Hillary Clinton's Great Piracy Plan

The Hillary solution


Reading Hillary Clinton's new grand anti-piracy plan she unveiled today reminded me of an incident back in the 1970s when I was stationed in Bangkok with DEA. We had received information from our Seattle office that an American heroin smuggler who had just been indicted was located in a small Bangkok hotel where he was in the process of sending more heroin into the US. It was requested that we take the Thai police and have him arrested for extradition back to the US.

When we got to the hotel, the Thai cops and I proceeded to the second floor where the suspect's room was located. He was in the room, but the Thais were concerned that he might flush any heroin he had if someone knocked on the door. The cops then proceeded to pose some ruses we could use to get him to open the door. One cop proposed going into the adjoining room and crawling through the ceiling then dropping down into the suspect's room, whereupon, we would all say, "Sawat dii" (bad idea). Another cop proposed calling him from the lobby and telling him he had a package from Teheran.....

Teheran?!? My idea, on the other hand, was simpler:

"Kicko el dooro downo".

At this point, the door to the room opened, El Bad Guy came out and said to us, "hey, can't a guy get any sleep around here?" at which point the Thais proceeded to grab him.
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Now here is Hillary Clinton's grand proposal for dealing with "the scourge of piracy".


The State Department will seek ways to track and freeze pirate assets.

It "could be possible" to find ways to get boat building companies to stop doing business with pirates.

Work with shippers and insurers to help them strenghten their defense against pirates.

Call for immediate meetings of an international anti-pirate task force.

The State Department will call on Somali Government leaders (whoever they are) and tribal leaders to crack down on pirates.

And last but not least, the State Department will seek to increase aid to Somalia's "government" at a donors conference next week in Belgium. Of course.

Hey Hillary! How 'bout we call the pirates and tell them they got a package from Teheran?

Bottom line? Hillary has no ideas. She's just making it up as she goes along like she always does. She is talking about blue ribbon commissions, police actions as opposed to miltary ones, international cooperation with "allies" that are unwilling to use military force (except, interestingly, the French, who have rescued a couple of their ships), pleading with mysterious Somali "leaders" to police their own country and giving more aid to one of Africa's biggest stinkholes. Brilliant.

Here's my idea. If it is, in fact, in America's vital national interest to keep those shipping lanes safe for American ships, then it's time to send in the rockets. Forget the land troops. Forget the helicopters. Just identify the boats and wipe 'em out. Howzat?

In other words, kicko el dooro downo.