The Liberty Sun successfully avoided a Somali pirate attack today with a skillful use of evasive maneuvers. This marks the second failed attack against a US flagged ship this month. Once more, I'm extremely proud of how our fellow citizens fared during this attack.
The successful defense against these two attacks prove two things. First, defense training works. Speaking as a martial arts instructor who has taught self defense courses before (and likely will again), whether it's pirate defense or self defense for yourself, training can save your life. If you currently are or expect to be in a situation that might require it, please do yourself a favor and get some training. Even a brief session could be enough to make the difference. I am not qualified to teach anti-piracy tactics - but evidently the father of the Maersk Alabama's first mate teaches it, and that's a pretty ringing endorsemen to me.
Second, whether we arm them or not (a complicated discussion), training the crews of merchant vessels in anti-piracy tactics should be our first line of defense. As has been pointed out many times, the ocean is vast and patrolling it is difficult. But training merchant crews can stop these attacks, at least some of the time. This is obviously not the whole solution, but it needs to be a part of it.
We've been lucky so far. This is about to escalate, however, and we can't be lucky forever. Sooner or later, the pirates are going to have a successful attack against US citizens. We need to be prepared to deal with it.
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