Google Map To Real Piracy 262
An anonymous reader noted that you can now see a Google Map of piracy. Not the pretend kind, the real kind with boats and stuff. Considering how much time we spend talking about the other kind, I think it's worth paying attention to the real problems out there.
Where's Wall Street? (Score:1, Insightful)
How come Wall Street doesn't have the biggest cluster? It's talking about robbing $7.4 TRILLION [bloomberg.com] in booty from Americans now, with no end in sight.
Proof for Pastafarienism (Score:5, Insightful)
The Great Flying Spaghetti Monster has revealed to us that there is a link between pirates and global warming, as piracy goes down, global warming increases [venganza.org]. Surely this is evidence (not that any is needed) for this basic truth? As pirates steal oil tankers the price of oil will increase thereby limiting its consumption and decreasing the amount of global warming.
It's plain simple logic, just like the plain, simple, wholesome taste of pasta with a tomato sauce.
Take off the tinfoil hat (Score:5, Insightful)
No, most pirates were not privateers. But most privateers were also pirates. The reason being, privateers could only get Letters of Marque and Reprisal [wikipedia.org] when their country was at war, and the letters only covered attacking enemy shipping. What did privateers do during the times their country was not at war? They turned to outright piracy.
The idea of modern countries handing out letters of Marque is ridiculous. Implying the pirates are after oil is just dumb. Saying the pirates don't have a lot to gain in the long run is also stupid, and shows how uneducated you are on the matter. Just look at the ransoms they receive. You only have to do it once. This is not some kind of Pirates of the Caribbean secret order of pirates. This is groups of starving desperate men trying for the Big Score. They take what they can get, and hope the shipping company will pay a ransom rather than see their ship sunk. They aren't selling oil and goods on the black market.
Re:Where's Wall Street? (Score:3, Insightful)
Technically, Wall Street is the Capo di tutti Capi directing their Uomini D'onore, Congress, on who to shake down. Leave it to a troll who's name is deliberately reminiscent of 'hairy vagina' to defend Wall Street.
"Real" Piracy? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Convoys (Score:1, Insightful)
Why don't they form convoys?
Because these are commercial ships, each with its own schedule, route, and agenda.
Why don't they arm themselves?
Because these are small crews on huge boats, their goal is to stay alive, if they start a gun fight, those odds drop.
Why do these companies pay the ransoms? Doesn't that just encourage more piracy?
Because these companies and their investors want their really expensive stuff back, and paying a small percentage of face value is therefore a good deal. Why would they care what long term consequences it has on other ships.
Re:Time for Qs to come back (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, this is incorrect:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21842522-1702,00.html [news.com.au]
http://article.wn.com/view/2008/10/23/Pirates_to_kill_crew_on_arms_ship_if_NATO_ships_attack/ [wn.com]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1572236/Somali-pirates-threaten-to-kill-tanker-crew.html [telegraph.co.uk]
They can and do kill people. And if this is allowed to continue, more and more people are going to die. On both sides.
My plan only addresses the short term issue: The piracy. That has to be dealt with immediately. Unchecked piracy will only result in the loss of more lives and cause economic problems on a world-wide scale.
Dealing with the political issues in Somalia is a more complex issue that lacks an immediate solution. I wish I could venture a good plan, but I do not understand the dynamics of the situation well enough to produce one. It's not like Somalia hasn't been receiving foreign aid [questia.com]:
What do they do with our foreign aid workers? Why, they kidnap and kill them:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/world/africa/06briefs-6FOREIGNAIDW_BRF.html [nytimes.com]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081105/wl_afp/somaliaunrestreliefkidnap_081105183945 [yahoo.com]
http://www.patronusanalytical.com/files/Somali%20Aid%20Worker%20Murdered.php [patronusanalytical.com]
http://www.pr-inside.com/somali-aid-worker-killed-witnesses-say-r904499.htm [pr-inside.com]
What would you have us do? I'm all for finding a peaceful solution if one can be arrived at. But as of this moment, there is an immediate problem people are dying or being threatened with death.
Food for thought: Isn't it interesting how the pirates can't afford food, but can always afford assault rifles? Perhaps there is more to their Robin Hood image than meets the eye.
Re:Time for Qs to come back (Score:4, Insightful)
The irony is that things only get moving when oil is involved.
Now that they have a tanker full of it, the US will be called to "liberate" it.
Once that ship is gone, we'll go back to Status Quo.
Re:Time for Qs to come back (Score:3, Insightful)
So you want the US, fresh on its "success" in Iraq and Afghanistan to "liberate" yet another country we don't really understand (and one that we've previously failed in)?
We go in, "liberate" a country and get called the great satan and western pig-dog imperialists.
We don't go in and everyone whines that we're not doing anything.
Somali isn't even a cause of regime change. There is no effective regime. Somali would be like Afghanistan on hell difficulty in hardcore mode. Humanitarian aid doesn't work because you basically need to launch an invasion to get it to where and who it needs to go to. Then you have to make sure it stays where it should be. You've got warlords and factions to deal with, not a government. Each one will try to play you against the others.
Letting the pirates rake in millions of dollars in ransoms isn't helping anyone. They aren't going out in their little boats throwing sunshine and rainbows at their target.
In the long run probably the best thing that could happen would be that they end up sinking a ship. Then the fun and games would be over and the kid gloves would come off.
Re:Not Pirates (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you heard anything about Somolia in the past, oh I don't know 20 years? There is no government in control of the people, not in the sense you seem to imply. There's also no organized economy or workers rights. Most likely, these pirates are average people with starving family back home, doing anything they can to put food on the table.
Like a lot of problems around the world, the only way you are going to 'fix' the problem is to raise the standard of living so that the risks of brazenly illegal behavior outweigh the benifits. Sending aid is, of course, a very tricky situation. For many people, it feels like rewarding people who have broken the law. Not to mention there will always be the select few who have become attached to the power they have gained.
Re:Time for Qs to come back (Score:4, Insightful)
> How would a US port feel about a foreign ship pulling in when a dozen civilians
> with grenade launchers are strolling around on deck? The Coast Guard would go ape.
As an NRA member I'm not afraid of arms or people wielding them, so long as they are the right people bearing them for the right reasons and shooting them at the right (or would that be wrong?) people. So no, I would have no problem with a $150M tanker laden with $100M in crude being armed. Seems rather sane to me. If we are trusting the crew not to use the far more dangerous tanker itself as a weapon I see no reason to begrudge them a couple of rocket launchers to defend themselves from pirates. No, they can't carry them off the ship and they should be expected to have the decency to stow them away once they are safely in US waters. If I can't have a rocket launcher why should they get to have all the fun. :)
This story just goes to show ya what pansies we have allowed ourselves to become. Can you imagine pirate infested waters under Ronald Reagan's six hundred ship navy? People might accuse America of trying to police the world, but dang it back when we really did it the world was a safer place... as it was when the British Navy ruled the seas. Pirates had short life expectancies.
Re:Historical Precident (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Historical Precident (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not going to dismiss the notion of any parallels between America's present situation and that of the fall of Rome. But I'm not sure that the ones you've stated stand up to scrutiny.
If there's one thing we should take from the last 8 years, is that international terrorism is not a problem to be solved through military means.
As for these pirates. Purely because the US hasn't sent its military to deal with them, doesn't mean that it couldn't. The US Navy is quite capable of indiscriminately denying Somalian ships passage to the sea. Not to mention sending in the marines, or airstrikes. Now this would be like swatting some flies with the 5th fleet. And undoubtebly the wrong move, given the situation. But its a mistake to confuse not having the capability, and not choosing you use that capability.
Re:Time for Qs to come back (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is, that if the ships start shooting at the pirates, the pirates start shooting at the merchant ships.
Given that those ships might carry a cargo worth hundreds of millions, are very slow, almost impossible to miss, and can be sunk with a well placed RPG, it's not a risk most of the merchant companies want to take.
That is the essence of the issue why these ships are not protecting themselves. The pirates would blow them up.
Reasons Piracy Continues (Score:4, Insightful)
Piracy exists in Somalia because the government lacks sufficient ability and influence to stop it.
It continues largely because the international community that has the ability to stop it, doesnt have the reason to. Modern warships can sink targets they cant visually see. The Gulf of Aden is large, but its not that large.
Most ships, even if owned by a western company, are flagged in a Convenient state - Panama, Liberia etc. these countries love the revenue form being a flag state but have no means of protecting their flagged ships. Most ships are crewed by non western crews.. many from the Philippines, Bangladesh, etc. again countries with limited abilities to protect their nationals internationally.
The west has many ships in the area, however they are reluctant to act for political reasons, if no nationals are involved, or its not a home flagged ship, its really not the concern of the country. The pirates get their million dollar ransom, which to a pirate is a wind fall, but to a shipping company, used to paying $60000/day fuel bills, really isnt that big a deal. Furthermore the risks to the pirates are relatively small - the French raided a la Poinete, a yacht that was taken by pirates and was crewed by french nationals, and the Indians sunk a Pirate mother ship last week. So for the pirates 2 out of over 100 incidents ended badly. To stop the pirates, the western world needs to actively seek them out, hunt them down and stop them from taking ships, as well as recapturing ships by force. When pirates begin to face the consequences - to this point there have been almost none, then they will cease their actions, because taking a ship no longer results in a quick profit for the prirates, and the risk of death goes up significantly for the actual takers of the ship.
Incidentally, the IMO is now recommending ships hire private security to protect them in troubled waters. Blackwater international has also purchased ships. The 18th century tales of piracy make a difference between a Privateer and a pirate a privateer was a mercenary ship working for a nation, to harass enemy shipping - they could take prizes, but paid a percentage to the crown, and wouldn't attack friendly shipping. a pirate had no Letter of Marque, paid no commissions, and attacked who he wanted when he wanted...
everything old is new again.
One final aside, those whom complain about copyright infringement by referring to it as piracy do a great disservice to the victims of piracy, imagine having your office attacked by men armed with machine guns and RPG's and your only defense is to run, and spray the attackers with a fire hose. from the floor above..
Re:Time for Qs to come back (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, I agree. I wasn't trying to say that fear was the RIGHT reaction. If foreign merchant ships want to have mercenaries on board I think we should find a way to make that work--and their home ports should extend us the same courtesy.
Pirates... Sheesh. History, like Hollywood, has run out of ideas and is relaunching old ideas.
Re:Time for Qs to come back (Score:3, Insightful)
> As in, full of Middle-Easterners. Do you really want those people armed?
Ok, you are trying to make a funny and all that but I'm gonna play along. Dude, they are already armed with a fully loaded oil tanker. Just how much more damage are they going to do with a couple of AKs and perhaps a rocket launcher or three? A hundred million dollars worth of crude oil is enough to do a heck of a lot of damage to a port. Plus they could opt to just sink the damned thing in an inconvienient spot.
So unless we are going to forbid ships with 'ragheads' in the crew we just have to hope that the people who own that quarter billion worth of tanker and cargo have enough on the line to avoid hiring a crew of terrorists. The worry would be a gang of these pirates being terrorists and instead of holding a tanker hostage quietly throwing the origional crew overboard and then continuing it's voyage and blowing it up/sinking it at an oil terminal here or in the middle east.
Re:Time for Qs to come back (Score:1, Insightful)
funny how everybody seems to see no problem in just killing those people without any trial etc.
Hmmm... pirates armed with REAL WEAPONS approach your ship, and you want to talk them to death? If they got anywhere near my ship and I had even a remote chance of winning a firefight, you bet I'd be shooting to kill.
Re:Time for Qs to come back (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Time for Qs to come back (Score:1, Insightful)
Piracy has been punishable by death going back almost as long as there have been pirates. Nobody questions it because it's practically written into International Law that summary execution of pirates is okay.
Re:Time for Qs to come back (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because assault rifles are a lot more plentiful than food in Somalia.
Re:Time for Qs to come back (Score:4, Insightful)
I would have modded you up just for the neat phrase you invented: got disastrous ;)
That would be a euphemism for "was destabilized by a US-backed coup"--in this case in 2006.