Center for a New American Security

Hahahahahahaha! Look at this clown from NBC News reporting from Kenya on the pirates. Apparently this guy thinks you have to dress up like Thurston J. Howell III when reporting on anything maritime. Glorious! You go on with your bad self, Keith Miller! We salute you!

Talks between U.S. officials and the pirates have broken down. A friend of mine has been asking whether or not we can send in the Navy SEAL Negotiating Team just yet.

"I've never seen a bond company stooge stick his neck out like that."

This is crazy. The New York Times is reporting that the U.S. Navy and the pirates are sending more ships to the standoff. The Guardian, meanwhile, has a helpful scorecard comparing the two sides and their capabilities.

NAIROBI, April 8 -- The crew of a U.S.-operated container ship that was commandeered by Somali pirates regained control of the vessel Wednesday and seized one of the attackers, according to U.S. officials and relatives of one of the American crew members.

Abu Muqawama can reveal EXCLUSIVE video of the scene aboard the Maersk ship.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Somali pirates on Wednesday hijacked a U.S.-flagged cargo ship with 20 American crew members onboard, hundreds of miles from the nearest U.S. military vessel in some of the most dangerous waters in the world.

It's all well and good to ask Lt. Gen. Paul K. Van Riper, USMC (Ret.) how to beat piracy. But why can't we just send PKVR himself off the Horn of Africa with his fishing boat and a .50-cal? If I were setting the Vegas odds, I would give PKVR a wide spread.

There is some good stuff in thus interview, though:

What we’re really talking about is what kind of methods folks might use that are unconventional. You struggle with words because to the person doing it, it’s not unorthodox, irregular, any of those things; it’s very normal. If you think in history, the Japanese didn’t think that kamikaze pilots were unconventional, but the U.S. did and the British did. The insurgents don’t think that IEDs [improvised explosive devices] are irregular or asymmetrical. It’s in the eye of the beholder. I think [the tactics] you’re seeing with many of these pirates—it’s not something they’ve done deliberately with relation to more modern nations—it’s what they do normally.

My goodness, if that isn't music to this blog's ears. It's only "irregular" or "unconventional" from our limited historical perspective.

In other news, Mac Owens has a really good criticism of Gen. Shinseki.

The fact is that Gen. Shinseki failed to prepare his service for the kind of war that emerged in Iraq in 2003: an insurgency. The “surge” implemented in 2007 by Gen. David Petraeus was successful not only because of an increase troop strength. It was successful because of the application of a new counterinsurgency doctrine that Gen. Shinseki and most other Army generals had rejected.

Of course, this is only coming up since Gen. Shinseki has been nominated to head up Veterans Affairs by the president-elect. And this is the National Review. Which hardly criticized Tommy Franks for battlefield ineptitude when he entered the political fray, speaking at the 2004 Republican National Convention and endorsing the president's re-election bid. (Mac Owens does, though, approvingly quote Yingling & Co., extending the criticism to the general officer corps at large.)