way without reacting to the orders," he added.

Russian prosecutors said 10 Chinese and six Indonesian sailors were on board the vessel, Interfax reported.

Russian news reports said eight people had been killed in the incident, although these figures have yet to be confirmed by authorities.

The Sierra Leone-flagged, Chinese-owned vessel New Star had earlier fled the Russian port of Nakhodka where it had been impounded for alleged smuggling, media reports said.

In a video posted online that purportedly captured the incident, a man, apparently a Russian naval officer, is heard repeatedly urging the New Star to halt.

The Russian navy fired over 500 rounds to try to force the cargo ship back to port, China's state-controlled Global Times newspaper said.

Russian news agencies said the eight surviving crew members were rescued and taken to hospital.

Chinese Cargo Ship New Star Sinks off Vladivostok

Early reports are often wrong, so take the following with a grain of salt. But to paraphrase this article, the Russians detained a vessel suspected of smuggling, it left port without permission, and was prosecuted by a cruiser. Tried to limp back to port, but didn't make it. And neither did all the crew.

Bravo Zulu!

H/T: USNI Blog

Curtailing Extreme Searches at the Jail

I'm sure many will disagree, but I see this as a positive development:

NEWARK, N.J. (WPIX) -- A federal judge has ruled thousands of strip searches carried out at jails in Burlington and Essex counties in New Jersey were illegal. U.S. District Court Judge Joseph H. Rodriguez says the searches violate the Fourth Amendment and are unconstitutional.

The suspects who were searched were arrested for minor offenses, such as traffic tickets. The searches have been taking place at the Burlington County Jail and Essex County Correctional Facility since 2003.

Susan Chana Lask, who represents the plaintiffs, says approximately 10,000 people were strip searched. She says she plans to file a motion for a jury trial to determine damages. Lask says a jury could award as much as $10,000 to anyone who has been strip-searched while in custody for a minor offense. The plaintiffs may be entitled to millions of dollars.

At least eight similar suits are pending against jails in Union, Middlesex and Bergen counties.

Can there be people being "checked in" who may be hiding weapons? Sure. But strip and cavity searches for routine arrests are a bit excessive (I know cavity isn't mentioned in this article, but I know it happens in IL). You can find a weapon with a pat-down. The real purpose of these searches isn't safety, but degradation. They want to make the process of being arrested as difficult as possible, which allows them to harass innocent people. Take the case of Roderick Pritchett, for example:

The evening of Roderick Pritchett's descent into hell on earth started with an ordinary shopping trip to Safeway for his mom last November 21st. The 25 year-old African/Jamaican-American frequently ran errands for her; he was the sole car owner in his family.

On the way out of his south side Chicago apartment, he went back inside and grabbed his Taurus 9 mm pistol -- which was unloaded and in its case as Chicago law requires -- and tossed it in the passenger seat. Roderick liked to stop by the shooting range to practice his marksmanship once a week to stay sharp and keep his groupings tight.

In his wallet behind his driver's license was his FOID (Firearms Owner Identification Card) which he obtained before purchasing the gun in 2000. In accordance with the strict gun control laws enacted by Mayor Daley and the city legislature, Roderick kept the gun in his apartment and never carried it on his person. This seemed strange to him; the law essentially said that defending his property was more important than defending his life from the numerous predatory south side hoods. Pritchett however always followed the law, even the ones that defy common sense.

As he drove down South Ada St. toward the range, he noticed a police car tailing him. It was early evening and Roderick was a young black man with dreadlocks driving alone. In Chicago, that's lights-and-siren time. Sure enough, Police Officer Edward Kos and Officer Rodolfo Camarillo pulled him over at 87th and Ada for a burned out taillight.

The officers approached and asked if he would mind if they searched his car. Pritchett didn't object. He knew beyond a doubt that his 9 mm was 100 percent legal. He even had a copy of the Illinois gun laws in his case. When he handed over his driver's license, he also gave them his FOID and volunteered that he had a legal firearm in the vehicle. He knew he had nothing to fear.

Unfortunately, his confidence was short-lived. The police ordered him to take a seat in the back of their black-and-white. "The officers began questioning me from the front seat of their squad car before they even let me know I was under arrest," says Pritchett. "They giggled a couple of times before sarcastically asking me why I didn't run. I was shocked speechless at their rude treatment of me."

Pritchett couldn't understand why they were hassling him. With all the crime in the city, why should they bother someone with a legal gun? He pleaded that he was only going to the range and that his gun was legal, but to no avail. Pritchett was arrested for violating 720 ILCS 5/24-1.6 Aggravated Unlawful Use of Weapons.

One of the officers left the squad car and got behind the wheel of Pritchett's station wagon to drive it to the station. Apparently, Officers Kos and Camarillo were either ignorant of the laws regarding the legal transportation of firearms, or chose to ignore them. In any case, Roderick Pritchett was on his way to 72 hours of misery that he would never forget.

Pritchett had his legal gun confiscated and was transported to the Cook County lockup and charged with a Class 4 Felony. Next, he endured the standard treatment of any run-of-the-mill accused felon within Chicago city limits -- a quite thorough strip search that left no body orifice sacred, incarceration, long days and sleepless nights in a cramped, urine-stinking cell chockablock with accused rapists and thieves, and meals of stale bread and cold soup in the company of accused child molesters and slightly more palatable muggers.

When his mother finally scraped together the $500 bond to secure his release three days later, Pritchett had one more treat awaiting him, courtesy of the Chicago PD -- a $700 fee to spring his station wagon from the impound lot. He begged the police before they impounded his car to let his girlfriend pick it up. The cops refused.

Maybe I'm a little jaded from growing up in Cook County, IL. I've been fortunate that in all my dealings with (suburban) police, they've always been professional and courteous. But I'm also white and middle class, and I haven't done anything to get myself on, say, Dick Devine's shit list (at least I don't think so). So for the most part, I do trust the police, but strip/cavity searches at arrest pushes that trust beyond its limit. I see what you're doing there, and it's not OK.

Assigned Reading

Here is a very thoughtful analysis of the Palin candidacy, what it meant politically, the reality vs. the perception, and how it went down like it did. It gives a very thorough trashing of all the assumptions made on both sides. Very, very highly recommended. (Hat tip: Conservative Wahoo)

One thing I really liked about the theory behind the article is that it offers a sensible explanation for why Palin was mocked for inexperience but Obama got a free pass, in a way that goes beyond the O'Reilly "in the tank" line.

I'm still trying to figure out the "worldview" part. True, McCain did fail to be more than an "attitude poltician with an appealing biography," and would have benefited from articulating a vision of what "his" America would look like. But if McCain was an "attitude" candidate, Obama was an "emotion" candidate, also without a clear vision articulated. All people really knew about Obama's future America was that it would have Hope and would not have Bush. Well, maybe that's just it, when you're able to run against an unpopular administration, maybe emotion is enough, and the substance of the outgoing Pres is all the substance you need.

But, I think he's absolutely right about the need to tie substance with cultural populism. Cultural populsim was demonstrated to be stronger than people have given it credit for, and it's something that would do us some good if it found a voice in power. Maybe that detached-ness, the senselessness that DC has become could be corrected with a dose of some good old common sense and the wisdom the comes from life experience. So maybe the next candidate needs to be able to tap into that, like Palin did. But, whoever that is also needs to have some intellectual depth to his/her candidacy, if for no other reason than to prevent the "blank slate" effect where everyone just throws their own projections at the candidate.

Well, at least somebody stopped it...

It turns out that not only did we not scuttle the Iranian arms shipment (yes, I know that's a pipe dream), but we let it go, lacking legal authority to detain it.

Fortunately, the Cypriots were not lacking as well:

JERUSALEM, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Cypriot authorities have detained an Iranian ship en route to Syria with a cargo of weapons, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported on Friday.

Quoting a European Union diplomatic source, it said Cyprus had acted after Israel and the United States requested that the Cypriot-flagged vessel be stopped.

Authorities contacted the ship and demanded that it dock in Limassol for inspection. Customs officials had unloaded part of the cargo and a large amount of weaponry, including artillery rounds and rockets, the paper said.

Cypriot authorities declined comment.

Israel believes the weapons were destined for the Lebanese Islamist guerrilla group Hezbollah or for Islamist Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, Haaretz quoted Israeli sources as saying.

On Wednesday, U.S. military officials said personnel from the U.S. Navy vessel San Antonio last week boarded the Cypriot-flagged "Monchegorsk", a cargo vessel travelling from Iran to Syria, and found a weapons shipment but for legal reasons did not confiscate the cargo.

The officials declined to say what kind of weapons were found or how many. They also would not be specific about where or when the incident occurred.

It was unclear whether this was the same ship which Haaretz reported had been apprehended by the Cypriot authorities.

Officials in Washington said the search was conducted as part of the U.S. Navy's normal maritime security role in regional waters that stretch from the Arabian Sea to the Mediterranean.

The U.S. officials said the arms could not be shown to violate U.N. weapons sanctions against Iran and the vessel was allowed to continue on to Syria.

The incident came to light amid media reports that the U.S. navy has been ordered to intercept suspected Iranian shipments to rearm Hamas following Israel's 22-day Gaza offensive against the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. (Additional reporting by Michele Kambas in Nicosia, writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)

Speaking of Intermeddlers...

I really wish we would scuttle ships caught red handed like this. When there are no consequences, we come out looking like fools, even when we do pull off a minor tactical victory like this.

U.S. Navy stopped Iran ship carrying weapons and headed to Gaza

TEL AVIV — U.S. defense sources said the U.S. Navy tracked and intercepted an Iranian ship in the Red Sea that was headed for the Gaza Strip.

The sources said U.S. marines found ammunition, including artillery shells, concealed in crates aboard the cargo ship.

"There was a huge amount of crates on board and we called for help," a defense source said.

The U.S. television network CBS News reported that the ship was intercepted by the U.S. Navy near Egypt's Suez Canal. CBS said the U.S. Navy vessel requested that Egyptian authorities direct the Iranian ship to port for a thorough search.

The Antithesis of Hope

What a depressing week.

As if the stuff from yesterday wasn't bad enough, today I found this bad omen. Pres. Obama decided to become the first President to skip the Salute to Heroes (see below), preferring to rub shoulders with celebrities instead of with veterans and Medal of Honor recipients. It's appalling, and frankly, shocking as well. I was prepared for President Obama to be a bit of an elite snob, but not to this extent. And as much as I want to be part of the "loyal opposition" and stay away from toxic language, I can't help but describe this choice to prioritize celebrities over genuine American heroes as unpatriotic. Yeah, I went there, and I'm sorry, but I can't think of a less-toxic word that describes it.

But the part that really shocks me the most is the blatantness of it all. Now that he's President, he doesn't care to keep up appearances anymore. I expected the performance to continue, but instead, he's decided to stand up in front of the Nation and tell us all that he intends to use the office of the President to enjoy the high life, and that he'll get around to more important matters when he gets around to it. He has so much contempt for us that he insults our intelligence, confident that 50% +1 of us in an electoral majority of states will still be stupid enough to vote for him in four years.

Obama Snubs Nation's Heroes, Becomes the First President to Skip Ball Honoring Medal of Honor Recipients in Over 50 Years

Barack Obama may have stumbled over his words briefly during his inauguration, but he made an even bigger blunder later Tuesday evening. The newly sworn-in President opted not to appear at what should have been one of the most important Balls on his agenda that evening - The Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball.

The Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball was begun in 1953 for President Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration. The event recognized recipients of the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award. There were 48 Medal of Honor recipients in attendance, who were undoubtedly disappointed by the Commander-in-Chief's failure to show. Over the past 56 years and 14 inaugurations, no President has skipped this event - until now.

The Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball is sponsored by the American Legion, and co-sponsored by 13 other veteran's service organizations, including those such as the Paralyzed Veterans of America and the Military Order of the Purple Heart.

Instead of attending this ball honoring our nation's heroes, Obama was busy making stops at 10 other official balls. Obama and his wife's first stop was at the Neighborhood Ball. From there they went to the Home State Ball for Illinois and Hawaii, the Commander-in-Chief Ball, the Youth Inaugural Ball, and the Home State Ball for Delaware and Pennsylvania. They finished off the night with brief appearances at the Mid-Atlantic, Western, Midwest, Eastern, and Southern regional Balls.

Celebrities were a plenty at the balls, with Stevie Wonder, Shakira, Mary. J. Blige, Faith Hill, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Adam Levine, will.i.am, Sting, Mariah Carey, and Leonardo DiCaprio in attendance at the Neighborhood Ball. In addition, the other nine balls also featured a star-studded lineup including Kanye West and Kid Rock at the Youth Ball, Marc Anthony at the Western Ball, and Cheryl Crow at the Western Ball.

It was the party without all of the celebrities that Obama skipped. The very people who he sought to have support him during his candidacy and campaign, who have fought to protect this country, were snubbed in favor of publicity and the opportunity to rub shoulders - yet again - with the out-of-touch Hollywood elite.

Off To a Great Start, Aren't We?

Wow. What a great first week.

First, we got a glimpse of the new politics of civility.


Then, the new President decides to close the Gitmo detention facility. Without having any idea what else to do with them. Great plan! You know someone isn't serious about putting good governance before ideology when they take the ideological action and save the difficult questions for later. Strange.... that reminds me about a certain heavily criticized ex-President who invaded a country without any plan for handling the occupation and insurgency to follow. But, this is what passes for "CHANGE" these days.

Oh, news flash to the new administration: released detainees are popping up again fighting against US troops. Just recently, one was identified as a new AQ leader in Yemen. So you might want to figure this one out, you know, before people start getting killed for your cause.

The pledge for transparency in government lasted all of two days. I can give the snubbing of press reporters/photographers a pass for now--that was likely just a n00b gaffe that will sort itself out (although, between the retaliatory curtailing of access to some networks during the election, the pay-to-play angle to that story has additional credence). But, the new SECSTATE concealing donors is unforgivable. The only way she received any serious consideration was by promising transparency. But no, the Clintons had to renege on their promise and a cloud of corruption already hangs over the executive branch.

Not even a week in.