Consider it a new calling for all you daring entrepreneurs. CEI calls it a “free-market solution.” But this is deadly serious stuff.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the pirates “nothing more than criminals” and noted that they were not a new problem for the United States — though this was the first time in 200 years that pirates had captured an American vessel. “One of the very first actions that was undertaken by our country, in its very beginning, was to go after pirates along the Barbary Coast” of North Africa, Mrs. Clinton said at a State Department news conference, in which she called on the international community to “come together to end the scourge of piracy.”
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of United States Central Command, said Thursday that two additional ships would be sent in coming days to the region around the Gulf of Aden and the coast of Somalia, to augment an international naval armada that had tried in vain to secure thousands of square nautical miles of sea.
I’ve been watching the pirate drama off the Somali coast as closely as anyone. I’ve only come up with one solution and it’s incredibly simple. Arm the sailors. In lieu of that, let loose the Special Forces commandos.
But via Tapped, we learn that the Competitive Enterprise Institute has come up with another solution. Tapped doesn’t link to it, but it comes in the form of an actual news release from CEI and it’s priceless stuff. Worthy of The Onion.
CEI OFFERS POTENTIAL SOLUTION TO PIRATE PROBLEM
Congress Should Consider Empowering Private Action Against Thugs of the High SeasWashington, D.C., April 9, 2009— News that Somali pirates had seized an American ship and, after being repelled, held her captain hostage drew a response from analysts at the Competitive Enterprise Institute: the United States should consider authorizing private parties to attack pirate ships under little used instruments called “letters of marque and reprisal.”
The letters, specifically authorized in the Article 1 section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, allow private parties to attack and seize the property of other parties that have committed violations of international law. Congress has the power to grant the letters. The United States made significant use of them during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 and never joined 19th Century treaties in which European nations forswore their use. The U.S. issued letters of marque to ships during the Spanish-American War of 1898; and a civilian operated airship, The Resolute, operated under a letter marque during World War II. The letters also have a long history prior to the establishment of the United States. Elizabethan-era explorer and adventurer Sir Francis Drake operated under a letter of marque.
“The world has changed a lot since nations last made significant use of letters of marquee and reprisal. If Congress were to decide to issue them, it would certainly have to revisit the concept,” said CEI Senior Fellow Eli Lehrer. “It’s the type of free-market solution to a real problem that Congress should consider but hasn’t in any serious way.” Lehrer added.
CEI policy analyst Michelle Minton agreed. “American citizens have the right to defend themselves, regardless of their location,” said Minton. “If international governing bodies fail at the task, which repeated pirate attacks seem to indicate, the US government should do something,” she said. “Issuing letters of marque are one way to foster the protection of American citizens abroad without requiring an American military presence in foreign territory.”
With ideas like these you’d think they would lose their “institute” status.
