Help
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30204891/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30215566/
Hillary Clinton's plan to fight the pirates:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30231056/
msnbc.com said:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday the State Department will work with shippers and insurers to bolster their defenses against pirates, part of a diplomatic initiative to thwart attacks on commercial ships off the Somali coast.
"These pirates are criminals, they are armed gangs on the sea. And those plotting attacks must be stopped," Clinton told reporters at the State Department.
Clinton did not call for using military force against the pirates, although she mentioned "going after" pirate bases in Somalia, as authorized by the U.N. several months ago.
We need to bring 21st-century solutions to bear," she said.
In a question-and-answer session with reporters, Clinton said it may be possible to stop boat-building companies from doing business with the pirates. One element of her initiative, she said, is to "explore ways to track and freeze pirate assets."
The other element of the initiative includes calling for immediate meetings of an international counter-piracy task force to expand naval coordination against pirates. She said federal agencies would meet Friday to review the problem and consider potential responses.
The administration plans to send an envoy to a Somali donors conference scheduled for next week in Brussels and will attempt to organize meetings with officials of Somali's transitional government as well as regional leaders in its semiautonomous Puntland.
Gates: More ships, weapons
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the high-seas pirate drama shows why the Pentagon should buy more affordable ships, planes and weapons even if they are not perfect.
"As we saw last week, you don't necessarily need a billion-dollar ship to chase down a bunch of teenage pirates," Gates said while visiting Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.
Although Gates has praised the precision training of Navy SEAL snipers who killed three pirate hostage-takers Sunday, he was referring to the imbalance of massive U.S. warships and dazzling weaponry corralling the pirates' tiny lifeboat. The Somali pirates were armed with automatic weapons and pistols and holding an American cargo ship captain for ransom.
Gates is touring war colleges this week, selling his plan to reorder the Pentagon budget. He wants to cancel some big programs and scale back others.
It was at this same Air Force War College that Gates a year ago accused the service of dragging its feet on sending relatively low-tech surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft to Iraq and Afghanistan. Gates said Wednesday that those wars should drive the design and purchase of realistic weapons.
The goal should be larger quantities of well-priced and versatile systems, instead of exquisite machines "so costly and complex that they take forever to build and then only in very limited quantities."
Gates' proposed $534 billion defense budget for the coming year would end production of the Air Force's marquee fighter plane, the F-22 Raptor, a sleek $400 million beauty that has not seen a day of combat in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Gates wants to build more workhorse planes called Joint Strike Fighters, at about $80 million apiece. That program could end up costing $1 trillion to manufacture and maintain 2,443 planes.
The F-22 is a "niche, silver-bullet solution" to a narrow problem, and 187 of them will be plenty, Gates said.
He got no complaint about the F-22 from his audience of students and instructors, and the Air Force leadership has signaled it will support the phase-out. Manufacture of the plane creates jobs in more than 40 states, however, and it is not clear whether Congress will try to keep the program going.
"These pirates are criminals, they are armed gangs on the sea. And those plotting attacks must be stopped," Clinton told reporters at the State Department.
Clinton did not call for using military force against the pirates, although she mentioned "going after" pirate bases in Somalia, as authorized by the U.N. several months ago.
We need to bring 21st-century solutions to bear," she said.
In a question-and-answer session with reporters, Clinton said it may be possible to stop boat-building companies from doing business with the pirates. One element of her initiative, she said, is to "explore ways to track and freeze pirate assets."
The other element of the initiative includes calling for immediate meetings of an international counter-piracy task force to expand naval coordination against pirates. She said federal agencies would meet Friday to review the problem and consider potential responses.
The administration plans to send an envoy to a Somali donors conference scheduled for next week in Brussels and will attempt to organize meetings with officials of Somali's transitional government as well as regional leaders in its semiautonomous Puntland.
Gates: More ships, weapons
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the high-seas pirate drama shows why the Pentagon should buy more affordable ships, planes and weapons even if they are not perfect.
"As we saw last week, you don't necessarily need a billion-dollar ship to chase down a bunch of teenage pirates," Gates said while visiting Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.
Although Gates has praised the precision training of Navy SEAL snipers who killed three pirate hostage-takers Sunday, he was referring to the imbalance of massive U.S. warships and dazzling weaponry corralling the pirates' tiny lifeboat. The Somali pirates were armed with automatic weapons and pistols and holding an American cargo ship captain for ransom.
Gates is touring war colleges this week, selling his plan to reorder the Pentagon budget. He wants to cancel some big programs and scale back others.
It was at this same Air Force War College that Gates a year ago accused the service of dragging its feet on sending relatively low-tech surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft to Iraq and Afghanistan. Gates said Wednesday that those wars should drive the design and purchase of realistic weapons.
The goal should be larger quantities of well-priced and versatile systems, instead of exquisite machines "so costly and complex that they take forever to build and then only in very limited quantities."
Gates' proposed $534 billion defense budget for the coming year would end production of the Air Force's marquee fighter plane, the F-22 Raptor, a sleek $400 million beauty that has not seen a day of combat in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Gates wants to build more workhorse planes called Joint Strike Fighters, at about $80 million apiece. That program could end up costing $1 trillion to manufacture and maintain 2,443 planes.
The F-22 is a "niche, silver-bullet solution" to a narrow problem, and 187 of them will be plenty, Gates said.
He got no complaint about the F-22 from his audience of students and instructors, and the Air Force leadership has signaled it will support the phase-out. Manufacture of the plane creates jobs in more than 40 states, however, and it is not clear whether Congress will try to keep the program going.
