Blood in the Water

While it has been almost universally praised stateside, President Obama's directive authorizing snipers to kill Somali pirates is getting criticized from one quarter: the international shipping and insurance industries, which fear the commando action will only spur pirates to greater violence and put merchant ships at greater risk.

Obama was praised across the political spectrum after he authorized a team of Navy SEAL commandos to shoot three Somali pirates who had been holding Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama cargo ship, hostage for five days. In what appears to have been a perfectly executed operation, the Navy snipers killed all three pirates and freed Captain Phillips. U.S. officials have said that because it appeared one of the pirates was pointing a rifle at Phillips's back, the snipers believed he was in imminent danger.

But some shipping experts worry that using deadly force in hopes of deterring the pirates could backfire. "We are already concerned that last week's rescue operation could increase the level of violence," says Hannah Koep, West Africa analyst with Control Risks, an international consulting and security company that advises insurers and ship owners on piracy-related issues. In lawless and impoverished Somalia, adds Jim Wilson, a Middle East correspondent for Lloyd's Register-Fairplay, a shipping information service, "life is cheap. If you kill one pirate, someone is going to take his place. If you kill a hundred pirates, hundreds will take their place ... If you are going to go around shooting people, you are going to radicalize the [Somali] population."

There have been a spate of pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia since the stirring Navy SEAL rescue of Phillips on Sunday. In one incident reported Wednesday, pirates used rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons to attack the Liberty Sun, a U.S.-flag vessel, but were unable to board when the ship took evasive maneuvers. Meanwhile, Somali pirate leaders are vowing to avenge the deaths of their fellow pirates. "No one can deter us from protecting our waters from the enemy because we believe in dying for our land," Omar Dahir Idle, a pirate leader, told the AP in a telephone interview. Another pirate, a 25-year-old involved in the attack on the Liberty Sun, told the AP: "We will seek out the Americans, and if we capture them, we will slaughter them."

U.S. officials and commentators have portrayed the commando action as appropriate and necessary, not only to rescue Phillips but also as a message intended to deter Somali-based pirates from future attacks on merchant shipping in the vast and busy sea lanes that cross the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed for the arrest and prosecution of pirates, and unveiled a plan to "track and freeze and try to disrupt" their assets.