What Did He Just Say?

So I am reading this article by David Axe recently published in Warships International Fleet Review about the murders of the Americans off the coast of Somalia earlier this year. I don't see the US doing anything in response to those murders that hasn't already been done, and I believe that means we can expect the same thing to happen again.

But what caught my attention is this video David Axe took while apparently on a VBSS mission from USS Donald Cook (DDG 75). I believe that video was taken during a trip David Axe went on earlier last year when USS Donald Cook (DDG 75) was part of NATO counter piracy.

Watch the video.

Did you watch it? Ugly, right?

The problem in Somalia is the lack of jobs, and even though there are no jobs, we can't find anyone in Somalia who speaks English that would work as an interpreter for our VBSS missions? We could probably find plenty of Somali+English speaking interpreters in Yemen currently living there as refuges in a UN tent city. If they really wanted to tell the USN folks something, would the USN folks even understand? Didn't look like it.

I get it that there are other potential languages, but no more than 2-3 possibilities.

Also, it might be worth it, every now and again, to ask to buy fish from folks we know are legitimate fisherman. Just saying.