Political correctness encouraging piracy

[john m roberts]

Quite aside from the happy outcome, that was damned impressive shooting. The sniper's art is difficult enough. Imagine shooting from a moving ship on the water onto another moving vessel. On top of that, three shooters had to shoot simultaneously or it was no good. I'm glad these guys are on our side.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Funny thing was, they were not all Americans in the crew. But they showed the comraderie
of true crewmen, and shipmates! The family mentality that often exisits on board a vessel at sea!
Great to see the skipper got away!

[Jona Lendering]

Quite aside from the happy outcome, that was damned impressive shooting. The sniper's art is difficult enough. Imagine shooting from a moving ship on the water onto another moving vessel. On top of that, three shooters had to shoot simultaneously or it was no good.

This is what I find slightly disturbing. The fact that the three pirates were shot at the same moment suggests that they were sitting or standing without moving, which is somewhat at odds with the official statement that there was a very direct threat to kill the captain. Of course you can take aim at a captured sailor while staying seated; after all, you only have to move a finger to pull a trigger. Still, I had to think of the Rules of Engagement that I learned in the army, and I was wondering whether it was really a Level 5 threat that justified lethal violence.

That being said, two successful actions against the pirates are essentially very good news.

[Matthew Amt]

From what I read in the Yahoo news accounts, one pirate was fully visible with a weapon pointed at the merchant captain, so close that it seemed to be touching him. The captain was tied up. The pirates had already fired at the navy ship at least once. Since the other pirates were not visible, at that moment, however, nothing could be done. Then the other 2 poked their heads up. Bang bang bang. Problem solved.

Now get the Navy skippers on the scene together for a brief maritime court and hang the fourth pirate at dawn. The "rules of engagement" should be, "If you mess with Americans or their stuff, the US Military will land on your head." These four worthless scumbags just learned that. The rest of the damn planet should listen up.

On the problem of arming merchant crews, sounds like hiring a few security troops is an option. Many of them are ex-military. Probably just putting small contingents of marines on board has more political implications. It was also pointed out that tankers are an extra problem, since fumes from the cargo could be ignited by gunfire! Yipes. Crossbows, maybe? Really big ones...

Oh, did you notice that this cargo ship was loaded with FOOD AID for several countries including SOMALIA? Maybe the answer is just not shipping any more of that sort of cargo to that end of the world, eh? Save some money all around.

Three rounds, three kills! Ooo-rah!

Matthew

[caiusbeerquitius]

Three rounds, three kills! Ooo-rah!

Yeah! I always get very excited as well, when people get killed... I just imagine their heads explode and spill the whole boat and the hero-freighter captain spilled with brains. Really cool! :lol:

Oh, did you notice that this cargo ship was loaded with FOOD AID for several countries including SOMALIA? Maybe the answer is just not shipping any more of that sort of cargo to that end of the world, eh? Save some money all around.

Oh yes! That´ll teach´em...

Just wondering: Wouldn´t the result be even more pirates? I can imagine more ways to fight results of poverty and instable coountries than to kill their inhabitants. Or at least smarter ways, IMHO. :wink:

The rest of the damn planet should listen up.

...and shut up, of course... ^^

[Gaius Decius Aquilius]

When people of their own volition, break laws, and point guns at other people's heads, and threaten to kill them, they inherently run the risk of being taken out. Or at least that is what we got taught in the police academy.

Nonetheless, in other waters, ...a rare image from inside a Pirate Base fron an undisclosed location: http://graysmatter.codivation.com/conte ... irates.jpg

Ralph I.

[Iagoba]

What about adapting old technologies? :lol:


I think that if they don´t have something useful to spend the day due to the lack of work, the better you´ll get are pirates. Something worse are the religious fundamentalists, if they got the "luck" to find a manipulative preacher. You must be quite pissed off to do such things, and clearly jobless, as both are full time ocupations. :lol:

At such places like some islads of the Caribbean (and Gibraltar... :twisted: ) they got a quite sucessful reconversion to a more "customer friendly" activity: :mrgreen:

[Magnus]

I kind of agree with Matt and Ralph's post. They should send a small naval battlegroup down there, with one of the Iowa class battleships as the flagship. They're going to have to put a stop to the pirating somehow...

[M. Demetrius]

Not every merchant ship need have armed security. If even 20% of them have guards, something like the Air Marshalls on US airliners, the danger of trying to seize a ship goes up. If 30% are armed, it's not a great set of odds when your existence is on the line.

At the same time, there has to be some kind of legal protection for the guards. If three fast boats are trying to take over a commercial cargo vessel, and defenders shoot up the boats, kill or wound some of the pirates, then the guards go on trial for assault and their company sued for damages to the boats--it might not be the best incentive to send "bodyguards" to protect the ships.

I'm not sure what the solution is. But the situation can't be allowed to continue status quo, and it seems pretty obvious talking across a table will accomplish exactly nothing productive. One shouldn't expect to reason with the unreasonable.

[Jona Lendering]

I'm not sure what the solution is.

A friend of mine used to be traveling with those big ships in the Bight of Benin, in the 1980s. He often sat with a gun on the prow. Back then, arming those ships was still possible; I see no reason to keep the ships unprotected.

The deepest cause of all problems, however, is poverty; and the main cause of that is overpopulation. Sending food aid can only be a temporary measure; sending prophylactics is probably better - and as a matter of fact, global consensus was reached at the 1995 Cairo conference that women ought to be in control of their own fertility. Even the Vatican, which is usually not for prophylactics, agreed to that.

[M. Demetrius]

Well, as far as I know, there have been pirates of one kind or another since long before overpopulation became a problem, unless the Adriatic area was overpopulated during Julius Caesar's imprisonment by pirates, and even before that.

But the issue isn't really only sociological, really, or the first ransom or two that the pirates received would be enough to set them up for life. Look, they wanted 100M USD for that Saudi oil tanker. That's just one ship, and they've taken several dozen. If there are a thousand pirates, and they've collected and divided up that amount already, they should all be rich men by Somalian standards, yet they continue to seize vessels as often as they can.

No, the answer isn't as simple as the old "haves and have nots" argument. Some men's hearts are exceedingly dark, and they will never be satisfied with increase of material goods.

[A_Volpe]

Magnus

I kind of agree with Matt and Ralph's post. They should send a small naval battlegroup down there, with one of the Iowa class battleships as the flagship. They're going to have to put a stop to the pirating somehow...

Yeah, the US Navy was bellyaching they don't have enough ships to go around...And so what about the dozens/hundreds/thousands of ships in the "Mothball Fleet"?? Aren't they in long term storage for the possibility of needing to supply the Navy with extra ships when the need arises?? I dunno seems kinda obvious to me. A few medium sized Cruisers or Destroyers un-mothballed and sent over there and I think that'd solve a lot of problems.

And...I have to imagine there is a fairly good pool of unemployed masses here in the States looking for work, and in that number, I'm sure a few ship's worth of crews who are looking for "Excitement and Adventure" on the High Seas. Heck, in another life I'd probably love the chance to go hunt Pirates! AARRR Maytee!

Seriously, let's re-establish the Privateer mark and get some stuff done.

It's just too bad that the Somali (government?? if it can be called that) can't find a way to make and bolster their own self-sufficient Economy instead of drugs and genocide.

You'd think after 3,000 years we'd all sort of figure out there is a repetitive pattern here.

[Jona Lendering]

Some men's hearts are exceedingly dark, and they will never be satisfied with increase of material goods.

So true, so true.

[Iagoba]

Anyone remember one war because a cut ear?

The actual incident which gave its name to the war had occurred in 1731 when the British brig Rebecca was boarded by the Spanish coast guard La Isabela commanded by Julio León Fandiño, who cut off one of the ears of her captain, Robert Jenkins, who had been accused of piracy. In March 1738 Jenkins was ordered to attend Parliament, presumably to repeat his story before a committee of the House of Commons and it is alleged that he produced the severed ear when he attended, although no detailed record of the hearing exists.[9] The incident was considered alongside various other cases[10] and conceived as an insult to the honour of the nation and a clear casus belli

I´ve got somemore in a "sehr grosse" book about pirates (full of sources and so) but I´m too lazy to write all tonight, so I just copied the Wikipedia :oops:

Sometimes, with the opportune background, any incident may trigger a war or be forgotten.

[Bran ap Maclou]

Hi !

Here in Britanny, we have some men serving as "commandos de marine" based in Lorient. They currently spend a lot of time far from their families on the deck of all kind of nations merchant ships from Madagascar to Djibouti (Currently, one quarter to one third of our army is serving overseas without being officially in war). They are about five on a ship and protect them with heavy machine guns.

But the pirates know that small luxury cruisers remains undefended. We (french) have 4 yachts, in less than one year, who have been captured, sometimes attacked at 1000 nautic miles from the Somali coast. It's difficult to stay further from the coast if you want to enter the red sea sometimes. Last week when the french commandos assaulted a yacht where pirates refused a ransom, the owner of the ship have been killed in the gunfight.

But piracy touch some other places in the world, remember Peter Blake on the amazon. I know that even Japan had also some problems. They purchased to EADS some "save and rescue" SuperDauphin helicopters. These choppers were coming back for maintenance with guns and rockets baskets (some say also that they shoot boatpeople far from their coasts). A bit strange to rescue wrecked people ? In Indonesia also, detroits are dangerous especially for small oil tankers taken and directly sold in Chinese harbours...

About weapons onboard, a friend who's second officer on a merchant ship is not very happy with this idea. He fears some violent robbery in harbours in order to steal them (good quality and foreign recorded weapons, that's worthy enough) or even a foolish moment of an officer. He told me to prefer a regular military presence onboard.

However, piracy is only one kind of great delinquency. One of my relatives is a deep penetrating intelligence element in the french army, he served in Chad, Bosnia and currently afghanistan. One of their main mission, each time, is to watch after different "maffias" activities. They... take pictures or they guide bombers sometimes. However, Afghanistan is still the world first heroin producer, Bosnia one of the most important place in Europe for robbed german brand Cars, prostitutes recruitment/transit and most of the banks or fund armored transporters attackers in southern France these last years were supplied with bosnian weapons and explosives. Even some pyrenean poarchers use bosniac dragounov for mountain goats or... rangers.
And Even on the borders of French Guyana, I remember some surinamese pirates that we saw hidden in the forest limit on the maroni waiting for an ambush gold smugglers or clandestine migrants or even perhaps rivals...

Piracy is old as the world and sometimes really more dramatic than what happen today near Somali. However, the weakness or the lack of control of legal state powers toward their populations seems a greatest problem to me. Probably that some parts of the world are not ready for a nation-state and stayed tribal zones.

Regards