Foreign Affairs Should Walk The Plan

By Maryann Slater
The Peanut Gallery
on Foreign Affairs:

Pirates are attacking countless numbers of Americans off the coast of Somalia. But with the progress that the Foreign Affairs committee has been making, expect the attacks to continue.

A Republican representative explained that since 2007, the U.S. has doubled its military troops off the coast of Somalia, but the pirate attacks have also doubled. A Democratic representative cited that since 1990 the water around Somalia has been illegally used as a hazardous dumping ground. The number of fish, Somalia's number one export, has drastically decreased. Both parties expressed that as Somalian citizens become stricken by poverty, piracy becomes their only affordable option. 
While Democrats push to hold off military enforcements sent by the U.S., Republicans view the use of our military as a way to protect the lives of Americans. Democrats and Republicans spoke in the Foreign Affairs Committee concerning this dire issue, but opposing viewpoints left them at an immature stalemate.

It is clear that as American lives continue to be lost, and our trade interests in the area dwindle, both sides of the aisle need to come together in order to peacefully resolve this problem. A severe feeling of bamboozlement clouds the air of this issue. Both Democrats and Republicans see the severity of piracy, but clearly need to turn their efforts up a few knots to keep up with the violence of this terroristic group.