5th Fleet Focus: Naval Forces Ordered To Horn of Africa

Navy Lt. Nate Christensen, a spokesman for the 5th Fleet, spoke to the press on Monday and suggested that 5th Fleet naval forces will be moving towards Somalia to fight pirates. In reading the several press reports on the topic, we had a good laugh at the suggestion. Despite the rhetoric otherwise, allow us to speak to the realistic position that the US Navy does not have the resources to manage the pirate problem off Somalia short of dedicating a major strike group to the effort, which they will not, and even then we don't believe the Navy would be that effective in much else than deterrence. The US Navy is built to fight a war, and is not structured well at all to manage peace.

While it is the understatement of the year to suggest the US Navy can sweep the seas of every pirate they can find, the suggestion that the US Navy is going to saturate the coast of Somalia with sufficient resources to actually find pirates in the several million square miles of threatened waters is laughable. Besides, it is unlikely piracy is the only reason the US is moving naval forces towards Somalia anyway.

As we discussed over the weekend, the World Food Programme is screaming for assistance in protecting their food shipments for delivery to UN aide workers in Somalia, and absolutely no one is coming to help. According to the International Herald Tribune, the recent increase in violence has aide workers leaving town... and the country.

At a time of drought, skyrocketing food prices, crippling inflation and intensifying street fighting, many of the aid workers upon whom millions of Somalis depend for survival are fleeing their posts - or in some cases the country.

They are being driven out by what appears to be an organized terror campaign. Ominous leaflets recently surfaced on the bullet-pocked streets of Mogadishu, Somalia's ruin of a capital, calling aid workers "infidels" and warning them that they will be methodically hunted down. Since January, at least 20 aid workers have been killed, more than in any year in recent memory. Still others have been abducted.

The warlords are sending clear messages, and this is a sample of the violence taking place as a new power struggle in Somalia appears to be developing momentum.

The attacks on aid workers - including Westerners, Somalis working for Western organizations and Somalis working for local groups - have escalated this month. Two weeks ago a high-ranking UN official was shot as he stepped out of a mosque. Last Sunday, a trucking agent in charge of transporting emergency rations was killed. On Thursday, three elders who were helping local aid workers distribute food at a displaced persons camp were shot and killed.

The health situation is already critical, a recent measles outbreak in southern Somalia has already killed 18 infants, and threats hundreds more. The vaccination treatments cannot be delivered due to the violence, which also makes the trip to nearby health clinics, some of which are dozens of miles away impossible for parents with sick infants. UNICEF says only 5 percent of infants in Somalia have been immunized against measles and other life threatening diseases.

With aide workers packing up, food shipments halted, health care disappearing, and violence increasing it would not appear the US Navy is reacting to piracy, rather the developing situation in Somalia that in the past has triggered a humanitarian crisis, resulting in a migration of people fleeing Somalia towards Yemen. People smuggling to Yemen is big business.

If you look at the latest IMB piracy maps, you'll note the same areas where the highest concentration of piracy is located just happens to be the most likely place where a humanitarian situation develops. The US Navy may claim they are moving forces in to fight piracy, but we think that is just coincidence, the real reason the US Navy is moving forces is likely to prevent the potentially massive humanitarian disasters that occur whenever large numbers of people flee Somalia. After all, with the well known problems of piracy in the region, if the western Navies don't help the people, no one does, and people die... sometimes by the thousands.