Gold Medals for a Global Committment to Issue Press Releases

The generic global buzz of the week a few weeks back was piracy off of the Somali coast, but it wasn’t that long ago that it was rapidly becoming a non-story. The International Maratime Bureau reported in 2007 that piracy in the Indian Ocean and East Africa fell to its’ lowest point in years. At the time, it was the US Navy active on the grey waters and the US which pushed for an effective reporting technology.

“We are like a beat cop conducting maritime interception operations either by radio queries or flag verification boarding, or pattern recognition,” he said. “We also pressurize the maritime environment to deny international terrorists its use as a venue for attack or transport of personnel, weapons, or other material”.

Thereafter, it was handed over to NATO, which in part meant that parties other than the US were taking the point. Then it went downhill, after any sort of success by European forces got a great deal of publicity.

Now, that failure, carefully leaving out the performance of any NATO member state Navies, we have the generic global story of the week to find in the generic global headlines and tut-tut over our oatmeal in the morning.

"Our participation in the Somalia project is an important one," said David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary. "This is obviously a very challenging project but one that European leaders are approaching with real humility as well as determination."

Which is where they get a platform for some sort of future and present grandstanding, in spite of the fact that the Indians were unwilling to screw around as the EU attempts to “make history” as it has in Darfur since their 2004 commitment to quickly deliver a rapid-reaction force to the area, one over which they continue to obfuscate over.

Speaking of bobbing platforms in the sea or otherwise, the wind-up toy that are the Grauniad’s writers come up with a real salve – not for the piracy problem, but [http://thylacosmilus.blogspot.com/2008/11/idealism-vs-reality.html] their feelings. Peter Lehr somehow managed to convince himself that

“A western armada is not the way to sink Somalia’s pirates…”

Indeed. Buoyancy is drowning. Freedom is slavery. Etcetera, etcetera… Now that the Armada of cutsie poo social concrens is finally on its' way, the promotes have met their match: Somali pirates with a skill at manipulating the European sensitivity for the environment, or rather showing a skill at making Pavlov's dog drool on cue:

The EU fleet also faces the problem of strong support for the pirates amongst coastal communities who hail them as heroes, defending Somali fishermen against poachers from foreign nations, including Spain and France.

"The presence of European war ships will undermine the Somalis' ability to protect their natural resources from illegal fishing," said Mohamed Said, a pirate leader whose group has held the Saudi super-tanker Sirius Star for ransom since 15 November.

"Many of the polluters of Somalia's waters, those who dump toxic waste, are Europeans. This force will contribute to giving them unimpeded access to our waters," he told AFP.

As if Somali pirates were protecting any resources at all to begin with. Further, the Europeans having hamstrung themselves out of being able to act on any sort of common sense need to do something that might require shots to be fires have also managed to find a way to outsource their dispensing of bad news and expactiation-reduction messages:

According to UNOSAT, a UN-affiliated agency that analyses satellite data, the recent increase in naval vessels has done little to deter pirates, only forcing them to concentrate their attacks in specific areas.

"You would need at least 100 naval ships in the area to make a decisive impact, but this is impossible," Jean Duval, a maritime expert with French private maritime security outfit Secopex told the French news agency.

And why is that? Because even if in reality they did only need 10 ships and a nfew aircraft, a way would be found to explain why it couldn't be done, letting snarling dogs bite - just so long as the image of themselves can remain good, that the poor societies around them still pretend to look up to them, and that no action would be required on their part to maintain a good image of themselves as responsible - so long as it comes at no cost of their need to act on the values they try to look like they're promoting.

Think about it: they are making a big deal out of commiting to go where they've already been and failed, and at the same time trying to find a way to make a future failure forgivable and un-noteworthy. It's pathological.