NATO and Navies better take a Nap

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.
 - Albert Einstein

Send NATO and their Navies to the Shrinks By Venatrix Fulmen (ecop-marine)

Naval atrocities are on the increase while Somali pirates resort to human shield tactics and attacks with pirated merchant ships now all over the Indian Ocean.

[N.B.: Please beware of the links to the NATO websites quoted here. Since NATO is engaged now also in cyber-warfare, they have employed some hackers, which rendered their websites unsafe to use.]

Nobody believed it at first when marine monitoring and protection group ECOTERRA Intl. revealed that the gigantic crude-oil carrier SAMHO DREAM was used in cohorts with a commandeered Iranian fishing vessel to capture another merchant ship. But also according to the returning crew of the earlier sea-jacked VLCC SAMHO DREAM, the pirates made use of the supertanker to capture another tanker, the MT POLAR.

The Filipino seafarers – released after a ransom of US $9.5 million was paid – reported that up to 50 pirates armed with AK47 rifles and RPGs stormed their ship on 4 April, and later used the potentially hazardous vessel full of crude oil to capture an Iranian fishing boat which in turn was used as an attack ship to seize the Polar, with the supertanker acting as covering pirate-base and mother ship of the operation. This could be called for once a real mother ship, while the mighty navies usually already speak of a mother ship when one small 12m boat pulls an even tinier skiff.

What these sailors might not have witnessed is that the Iranian captain thereafter received reportedly a big wad of banknotes as a “Thank you for the co-operation” and was released with his vessel and crew without ransom.

Lots of work to improve naval protection and shipping governance, one might think, but the naval circus – having anyway another agenda – obviously concentrates more on cover-up operations and media-spin than on helping to foster real solutions, which only can come from the Somali coast. There people are still horribly impoverished with no help in sight, since also the navies don’t do anything against the persistent overfishing by illegally operated foreign fishing fleets in the Somalia waters or the Indian Ocean at large.

That the navies cannot win in the water wars off the Horn of Africa is a widely documented fact and admitted by the sober naval forces’ commanders themselves. But the fact that frustrations over the inefficiencies and systemic shortcomings drives many of them to actions, which either are grotesque or must be judged and hopefully soon will be prosecuted as atrocities, is less often clearly pointed out.

The Grotesque

What is known in psychology and ethology as displacement behaviour was demonstrated again in the destruction of a coastal fishing boat during what NATO called a “farewell operation” executed by the British warship Montrose. Though exemplary bizarre, such behaviour is especially for the UK naval forces meanwhile typical.

“As her deployment in the Somali Basin draws to a close, British warship HMS Montrose, operating as part of NATO’s counter piracy operation, Ocean Shield, left a parting shot with Somali pirates,” a NATO statement reads and narrates further:

“During one of her dawn patrols off the Somali coast, HMS Montrose’s Lynx helicopter spotted a pirate whaler anchored off a known pirate camp and it was quickly identified as the whaler from MV Zouflecar which has been acting as a mother ship since it was taken by pirates on 3 November 2010. With permission granted to destroy the pirate whaler, HMS Montrose’s helicopter was launched, and as she hovered above, Royal Marine snipers fired and sank it with their M3M 50 calibre machine gun in full view of the pirate camp.”

HMS Montrose’s Commanding Officer, Commander Jonathan Lett [British] Royal Navy said:  “HMS Montrose has been patrolling off the Somali coast for some time and we know how the pirates operate.  Our destruction of the whaler close to a known pirate camp has sent a message to the Somali Pirates, that NATO and other coalition forces are willing to take the fight to them in order to prevent them attacking merchant ships.”

Though it is not known – neither to the public nor to the Somali government – who actually granted that permission and who legally could grant such act of wanton destruction inside the territory of Somalia, it must be said – whatever the exculpating explanations are – that the boat, which so demonstratively was destroyed, was nothing else than a small, open fishing boat, which had earlier been donated to Somali fishermen for their artisanal fishing activities. It was without any “gunmen”, just sitting in the water off a beach and not posing any threat to anybody.

Psychologically interesting is also the fact that the navies persistently use the term “whaler” for these small open boats – readily copied by the less intelligent mass-media.

These robust fibreglass boats with small inbuilt tanks for live fish-bait, which are called by the Somalis lovingly “Volva” for their slow but reliable Volvo Penta inboard motors are nothing similar to a whaler. While a “whaler” is a specialized ship, designed for whaling – i.e. the catching and/or processing of whales – and those vessels are equipped with a harpoon gun mounted at its bows, the Somali fishing boats are nothing like that. Though naval landing or patrol boats can have a so-called “gun whale” with a mounted machine gun, which might trigger the fantasies of the naval marines, fortunately so far none of the Somali fishing boats usually stolen and misused by the real pirates from their starving brothers has any of these features. Alas, the navies still love the expression of “whaler” to make it psychologically easier to “gun ‘em down”.

However, the two pictures – showing in one the poor marksmanship of the chopper-gunners and in the other the broken fishing boat on the beach and destroyed by this “heroic” act – were quickly withdrawn from the press release on the NATO website. This was maybe done to not embarrass an RAF airman, who had argued in a Scottish newspaper  – using the argument “Just this week Royal Navy Marines destroyed a pirate ship off the coast of Somalia” – against British Prime Minister David Cameron’s withdrawal of the Nimrod programme  – a multi-role aircraft and a multi-billion dollar scandal “in support of Royal Navy anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Africa and other dangerous shipping lanes”. That scandal of course also involves notorious and serious-fraud-investigated British weapons-producer BAE Systems.

The Atrocities

That destroyed small fishing boat with its distinctive dots of paint might well have been used in an earlier operation by a pirate gang, but boats are regularly stolen from the fishermen to whom they belong. So, what tells the monstrous Montrose marines that it was not in the meantime fetched back by the real owners?.

Even more worrisome is the fact that the navies now presume every fisherman’s camp along the ocean in Somalia to be a “pirate” camp. It is very well known and documented by the numerous fishing projects that traditionally the Somali fishermen, who have only a limited reach with their small boats  – since they have for lack of refrigeration to bring their catch back to the beach to be salted and dried – establish temporary shelters along the coasts of remote locations, where there is no town or village nearby.

But for the navies, blindfolded by their hatred because they don’t get a grip on piracy despite all the efforts costing taxpayers in the meantime billions, all temporary shelters along the coast are now identified as “pirate camps”, all villages as “pirate dens”, all towns as “pirate heavens” and all boats as “pirate boats” – and their destruction is listed in the naval “success”-statistic, though with an all time record high in sea-jacked vessels the navies would do better to sail home and let other people solve the real underlying root causes of the piracy.

These destruction-statistics seem to be a must in order to also satisfy the bean-counters at home, who might wonder if it would not be cheaper to pay a Somali media-stringer with his mobile-phone camera to get as only result a blurred picture of an alleged PAG “pirate attack group” – instead of sending a multi-million dollar submarine – like the Dutch did.

However, the scene described by NATO in their press release on the destruction of the small boat reminds rather of a Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy parody than of the recently recently wiki-leaked chopper incident with the killing of innocent journalists and unarmed civilians by a U.S.-American helicopter crew in Baghdad, which also had “permission granted.” But clearly such scenes also exist in Somalia.

That “permission” was granted in a similar incident near the Somali beach of Labad north of Hobyo recently, whereby four Somalis, who reportedly wanted to defend their fibreglass boat from being stolen or destroyed by a naval commando, were killed by helicopter gun-fire from a naval chopper has not yet been openly admitted by any official, but it was witnessed. Since the navies nowadays are such cowards that they even didn’t reveal, who flew that attack-chopper or from which nation it came, the case still needs a full investigation like the Norwegian murderous attack on innocent fishermen at the northern Somali coast or the sinking of in the meantime already two vessels of the infamous Thai fishing company Sirichai by naval forces during counter-piracy operations. Though marine protection groups might welcome the sinking of these vessel for whatever reason, serious human rights questions and the legality of the naval actions have not been answered.

Unfortunately the media – even those who did publish the witness statements in the Labad case – seem to have no interest or are cautioned to ask NATO or the other navies the burning questions until they would get satisfactory answers. EU NAVFOR denied to have been involved in the Labad case, though they revealed their knowledge of the the incident in interviews e.g. by AFP, but why NATO remains mum still needs to be answered.

The ability for European naval forces to switch command and evade responsibility is easy. NATO Forces currently being commanded in Operation Ocean Shield are:

• HDMS ESBERN SNARE (presently Flagship) – Denmark – determined to hit back and bust potential Islamic cartoon critics by snaring Somalis of all kinds on their waters.
• USS KAUFFMAN – United States of America – usually holding back to let the vassals like the Dutch or the Danes do the questionable work.
• USS LABOON – United States of America – secret oversight and looking below on foes’ and friends’ subs.
• HMS MONTROSE – United Kingdom – the most frustrated hooligans, who should be banned from going to any football stadium.
• RFA FORT VICTORIA – United Kingdom – relaxed MI6 outpost on the waters with excellent wine cellar, oiling intel from the region or other ships and overseeing the Seychelles’ performance to dance to the piper-bag’s tune.
• ITS BERSAGLIERE – Italy – rather dreaming of re-enacting Gabriele Salvatore’s excellent film “Mediterraneo” than just feasting at Indian Ocean harbours under the control of NATO.
• HNLMS AMSTERDAM – Netherlands - usually harassing fishermen and now picking the wrong people with whom they are stuck. 20 Somalis are lavishly but illegally held on that vessel, which Kenya, South-Africa and even the homeland of the Dutch warship refused to take for lack of any evidence. 
• Dutch submarine ZEELEEUW – gone home with loads of blurred pictures and no intelligence.

The naval displacement activities must actually be seen twofold: As psychological disorder creating grotesque scenes or outright atrocities and as well as having far reaching implications by displacing Somali fishermen from their waters, causing more hungry people to flee to internally displaced people’s camps and displacing the activities of meanwhile internationally organized crime syndicates deriving from the formerly local problem of “Somali piracy” by forcing their expansionism to the far coasts of India and elsewhere. In the latter NATO and other players might see a strategic interest to coerce regional countries into the phalanx of the West for the upcoming larger games, but if there is one Admiral of true honour is left, he must come out now fighting against the lies and atrocities, which characterize the present naval operations.

A rest at home,  a transfer to the shrinks as well as the shrinking of easy monetary access might be well advised and is recommended as a medical prescription to heal the naval excesses.

‘‘… moral power is to physical as 3 parts of 4.’’
— Attributed to Napoleon in Treasury of Thought by Maturin M. Ballou (1899)

For further details and regional information request the Somali Marine and Coastal Monitor and see the updated map of the PIRACY COASTS OF SOMALIA as well as the archive at www.australia.to and news on www.international.to