Hijacked Super Tanker Exposes Vulnerability of Energy Supplies

The hijacking on the high seas by Somali pirates of a super tanker carrying 2 million barrels of crude oil destined for the United States created many troubling precedents and makes the vulnerability of energy supplies quite clear. No less than the chairman of the Joint Chiefs expressed amazement at a hijacking 450 nautical miles out to sea. Most hijackings have occurred closer to Somali waters, usually 50 miles out at most, or in the nearby Gulf of Aden. The hijacking of the Saudi “Sirius Star” crude carrier was something that many piracy experts argued couldn’t be done. The $25 million ransom, which previously averaged $1 million to $3 million at most, was another precedent. Because of U.S. dependence on foreign oil, the hijacking leaves us with no choice but to defend the supply lines long into the future.Somalia’s implosion as a functioning nation dates back to the early 1990s. Soon afterwards, the United States attempted to protect humanitarian food deliveries that were being intercepted by warlords. Mission creep led us to “Blackhawk Down” and was followed by a retreat of the U.S. military from Somalia. A region without much of a functioning national government attracted all sorts of trouble. International industrial fishing fleets were tempted by the unsupervised waters and over-fished with impunity. Criminal gangs in Europe saw Somalia as a good place to dump hazardous waste. And foreign Islamists found refuge in Somalia, too...more..http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2009/March/Pages/HijackedSuperTankerExposesVulnerabilityofEnergySupplies.aspx