As promised, we're doing more coverage on pirates since it's all over the news these days, and it's honestly a nice distraction from the economy. I came across this article on Yahoo! News entitled, "
Ron Paul's Plan To Fend Off Pirates."
A little-known congressional power could help the federal government keep the Somali pirates in check — and possibly do it for a discount price.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and a growing number of national security experts are calling on Congress to consider using letters of marque and reprisal, a power written into the Constitution that allows the United States to hire private citizens to keep international waters safe.
Used heavily during the Revolution and the War of 1812, letters of marque serve as official warrants from the government, allowing privateers to seize or destroy enemies, their loot and their vessels in exchange for bounty money.
The letters also require would-be thrill seekers to post a bond promising to abide by international rules of war.
In a YouTube video earlier this week, Paul suggested lawmakers consider issuing letters, which could relieve American naval ships from being the nation’s primary pirate responders — a free-market solution to make the high seas safer for cargo ships.
“I think if every potential pirate knew this would be the case, they would have second thoughts because they could probably be blown out of the water rather easily if those were the conditions,” Paul said.
Theoretically, hiring bounty hunters would also be a cheaper option.
National security experts estimate that this week’s ship captain rescue by Navy SEALs cost tens of millions, although a Navy spokesman says the military cannot confirm the exact cost of the mission.
Instead, privateers would be incentivized to patrol the ocean looking for key targets — and money would be paid only to the contractor who completed the job.
“If we have 100 American wanna-be Rambos patrolling the seas, it’s probably a good way of getting the job done,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow and security expert Eli Lehrer. “Right now we have a Navy designed mostly to fight other navies. The weapons we have are all excellent, but they may not be the best ones to fight these kinds of pirates. The only cost under letters of marque would be some sort of bounty for the pirates.”
According to Senate historians, Congress hasn’t issued a letter of marquee since the War of 1812, but the Confederate States of America issued them during the Civil War to deliver supplies behind enemy lines. There are also some indications that a letter was granted to a flying band of armed civilians during World War II to operate the Resolute, a Goodyear Blimp used to patrol the ocean for enemy submarines, but the issuance isn’t apparent in the Congressional Record.
If Congress were to revisit the antiquated process, a serious makeover would be required.
In the past, privateers were allowed to keep the ship and treasure they captured in an enemy encounter.
Quite an interesting read. As awesome as it is to have privateers to counter pirates, I think there'd be some problems. It could definitely spark an international incident if some privateers got captured by pirates, which essentially gives the pirates more prisoners and it strengthens their hand at the negotiation table. In addition, I think you can get into some gray areas with mercenaries, as we've seen Blackwater (mercenary corporation) run into problems with the authorities in Iraq.
Nevertheless, it'd be interesting to see how many American citizens would be willing to answer to the call to arms, and take on the pirate menace. The raging capitalist in me thinks this is an interesting and efficient use of the free market. When you consider that a navy rescue operation of costs millions of dollars to pull off, the private market may be able to deliver a solution for cheaper. I've also read that the US Navy currently is setup to counter other seafaring nation's navies, and therefore, is ill-equipped to counter an irregular force such as pirates. I'm pretty sure ten years ago, when the navy had to imagine what type of battles they'd be fighting in the future, naval engagements with pirates were probably very low on the list.
