How Would You Handle Somali Pirates?

[Thomas de Aynesworth]

Somali's comandeer the tankers, by throwing up grappling hooks and climbing up the sides. Issue sailors firearms training and weapons, and certain rights, and no other ship shall ever be boarded.

How feasible would that be, do you think?

 

[Threepwood]

Somali's comandeer the tankers, by throwing up grappling hooks and climbing up the sides. Issue sailors firearms training and weapons, and certain rights, and no other ship shall ever be boarded.

How feasible would that be, do you think?

Contingency firearms?

Regardless, qualified personelle could still be issued with weapons.

 

[Thomas de Aynesworth]

The only problem I'm seeing is whether or not each of these individual companies would be willing to train every seamen and put money towards firearms, body armor and ammunition on all their boats. Not whether or not it'd be effective if implemented, which I have no doubt it would.

 

[ncr_insurgent]

I would do nothing. Unless it is a US ship that is attacked, made up of US citizens, it is not really my problem. It sounds cruel but it is really the only way to go, we have already fucked things up to much trying to make the world a safer place.

 

[Thomas de Aynesworth]

I wasn't writing it from a US perspective.

How would you deal with them if a US merchant ship were attacked?

The Russians responded to a Russian tanker being boarded.

But that's an interesting question, how should NATO respond, and should they interfere with non-NATO countries having their shipping attacked?

 

[.Pixote.]

I'm with the Somali's...we ate their fish, now they want to eat us...fair enough, just don't sail off that part of Africa, go the long way around, around Cape Hope.

 

[ncr_insurgent]

I wasn't writing it from a US perspective.

How would you deal with them if a US merchant ship were attacked?

The Russians responded to a Russian tanker being boarded.

But that's an interesting question, how should NATO respond, and should they interfere with non-NATO countries having their shipping attacked?

If it were a US ship that was attacked I would probably do what Obama did and send in Navy SEALS. The whole thing could be avoided though by arming sailors or putting mercenaries on the ships, but it should be the the companies jobs to do that, not the government. Ultimately i would like to see the people on the boats take control of their own safety and stop relying on the military to bail them out whenever they get attacked. They know what they are getting into and should prepare themselves accordingly.

 

[Thomas de Aynesworth]

If it were a US ship that was attacked I would probably do what Obama did and send in Navy SEALS. The whole thing could be avoided though by arming sailors or putting mercenaries on the ships, but it should be the the companies jobs to do that, not the government. Ultimately i would like to see the people on the boats take control of their own safety and stop relying on the military to bail them out whenever they get attacked. They know what they are getting into and should prepare themselves accordingly.

So what, in your opinion is the job of the navy and military as a whole if not to protect citizens of their state and their "nation's" economic interests?

 

[ncr_insurgent]

If it were a US ship that was attacked I would probably do what Obama did and send in Navy SEALS. The whole thing could be avoided though by arming sailors or putting mercenaries on the ships, but it should be the the companies jobs to do that, not the government. Ultimately i would like to see the people on the boats take control of their own safety and stop relying on the military to bail them out whenever they get attacked. They know what they are getting into and should prepare themselves accordingly.

So what, in your opinion is the job of the navy and military as a whole if not to protect citizens of their state and their "nation's" economic interests?

Defend the country from attack. Not topple dictatorships or engage in nation building. Our only concern should be the safety and security of the United States, not Britain, or Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia, or Israel, or South Korea.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Issue sailors firearms training and weapons, and certain rights, and no other ship shall ever be boarded.

Merchant ships aren't armed for insurance reasons (you can't get insurance if you arm your crew).

I am amused by all of the suggestions to kill the pirates. Do you really think that there won't be more pirates to replace them? Do you really think that arming sailors is going to be an effective deterrent? These are destitute people whose most effective and realistic solution is piracy. A solution realized when international fishing boats starting fishing in their waters, pirating they livelihood. They don't kill off their hostages or destroy their merchandise, they sell them back in order to buy what they need to survive. They are being practical.

 

[Crni Vuk]

well though they dont just buy what they need. When you think the average somail might do half a dollar per day and they suddenly get a few millions in their hands ... they spend a lot on luxury as well. Everyone there has the newest mobile phones I swear. But anything else ... as poor like fuck.

Main problem is the education in my eyes. The people have simply as you said nicely no alternative. Either fishing (not really possible anymore ...) or crime.

 

[Loxley]

There is so much money available to somalians in piracy compared with any other activity that I will not stop until somalia itself is fixed. In other words the civil war must end and whatever regime that takes over must so want loans/international recognition that they will shut down the piracy.

 

[Thomas de Aynesworth]

There is so much money available to somalians in piracy compared with any other activity that I will not stop until somalia itself is fixed. In other words the civil war must end and whatever regime that takes over must so want loans/international recognition that they will shut down the piracy.

That just seems wrong to me. Instead of making checks that a Somalian regime (which I'm sure would just line their pockets), would never be able to repay, nor care to, a better solution would be for the west to make a determined effort to make the waters around Somalia so dangerous for pirates, that no impoverished Somalian would be stupid enough to risk it all for piracy. That way, you can cut down on piracy and corruption, and money won't be wasted, hell, if the ships are captured and sent to whatever country's navy captured it, there could even be money to gain!

 

[Anarchosyn]

Well, I don't rightly know how I'd handle them to tell the truth. However, what I do know is that pirates like at least two things: blow jobs and rum. I'd probably get creative along those lines (you should see my lips).

I hear they also like parrots, though I'm unsure whether this trope continues with the Somali variety.

a better solution would be for the west to make a determined effort to make the waters around Somalia so dangerous for pirates, that no impoverished Somalian would be stupid enough to risk it all for piracy. That way, you can cut down on piracy and corruption, and money won't be wasted, hell, if the ships are captured and sent to whatever country's navy captured it, there could even be money to gain!

Riiight, 'cause negative incentives always work.

I had an econometrics teacher in college that grew up in Nigeria. The variety of Sharia law they imposed at the time included penalties as harsh as losing hands for theft but did this stop incidents of petty crime? Nope, it just gave incentives to these wood-be petty criminals to leave zero witnesses alive to report the crime (murder rates went up).

Impositions from the West might engender an enemy that could bring the war to their home front.

 

[Loxley]

You do not understand the point here. Nothing we can do short of sending every damned navy in the world to the spot will make those waters dangerous enough for the pirates to stop pirating as long as the life on land in somalia is not a life at all. Not to mention it would be hellishly expensive. The pirates only need a boat and thats it.

Now I hear talk about people putting weapons aboard the ship. Well so imagine the results if a firefight goes down. The pirates get aboard the ship some of them get killed. What happens when the pirates then take controll of the ship? Think they will let the sailors get of easily? Maybe..maybe not. Not something that any ship organisation will bet money on in any case.

Then there is the option of doing like the european powers at the barbary coast. Gunboat dilplomacy. However this is difficult since

a. The pirates allways got around 200 hostages. If we drive a gunship in and start bombarding then what?

b. The pirates only need a boat, working engines and a couple of guns to be pirates. No matter what the bombardment a couple of boats hidden along the coast can capture a giant ship. Even the barbary corsairs were only stopped when the french invaded in 1830. And no one want to send an army into somalia.

c. No one got a good reason. The pirates have not killed anyone yet as far as I know, and whats more random bombing of civilians to protect shipping can lead to reprecussions against later captured sailors. No power on earth will risk it unless the pirates start enslaving or killing the prisoners.

The only permanent solution is to make the powers on land in somalia realise that they will not get anything unless they quell their pirates. Problem there being the lack of any such powers.

 

[Wooz]

How Would You Handle Somali Pirates?

 

[Threepwood]

I am amused by all of the suggestions to kill the pirates. Do you really think that there won't be more pirates to replace them? Do you really think that arming sailors is going to be an effective deterrent?

Yes.

 

[Crni Vuk]

that some kind of joke or are you serious `?

*I am not even completely sure what you want really tell with that picture

 

[Anarchosyn]

I am amused by all of the suggestions to kill the pirates. Do you really think that there won't be more pirates to replace them? Do you really think that arming sailors is going to be an effective deterrent?

Yes.

Yep, 'cause colonialism certainly worked like gangbusters for the Western powers.

Just look at how successful France was in Algeri.. oh.. wait..

The British in Rhodes.. oh.. wait...

The British in Indi.. oh.. wait...

Pretty much the only success stories were the British in Palestine (and that's still relatively rocky), the Americas (thanks to depopulation due to disease) and the French in Vietna... oh.. wait.

 

[Threepwood]

Yep, 'cause colonialism certainly worked like gangbusters for the Western powers.

Just look at how successful France was in Algeri.. oh.. wait..

The British in Rhodes.. oh.. wait...

The British in Indi.. oh.. wait...

Pretty much the only success stories were the British in Palestine (and that's still relatively rocky), the Americas (thanks to depopulation due to disease) and the French in Vietna... oh.. wait.

It was just a joke, I'm not suggesting we colonise Somalia.

@ the above:

See Rorkes Drift. That's what the picture refers to.