Ralph Peters Plays His Only Tune, ‘Crush The Barbarians’
Ralph Peters Plays His Only Tune, ‘Crush The Barbarians’
Via Ilan Goldenberg, conservative nutter Ralph Peters reacts to the successful use of law-enforcement techniques against Somali pirates by insisting that “piracy is not a law-enforcement problem. It’s a military problem.”
And retribution can’t be “proportional,” a tit-for-tat tap. Pirates and their supporters must be punished fiercely and comprehensively.
Attack their harbors with land, sea and air power. Kill pirates, sink their vessels (including those dual-use fishing boats) and wreck their support infrastructure. The clans behind the pirates must feel sufficient pain to rein in their young thugs. The price for piracy should be stunning.
And we don’t need to stay to rebuild Somalia. End the fix-it fetish now. We need to leave while their boats are still burning down to the waterline.
Interestingly, the “make them feel the pain” approach is precisely what Peters advocated for Iraq back in October 2006:
If we can’t leave a democracy behind, we should at least leave the corpses of our enemies. The holier-than-thou response to this proposal is predictable: ‘We can’t kill our way out of this situation!’ Well, boo-hoo. Friendly persuasion and billions of dollars haven’t done the job. Give therapeutic violence a chance.
Among those who believed we couldn’t “kill our way” out of Iraq’s insurgency: General Petraeus. (Though the fact that Petraeus’s counter-insurgency strategy represented a complete rejection of Peters’ ideas didn’t stop Peters from mocking critics of the surge.)
As Ilan notes, “just about everyone who has seriously covered this [Somalia] issue would tell you that [Peters' suggestions] would only make things worse.” Right now we’re dealing with a piracy problem that’s driven primarily by profit. If, however, we wanted to transform Somalia into yet another front in the global jihad — with all of the staggering costs in lives, resources and security that would involve — we could follow Peters’ recommendations.
2 Responses to “Ralph Peters Plays His Only Tune, ‘Crush The Barbarians’”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Wonk RoomContact Us
Donate
The problem, as I see it, with Peters’ plan is that it’s literally impossible to tell a pirate ship from a fishing ship until the pirates pull out guns and try to board another vessel. His suggestion is tantamount to sending the military into Los Angeles to kill every Black person between the ages of 11 and 45 who’s wearing red or blue as a way to end the violence between bloods and crips. And there’s no need to stay behind afterward to make sure the innocent victims caught in the crossfire receive health care; leave their bodies behind as a warning to anyone else who may want to join a gang someday.
April 14th, 2009 at 6:00 pmAnd how will Peter’s plan blowback on the U.S.? Afghanistan blew back in a huge way. Somalia had al Qaida training camps. Clumsy violence sounds like a supremely bad plan.
April 14th, 2009 at 6:06 pm