Political correctness encouraging piracy

[jkaler48]

Anyone who has seen any number of old movies about the merchant marine
is familiar with scenes where the Captain or other officers breaks out the
ships supply of small arms to fend off pirates, sea monsters or hostile natives. Sadly almost no nation, cruise line or shipping company now permit their merchant mariners to have weapons making the seas a giant "gun free zone" where pirates (terrorists among them) freely capture ships
to rob or hold them for huge ransoms. No country has had the guts to field a few secretly armed "Q" ships and just blow the pirates away when they approach. I guess they don't want to violate the pirates "rights". It makes me sick every time I hear about new pirate attacks in the news.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-ship

Info from Wikipedia:
21st century

Despite a rise in modern piracy it is very unusual for modern merchant ships to be armed, save for maybe a number of small arms and the use of the ship's fire hoses to repel boarders. One exception to this are the ships of PNTL [4] used to transport spent nuclear fuel and reprocessed uranium on behalf of BNFL. Transporting enough fissile material between them to produce 50 to 60 nuclear weapons these ships, beginning with the Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal, became armed in 1999 to avoid the cost of a Royal Navy escort, .[5] Travelling together in convoy during these ships intermittent voyages they have an onboard escort of armed police from the UKAEAC and its successors [6] and are equipped with two to three automatic cannon of 30mm calibre.[7]

[Hibernicus]

John you ought to hear the stories from US Marines, US Sailors or Coast Guard about patrols off of Somalia et al.. boom! ....can't get them all.. but prizes like tanks, RPGs and small arms all on one ship is too tempting!

Anyone remember Pres G Ford and the "pirates" off of Cambodia?
Boom!

or Pres Thomas Jefferson and the Shores of Tripoli and the so called Barbary Pirates... the US's FIRST war with a Muslim nation?

In what year was that?



Hib [/i]

[john m roberts]

Those old movies are just movies. In real life, merchant crews hardly ever resisted pirates. Why should they? They were underpaid proles who served under the lash. Merchant crews were kept as small as possible because it was cheaper that way, while a pirate ship was crammed with as many armed men as it would hold. It was the cargo the pirates were after, and the crew had no stake in that. Who wants to die for someone else's insured money? All it meant was that, at the end of the year, an insurer would declare a slightly smaller profit for the shareholders.

It would be easy to wipe out these modern pirates except for one thing - hostages. the best way to hit them is not to pick off their boats one at a time, but to annihilate their land bases. Problem is, they keep lots of prisoners for ransom, from all over the world, and they'd get killed, too, causing no end of international indignation.

However, in recent days, the Russians have shown up on the scene, and they're not known as people who care much about political correctness or other people's sensitive feelings. Plus, Putin wants to reassert Russia as a major player on the worldwide military scene. Two hundred years ago that other upstart nation, the United States, saw an opportunity to assert itself by crushing the Barbary Corsairs. It would be fun if Russia were to send in a small fleet and maybe some Spetznaz troops to scour out these pirate bases and, when the wailing rose from the U.N., would say a polite "screw you." (In Russian, of course.)

[Magnus]

That's not a bad idea John (about the russians going in) so long as western nations don't get their knickers in a knot over it.

[Marcus Vettius Decimus]

I served in The Maritime Special Purpose Force while in the Marines. Problem is that Countries want us to help, but when you end up killing their citezen who commit said crimes, they star in an uproar. So alot of time we were on the deck, ready to D.E. but couldn't get the all clear.

[Marcus Vettius Decimus]

or Pres Thomas Jefferson and the Shores of Tripoli and the so called Barbary Pirates... the US's FIRST war with a Muslim nation?

In what year was that?



Hib [/i][/quote]


That would be 1785

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Well, the usual up roar would be heard all over the world, but I think if the Russians were doing it , not too many would make a peep......

[Hibernicus]

this sin't too bad:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War

One thing missing from many summaries like above is the important and crucial role religion played. The simplified PC version is a that it was a battle between the US and some pirates... It's a deeper more complicated story. It doesn't stand alone nor apart from what had been happening before the US was involved. ...it was small part of a centuries long war that is still being fought

Hib

[Robert Vermaat]

"The U.S. had just fought an exhausting war, which put the nation deep in debt. Federalist and anti-federalist forces argued over the needs of the country and the burden of taxation. Jefferson's own Democratic-Republicans and anti-navalists believed that the future of the country lay in westward expansion, with Atlantic trade threatening to siphon money and energy away from the new nation on useless wars in the Old World. The U.S. paid Algiers the ransom, and continued to pay up to $1 million per year over the next 15 years for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. Payments in ransom and tribute to the privateering states amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800."

WOW! hock:

[Carlton Bach]

"The U.S. had just fought an exhausting war, which put the nation deep in debt. Federalist and anti-federalist forces argued over the needs of the country and the burden of taxation. Jefferson's own Democratic-Republicans and anti-navalists believed that the future of the country lay in westward expansion, with Atlantic trade threatening to siphon money and energy away from the new nation on useless wars in the Old World. The U.S. paid Algiers the ransom, and continued to pay up to $1 million per year over the next 15 years for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. Payments in ransom and tribute to the privateering states amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800."

Federal revenues weren't all that big back then, though.

IN many ways, the situation was similar to what is happening in piracy hotspots today (except, of course, that government today tend to be less openly involved). The major powers in the area otherwise occupied, minor states could get away with all manner of things never tolerated in peacetime if they offered some kind of useful support to one side or the other. Nominal suzerains unable or unwilling to interfere, local powers happy to encourage a vacuum into which their influence could extend, and those who were too weak or too far away to be in on this game bearing the brunt of the suffering that resulted. It is telling that a minor power like the USA, completely uninvolved in the regional conflicts, felt compelled to intervene. Maybe opne day the Dutch navy will lay the hammer down in Somalia or the Indians in Palawan?

[A_Volpe]

but you people are forgetting and not being sensitive to those poor pirates who have nothing and are only lashing out because they need to express themselves and express their emotional and economic turmoil

besides, who wants to be known as those awful, nasty people who killed those poor pirates trying to make their way through this cruel world...by trying to kill/plunder innocent seagoing people passing by the area....

*dripping sarcasm* :evil:

[jkaler48]

Pirates even tried to attack an American naval supply ship late Sept . The ship fired warning shots at them. The pirates sped away.

More political correctness at work. Warning Shots?

[Carlton Bach]

Pirates even tried to attack an American naval supply ship late Sept . The ship fired warning shots at them. The pirates sped away.

More political correctness at work. Warning Shots?

Were they sure that the boats were pirates? Would you want to end you career as the Captain Who Sank A Fishing Boat With All Hands?

[MARCVS PETRONIVS MAIVS]

Heh, that reminds me of a similar situation where some powerful laser pens over here in the UK are being banned because certain idiots see a need to point them at helicopter and airplane cockpits.

Recently a police helicopter was targeted. The idiot got arrested off course, and boy was he dumb for targetting a police one! I think if police helicopters responded with a barrage of small arms fire in the direction of the laser this kind of crime would drop instantly.

Same goes for piracy. Arm the ships, show no mercy, have spetznaz/sas/delta troopers storm hijacked ships (that is what they are trained to do RIGHT?) and rescue the occupants before they get to land.

Simple.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Well, Pompey certainly managed, to do it? And it was not all with the sword either. :wink:

There is more to the 'poor pirates' than just a bunch of terrorists I think. I reckon if the country had a gov, instead of these warlords, and the somali fishing rights were being respected by other countries, this may not have gotten to this stage.

But, thats in another reality which never came to be.