OT - Piracy

[Rainbow Six]

For what it's worth, the Royal Navy recently did more or less exactly the same thing...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today...00/9455297.stm

[kcdusk]

1. Australia cant protect its own borders from people at sea. Currently, we are investigating if australian police and govt workers showed restraint or over reacted when 300+ detainees rioted (um, as far as i know, no detainee was charged with anything. So who wrecked the facility? Must have been the Aust police and govt workers, yes?).

2. If the Stuart followed the rules i dont know what the cost would have been. Australian dollars for the extended travel dropping the pirates off? International relations costs (lawyers?)? Perhaps the Stuart being charged with kidnap (of the somali fisherman)? The Stuart removing itself from its intended trip perhaps leaving other ships in harms way?

3. It happened at sea, no ones gonna know, machine gun below the water line and move on.

[Fusilier]

Capital punishment doesn't work. The only thing that can be done to improve the situation is an improvement in Somalia. As much as the current laws are frustrating, they are also kept in place because they protect your shipping during maritime disputes.

[Sanjuro]

I saw a great idea online recently: anti-piracy cruises.
You buy a ticket on an ocean liner, which will cruise up and down the Indian Ocean staying in international waters. The cruise ticket includes rental of some suitable valuables, just to be attractive to pirates, and an AK47 or M16. Higher-priced tickets could include an M60, M2HB, RPG or missile launcher.
When the pirates attack, the passengers line the rail and defend themselves!
Premium tickets could even include the use of laser designators for the missiles fired by the onboard helicopters.
Problem solved?

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by Fusilier

Capital punishment doesn't work. The only thing that can be done to improve the situation is an improvement in Somalia. As much as the current laws are frustrating, they are also kept in place because they protect your shipping during maritime disputes.

Hmmmm, if you get caught in the act of piracy and the navy double taps you, then capital punishment can be said to have worked, at least in your case!

On the other hand, there is no doubt that the Somalia pirates are doing this for two reasons:

First, the conditions in Somalia, with the complete breakdown of any sort of government, and the loss of all infrastructure is creating the conditions that encourage piracy. Until the various governments get off their collective fat asses and come up with meaningful assistance, the situation will simply get worse.

Second, the Somalia pirates have discovered the great weakness of the developed nations, the lack of will to do anything to resolve the problem. The "put a bandaid on it and forget about it" approach fails to protect the innocent, punish the guilty and put a final end to the problem. Until something is done to help Somalia, then the piracy patrols will continue, more innocent lives will be lost and another generation of pirates will be created.

Based on what I'm seeing on the boob-tube and reading in the various papers and journals....I just don't see any drive on the part of the various political parties to do anything other than bad mouth each other, come up with creative new ways to tax the people, and develop even more creative ways to spend tax revenue on, shall we say, rather brain-dead projects?

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Another aspect of this is that the pirates themselves have generally treated any hostages very well, including supplying familiar foods for them if they are European and so on. The Somali's understand well enough that if they treat the hostages well then some shipping company with a big fat wallet will suck up the insurance premium and have their insurance company pay the ransom to get their people back.
If the Somali's treat the hostages like shit or kill a few of them, the pirates figure the rest of the world is likely to start sending in some special forces to give them a kick in the bollocks. It also means that the general public might start putting pressure on the various governments to actually do something serious about the piracy.

[headquarters]

the catch and release practice with Operation Atalanta and the other naval ops in the region is constant.Happens 10 times for each you read of.

Nobody wants to take the responsibility for trial and incarceration of hundreds of pirates.A dealhas been struck with Kenya to take some of them , but its slow and ineffecient the way its set up. I guess you cant very well get regular servicemen to execute people as a part of their job description in our day - I guess its a good thing.


Also the incidents in international waters make the responsibilty for prosecution and the execution of punishment fuzzy -or so I am told. A friend of mine went down there aboard a Norwegian frigate as a correspondent with khakishirt and camera and all. They filmed the chase and capture of a Somali pirate crew.
Once processed they were released with food and water. A half hour later they came back smiling and happily squandering their rations in plain view - and asked for directions to shore..

I wont go into reasons for piracy and the general state of the world. But I sure as hxxx wouldnt travel those waters without a machinegun section aboard.And a PA shotgun for my self. And a back up 9mm.And another .38. And some body armour with NIJ lvl III rating.(SAPIplates and all).

Anyways - this problem has some similarities to the pirates of the barbay coast and all that ? I will let some the Yanks educate me on that if any are willing.

[HorseSoldier]

Capital punishment doesn't work. The only thing that can be done to improve the situation is an improvement in Somalia.

I think yes and no.

Very publicly hanging someone from a yard arm would tend to have a chilling psychological effect on would be pirates, pour encourager les autres and all that. Would not end Somali piracy, but being killed for your trouble ups the ante a lot versus catch and release.

On the other hand, I agree -- as long as Somalia is a poster child for "failed state" status, desperate people will do desperate things. Clearing the sea lanes of Somali pirates would just pass on that mess to some other venue, be it Somali civilians, neighboring states, etc. Which might be acceptable to the world, which honestly doesn't seem to care except when Somalia's situation inconveniences merchant shipping.

On the other hand, the "home front" whinging and generalized distress that would arise from summarily executing pirates -- or even executing pirates after lengthy international trials (can you even get an international court to do death penalties these days?) -- would undermine the piracy suppression effort more than it would help.

[Adm.Lee]

Originally Posted by headquarters

Anyways - this problem has some similarities to the pirates of the barbay coast and all that ? I will let some the Yanks educate me on that if any are willing.

Nah, not really; I was just reading on that. The Barbary Pirates were sailing under the flags of various Barbary princes (the Sultan of Morocco, Bey/Dey of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli). These princes would demand tribute payments (money and sometimes ships) from other countries, or else they would declare war. Interestingly, the accepted form for declaring war would be to chop down the nation's flagpole at its consulate. Then his ships (naval and privateers) would seize all the merchant ships they could, imprisoning the crews until a new tributary treaty was made.

Normally, a country would pay up as a cost of doing business in the Mediterranean. Sending a squadron of warships along with the negotiators would be a useful way to decrease the payment demanded.

The Barbary Wars, as sometimes known here, took place when Tripoli started one of these wars, and the USA didn't want to pay. We did end up paying some money, but not for tribute, just to get back the crew of the USS Philadelphia. In the meantime, the Navy bombarded the city a few times, captured some of the privateers and instigated a revolt that captured the city of Derna.

So, that meant that there was a legally recognized power behind the "pirates"-- really privateers-- and that there was someone to negotiate with, who could stop the raiders. I don't see that in Somalia. As I understand it, there are pirate bosses with their own militias, but there are so many that a country (or group of countries) can't shut off the pirates by talking to any one of them. They are more like crime bosses than princes. You would need to take control of all of their ports, and then find real jobs for all of the ex-fishermen who turned pirate when their fishing grounds were wiped out.

[Abbott Shaull]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Another aspect of this is that the pirates themselves have generally treated any hostages very well, including supplying familiar foods for them if they are European and so on. The Somali's understand well enough that if they treat the hostages well then some shipping company with a big fat wallet will suck up the insurance premium and have their insurance company pay the ransom to get their people back.
If the Somali's treat the hostages like shit or kill a few of them, the pirates figure the rest of the world is likely to start sending in some special forces to give them a kick in the bollocks. It also means that the general public might start putting pressure on the various governments to actually do something serious about the piracy.

You have hit the head of the nail. They have realize as long as they treat relatively humanely and not needlessly, they will be allowed to keep on with their piracy. So it business as normal, they know once they start carelessly killing people public opinion will turn against them, and their will be more people out their willing to kill them instead of giving up their ship, and wait for the ransom to be paid. Not only that if they start killing people needlessly, then things will be done to help Somali properly and many of the crews will no longer be so willing to go out. So they need to keep things civilized to keep status quo.

[Abbott Shaull]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

Hmmmm, if you get caught in the act of piracy and the navy double taps you, then capital punishment can be said to have worked, at least in your case!

On the other hand, there is no doubt that the Somalia pirates are doing this for two reasons:

First, the conditions in Somalia, with the complete breakdown of any sort of government, and the loss of all infrastructure is creating the conditions that encourage piracy. Until the various governments get off their collective fat asses and come up with meaningful assistance, the situation will simply get worse.

Second, the Somalia pirates have discovered the great weakness of the developed nations, the lack of will to do anything to resolve the problem. The "put a bandaid on it and forget about it" approach fails to protect the innocent, punish the guilty and put a final end to the problem. Until something is done to help Somalia, then the piracy patrols will continue, more innocent lives will be lost and another generation of pirates will be created.

Based on what I'm seeing on the boob-tube and reading in the various papers and journals....I just don't see any drive on the part of the various political parties to do anything other than bad mouth each other, come up with creative new ways to tax the people, and develop even more creative ways to spend tax revenue on, shall we say, rather brain-dead projects?

As I pointed out the my original reply it takes care of the immediate situation, and I have to totally agree with the rest of your post...