NATO Snatches Defeat From the Grip of Victory

NATO has found a way to waste an excellent operation conducted by the Dutch Navy. First, lets cover what has happened.

Dutch commandos freed 20 Yemeni hostages on Saturday and briefly detained seven pirates who had forced the Yemenis to sail a "mother ship" attacking vessels in the Gulf of Aden, NATO officials said.

In a separate incident, gunmen from Somalia seized a Belgian-registered ship and its 10 crew, including seven Europeans, further south in the Indian Ocean.

"The Pompei is heading slowly towards the Somali coast," Peter Mertens, a spokesman for a Belgian government crisis centre, said. "We have had visual contact from a helicopter of a Spanish navy ship."

Sounds like the Dutch should be celebrating, and this is nothing short of outstanding in my opinion, but this is what has the government a tad pissed off.

He said the hostages had been held since last week. The commandos briefly detained and questioned the seven gunmen, he told Reuters, but had no legal power to arrest them.

"NATO does not have a detainment policy. The warship must follow its national law," he said.

Let me get this straight. The Dutch collect evidence from an attack on a Greek ship, then perform a rescue of a Yemen fishing boat, freeing 20 hostages, while collecting evidence, which constitutes a tremendously successful operation against pirates.

Then NATO comes along and orders the release of the pirates? This smells like a diplomatic incident in the making. Already it is starting to look like the Dutch government is very unhappy with NATO.

Between CTF-151, Atalanta, and NATO we have three chain of commands with no international framework that scales to everyone for prosecuting pirates. The west looks incapable of upholding international law. 3 groups with 3 distinct chain of commands. What a mess.

Well done to the Dutch Navy, too bad NATO found a way to waste the excellence of the Dutch Navy.