Somali Pirates Consult K Street Law Firm

Note for our European readers: “K Street” mentioned below is full of high-energy, politically connected firms of attorneys who, for a price, will get you whatever you want. Thus, the title of this satire from Claremont Review plays on the K Street address.

I have included only the funny part of the essay. When Mr. Helprin gets down to business in the original article, it is worrisome indeed.

K-Street Consultants’ Memo to the Somali Pirates

To: Mr. Yusuf

From: Stately, Plump, Buck, and Mulligan, LLC

Here is our memorandum, as promised, and we very much enjoyed meeting you (please return Mr. Goldstein, the fax machine, and the candy bowl). Your business model is admirable in view of its low start-up costs, high return on investment, lack of long-term obligations to employees, freedom from taxation, agility in the face of changing conditions, and absence of regulation. No expenditures are required for public relations, advertising, marketing, or employee recruitment. When necessary, you can liquidate your holdings with neither legal fees nor court supervision-although you yourself may be hanged. To answer the key question of how long you will be able to operate, you must take into account the resources and constraints of your competitors, the maritime nations represented in this analysis by the coastal states of NATO plus Japan.

Despite the dramatic shrinkage of the American military across nearly every category, the distraction of two minor wars, the smallest fleet since 1916, and even steeper reductions in the rest of NATO, cumulatively this group of states can put to sea more than a thousand ocean-going warships, almost 400,000 marines and special operation troops, more than 5,000 maritime aircraft, and thousands of land-based aircraft capable of operating from expeditionary airfields or at a great remove. The United States alone can deploy 335 naval and coast-guard surface combatants, 382,000 sailors and coast guardsmen, 187,000 marines, 43,000 special operations personnel, 4,600 maritime aircraft, and unprecedented resources in reconnaissance and surveillance. Though these nations are but shadows of what they once were, what they have is much more than sufficient to terminate your enterprise should they embark upon one or more of the following:

Mr. Helprin - sorry, the firm of Stately, Plump, Buck, and Mulligan, LLC, then details for the Somali pirates some of the problems they might encounter in their line of work, if only there were anyone willing to confront them -
- - - - - - - - -

• Protection Allowed
  
• Protection Provided
  
• Maritime Patrol
  
• Maritime Corridors and Convoys
  
• Facility Raids
  
• Punitive Raids
  
• Q-Ships

Fortunately for their clients, Stately, Plump, et al, do not foresee an enactment of any of these robust oppositional strategies against these thieves. Somali pirates are as safe as the Somalis in Minnesota training for the Jihad.

Do follow the link and read, on one page, all that we could do except for (as the Baron would say) an international “lack of thatchers”.

Personally, I have the Q-Ships tactic. What's your ideal response in those listed by Mr. Helprin?

And, yes, this is a bloody, unnecessary mess.