US Flagged Vessel Captured! UPDATE: Navy SEALS take out pirates

[sonar732]

Ship carrying 20 Americans believed hijacked off Somalia (http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/04/08/ship.hijacked/index.html)



(CNN) -- Pirates near Somalia's coastline attacked a cargo ship Wednesday with a crew of at least 20 U.S. nationals, according to the company that owns the vessel.


I say capture at all cost.

[GoldenRivet]

Act of War.

I have long believed we should have small, swift Q-Ships operating so heavily in those waters than the pirates would think twice about approaching even a row boat.

[Skybird]

BBC called it a "sustained night attack". Some days ago a german freighter was captured, with half a dozen German nationals - in waters so far away that they had been considered to be relatively safe.

Now it takes it's toll that in past months and during last year it was decided to play kind with them, not to fight against them, not to harm them, not to shoot at them, not rying to eliminate them and interrupt their operations already during preparation and/or approach phase, and pay them their ransoms - which they invest in better equipment, better boats, better weapons, to scale up their attacks. Some weeks ago they even have mistakenly attacked an armed German war navy supply ship, although that went not well for them, they were taken prisoners. But what does that mean anyway?

Shipping insurances have risen. So rose the prices for shipped items and goods. We all pay for it with our private money.

[SteamWake]

They are testing the waters so to speak.

[AVGWarhawk]

Act of War.

I have long believed we should have small, swift Q-Ships operating so heavily in those waters than the pirates would think twice about approaching even a row boat.

:yep: A nice disguised merchant ship. Empty containers on deck...except they are not empty, drop sides and fat cannon within:D

[GoldenRivet]

well as i have posted before.

it cant be a merchant ship... it would have to be a sleek, large motor yacht.

http://www.splashvision.com/upphotos/6755/s_Motor_Yacht_LAUREN_L521.jpg


this way, if the situation goes too far south, it can turn tail and run at high speed.

second... it appears that most of these craft are being approached by small boats... so you dont want to be armed with a typical cannon... but several of these would work nicely at cutting down any threat.

http://cache.io9.com/assets/resources/2007/11/phalanx.jpg

such a weapon could be fairly easily concealed aboard a yacht.


for larger long range defense, the 5 inch gun i think... on some sort of hydraulic lift or concealed in some sort of container with fold down sides.

[AVGWarhawk]

Problem is the pirates will see this vessel. It needs to be a merchant. Just like the ones they like to take. Have a few of those vulcan cannons in containers on the deck. FUN:D

[Onkel Neal]

This just in from the news on the radio, US crew overpowers the hijackers...:up:

[SteamWake]

This just in from the news on the radio, US crew overpowers the hijackers...:up:

Heard that, also heard it is not confirmed. Lets hope so.

While the white house ponders a response the crew takes action evidently.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D97ECKC80&show_article=1

[GoldenRivet]

Problem is the pirates will see this vessel. It needs to be a merchant. Just like the ones they like to take. Have a few of those vulcan cannons in containers on the deck. FUN:D

these same pirates have seized motor yachts in the past.

If you make a Q-Ship merchant it had better have speed... you dont want a boat like that falling into the wrong hands.

[Onkel Neal]

Heard that, also heard it is not confirmed. Lets hope so.

While the white house ponders a response the crew takes action evidently.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D97ECKC80&show_article=1

Either way, I'm sure Obama will apologize for it.

[GoldenRivet]

Either way, I'm sure Obama will apologize for it.

He will address the pirates on public television saying we should be sensitive to their needs.

[AVGWarhawk]

these same pirates have seized motor yachts in the past.

If you make a Q-Ship merchant it had better have speed... you dont want a boat like that falling into the wrong hands.

The only speed they need is the bullets flying out of the vulcan cannons:D

[AVGWarhawk]

He will address the pirates on public television saying we should be sensitive to their needs.

Somehow I would believe that. After all, is it REALLY the pirates fault:06:

[Aramike]

Either way, I'm sure Obama will apologize for it.:har::yep:

[GoldenRivet]

Somehow I would believe that. After all, is it REALLY the pirates fault:06:

bad childhood. we should try to rehabilitate these pirates and implant them as functioning members of our scociety here in America.

[AVGWarhawk]

bad childhood. we should try to rehabilitate these pirates and implant them as functioning members of our scociety here in America.

Well sure, poor socio-economic upbringing that is some how our fault. Let's give them a hug. :D

[AVGWarhawk]

CREW RETAKES VESSEL......:yeah:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7990566.stm

Well Skybird...your thoughts?

[Digital_Trucker]

Gee, I wonder what really happened to the other three hijackers?:hmmm: Hope they didn't beat the living crap out of them and dump them overboard for sharkbait:D

[AVGWarhawk]

Gee, I wonder what really happened to the other three hijackers?:hmmm: Hope they didn't beat the living crap out of them and dump them overboard for sharkbait:D

Someone needed to check the props and make sure they were OK. I heard there were 3 volunteers for the job:D

[XLjedi]

Either way, I'm sure Obama will apologize for it.

I think the only way you might get action in this administration would be to have a US sniper request authorization through Congress under the new healthcare plan to provide free forehead implants for all Somali pirates.

[Max2147]

Q-ships wouldn't be effective against pirates. You need escorted convoys in the danger zone with strong aerial support. In other words, you need destroyers/frigates with multiple helicopters to make sure you always have a few choppers airborne at any time.

But the real solution can't come from the sea, it has to come from the shore. There needs to be a real government in Somalia to take care of their own problems. There are a lot of other poor African countries out there, but all of them except Somalia are at least able to keep their citizens from becoming pirates.

[Skybird]

He will address the pirates on public television saying we should be sensitive to their needs.

Sorry, we have beaten you to it. After the pirates attacking the German navy supply ship "Spessart" had been captured, they were handed over to Kenya today. A German government speaker today said that measurements had been undertaken that while being prisoners aboard the German warship "they would be better off than before " (quote), and that they have been given "nice blue overalls", "round-the-clock medical treatment, they had been assured that they would not need to fear the Germans, and to their religious needs special attention had been payed, so that they had not been given pork meat to eat. These are very religious criminal attackers, you know, believing in the religion of peace. Oh, btw, if they would steal not fromminfidel but Muslim ships, they would see their hands and feet chopped off.

[AVGWarhawk]

Sorry, we have beaten you to it. After the pirates attacking the German navy supply ship "Spessart" had been captured, they were handed over to Kenya today. A German government speaker today said that measurements had been undertaken that while being prisoners aboard the German warship "they would be better off than before " (quote), and that they have been given "nice blue overalls", "round-the-clock medical treatment, they had been assured that they would not need to fear the Germans, and to their religious needs special attention had been payed, so that they had not been given pork meat to eat. These are very religious criminal attackers, you know, believing in the religion of peace. Oh, btw, if they would steal not fromminfidel but Muslim ships, they would see their hands and feet chopped off.

Sounds to me like they bought off the pirates and as a result should stick to stealing boats that do not fly the German flag:hmmm:

[August]

Oh, btw, if they would steal not fromminfidel but Muslim ships, they would see their hands and feet chopped off.

Right. Like they did to the ones that hijacked that Saudi tanker...oh wait.

[Enigma]

Sorry to interrupt this parade of ..well, whatever. But can someone point me to the time when Obama apologized for the capture of Americans or American interests? I'm really curious where we get our facts around here. Unless Neal is gospel, of course.

[Max2147]

Sorry to interrupt this parade of ..well, whatever. But can someone point me to the time when Obama apologized for the capture of Americans or American interests? I'm really curious where we get our facts around here. Unless Neal is gospel, of course.
He's a Democrat and a liberal, therefore he must be soft on all things involving national defense. Only conservative Republicans are allowed to be strong.

At least that's the argument.

[GoldenRivet]

He's a Democrat and a liberal, therefore he must be soft on all things involving national defense. Only conservative Republicans are allowed to be strong.

At least that's the argument.

and pretty much true. Republicans wage war... democrats toss about a few pointless and arbitrary air strikes and call it a day.

Update... the Pirates still have the captain of the ship.

[Onkel Neal]

Sorry to interrupt this parade of ..well, whatever. But can someone point me to the time when Obama apologized for the capture of Americans or American interests? I'm really curious where we get our facts around here. Unless Neal is gospel, of course.


What happened to your sense of humor?? Somali pirates hijack it? :O:

[GoldenRivet]

What happened to your sense of humor?? Somali pirates hijack it? :O:

yes... but he captured it back. :D

[Enigma]

Not bad work for a liberal...

[XLjedi]

Actually... if we could just reclassify the pirates as corporate CEO's; I think he could fire them!

[Ishmael]

I posted this on the Newsvine thread:


This is what happens when you have a UNION crew.My Grandfather was a merchant seaman and sailed on the last of the square-riggers. His Sailor's Union of the Pacific Union card was signed by Andrew Ferusuth, the union's founder. My Dad was a merchant seaman all through WW2, and saw action in the Aleutians, North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio and Iwo Jima. He also did a year in San Quentin for Armed robbery. So he was shot at by representatives of all 3 Axis powers(4 if you count the Vichy French) and only ever used a weapon to commit a crime. He was a member of the Sailor's Union of The Pacific, The Seafarer's International Union and the National Maritime Union. I salute the brave men of the Maersk Alabama and honor their valor that stands in proud traditions of the United States Merchant Marine. As a former tin-can sonarman who sailed those same waters 30 years ago, I know the difficulty the Navy has patrolling these waters and salute my merchant brethren as Iron Men in Iron Ships. Splice the Main Brace for me.

Here's the Yahoo link.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090409/ap_on_re_af/piracy (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090409/ap_on_re_af/piracy)

Huzzah and Hully Gee!

[Tchocky]

and pretty much true. Republicans wage war...

Yes, SIR!

Permission to think, sir?

[antikristuseke]

sailed on the last of the square-riggers.

Do not try to read this sientnece when you have just woken up with a slight hangover, Took me a while to realize that it was riggers not ni...

My brain needs a kickstart.

[Tchocky]

I've been at work for an hour already and this hangover isn't going away.

[August]

Yes, SIR!

Permission to think, sir?


As long as you start thinking about your own country for a change. God knows Ireland could use the attention. :DL

Besides if you know your American history you'd know that when it comes to starting wars the Democrats have the Republicans beat by a wide margin.

[SteamWake]

Somehow the crew regained control of the ships yet the 'pirates' continue to hold the capitan hostage.

The US has sent a Destroyer to the area.

What a destroyer is going to do other than intimidate, its not like they are going to sink the merchant.

[Jimbuna]

After failing to grasp the positives around the convoying system at the outset of both world wars.....surely now is the time to give it some serious thought.

We are not talking about U-boats or FAC hare....but medium size motor/speed boats at best.

Surely two frigate sized ships, each with a helicopter would suffice as an escort.

[SteamWake]

After failing to grasp the positives around the convoying system at the outset of both world wars.....surely now is the time to give it some serious thought.

We are not talking about U-boats or FAC hare....but medium size motor/speed boats at best.

Surely two frigate sized ships, each with a helicopter would suffice as an escort.

This all sounds well and good, however the costs would find themselves displaced into the goods being delivered at some point.

Dont know if its true or not but this ships cargo was listed as emergency food relief for Zambia.

Some more updates:

The captain is still being held hostage on a smaller boat which is now evidently out of gas.

The crew had a member of the 'pirates' held but gave him up in an attempt to free the captain which evidently failed.

Allegedly the captain gave himself up in order to 'free' the crew.

[Max2147]

This all sounds well and good, however the costs would find themselves displaced into the goods being delivered at some point.
If the convoy system worked, then shipping insurance prices would go back to normal, which would offset the costs of the protection.

[UnderseaLcpl]

If the convoy system worked, then shipping insurance prices would go back to normal, which would offset the costs of the protection.

Not really. Modern trade is dependent on "just-in-time" delivery of goods. Convoys are not cost-effective in such a system. They are rigid and slow and require a vast amount of effort to organize.

Last time everyone was talking about this I thought arming merchants was a good idea. Somebody talked me down from it, because of diplomatic considerations and the like.

I think the best solution would be on-demand private marine security firms. They could set up shop at ports that have shipping companies with routes through dangerous waters, and disembark at the next point the firms consider suitable where they wait for a contracting ship to make a return voyage.

[Kapitan_Phillips]

vulcan cannons

*puts on helmet*

[nikimcbee]

I can't believe nobody has caught who the Kapitan is...

Four gang members were holding the captain, Richard Phillips, on the ship's lifeboat after he apparently volunteered to be a hostage for the sake of his crew.


KP are you okay? Just tap 1 for yes and 2 for no. Do you need us to rescue you? Just tap one for yes.

I'll put my Han Solo suit on, GR, you get the wookie suit, and Jim, it's okay to put the princess suit back on.:haha: We'll be there in 20 minutes:arrgh!:

[Takeda Shingen]

I think the best solution would be on-demand private marine security firms. They could set up shop at ports that have shipping companies with routes through dangerous waters, and disembark at the next point the firms consider suitable where they wait for a contracting ship to make a return voyage.

I agree. Of course, it might be more cost effective just to go ahead and arm the merchants after all, or at least do so when traveling certain parts of the world.

[Rockstar]

Send warships puts the country who sent it in a bad spot if some farmer manages to place a missle in the side of it.

Private security firms? How long before some bleeding hearts establish a Somali pirate defense fund and these security firms are brought to trial for crimes against humanity? Private firms will work but only if we shoot the lawyers first then go after the pirates


.

[Tchocky]

No point upholding the law if you can't shoot some lawyers.

No, your honour, I shall be defending myself.

[Digital_Trucker]

............. but only if we shoot the lawyers first then go after the pirates


.

It's not really the lawyers fault. They only profit from the enforcement of the laws (or the evasion of same). It's the lawmakers that need the "lead implants".

[Ishmael]

Here's my suggestion. Obama should issue a Letter of Marque to a consortium of US shipping companies under the 1802 Privateer Act to raid pirate shipping and lairs. The consortium purchases USS Iowa out of the Suisun Reserve Fleet and fits her out with crew and armaments and sends her to the Somali coast. She starts at the southernmost pirate lair and uses her 16-inch and five-inch guns to reduce the lair to a pile of smoking rubble. Any ships recovered from the pirates become prizes and the property of the consortium under maritime anti-piracy and salvage laws. Any ships that refuse to surrender are sunk or destroyed. Any pirates captured are summarily hanged from the yardarms. Once the first lair is destroyed, Iowa moves north along the coast repeating the process until all pirate ports and shipping are destroyed.

[nikimcbee]

I like your idea. They should invoke the old pirate laws; No mercy, no quarter:arrgh!:.

they should just create an exclusion zone, any ship not registered to be in there will be sunk on sight.

We should identify which ports haves pirates operating out of them, and level them.:yeah:

[Ishmael]

I like your idea. They should invoke the old pirate laws; No mercy, no quarter:arrgh!:.

they should just create an exclusion zone, any ship not registered to be in there will be sunk on sight.

We should identify which ports haves pirates operating out of them, and level them.:yeah:

Don't forget the financial incentive for anti-piracy. Any ship and cargo recaptured from pirates becomes a Prize ship and the property of the owners, Captain and crew of the ship who recaptures it under Admiralty and Maritime laws. The anti-piracy laws dealing with punishment for piracy are also equally severe.

[nikimcbee]

Don't forget the financial incentive for anti-piracy. Any ship and cargo recaptured from pirates becomes a Prize ship and the property of the owners, Captain and crew of the ship who recaptures it under Admiralty and Maritime laws. The anti-piracy laws dealing with punishment for piracy are also equally severe.

I'm just saying, we sink thier boats and do not rescue survivors., there may be pirates in the area you know, can't stop.:arrgh!:

I say, rearm the Iowa and lets level somebody's port. No nation building or democracy spreading; just unadulterated ass kicking. :yeah:

[UnderseaLcpl]

I say, rearm the Iowa and lets level somebody's port. No nation building or democracy spreading; just unadulterated ass kicking. :yeah:

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o264/charlie143james/Chuck_Norris_Approves.jpg


:D

[nikimcbee]

Don't forget the financial incentive for anti-piracy. Any ship and cargo recaptured from pirates becomes a Prize ship and the property of the owners, Captain and crew of the ship who recaptures it under Admiralty and Maritime laws. The anti-piracy laws dealing with punishment for piracy are also equally severe.

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o264/charlie143james/Chuck_Norris_Approves.jpg


:D

Or we could use one of our fancy subs to find the mothership, and a few Mk 48's later...
long-range pirate problem solved.

They were discussing it on the radio this afternoon, and it's just maddening to me how we are held hostage to the lawyers and PCness. It's just easier not to do anything because of the legal ramifications.:shifty: We if that's the case, I'm gunna by me a boat and become a pirate, because I know nobody will do anything, just give me what I want and I'll go away until I spend the money.:hmmm:

[UnderseaLcpl]

Or we could use one of our fancy subs to find the mothership, and a few Mk 48's later...
long-range pirate problem solved.

They were discussing it on the radio this afternoon, and it's just maddening to me how we are held hostage to the lawyers and PCness. It's just easier not to do anything because of the legal ramifications.:shifty: We if that's the case, I'm gunna by me a boat and become a pirate, because I know nobody will do anything, just give me what I want and I'll go away until I spend the money.:hmmm:

I thought you guys were joking about the battleship thing.:oops:

Dude, can you imagine the international ramifications of destroying Somalia's ports, no matter what methods are used? We might as well make a guest appearance on one of those "Save the Children" commercials and start punching starving babies. It would be an unjustified escalation of force, and it would harm civilians more than pirates.

I don't foresee any international objections to setting up private security firms in ports on either end of pirated routes. It wouldn't cost taxpayer money, it wouldn't be an escelation of force, it wouldn't disrupt shipping, it might lower insurance costs, and it would work wonders as a deterrant. After all, any ship could have security forces aboard.......
Better yet, maybe I could have a cool new job:DL
Imo, we should focus on diplomatic efforts to allow such companies to operate.

The PCness and lawyers piss me off too but you can't just say "to hell with them!" The people behind legal entanglements and PC BS are masters at this game, because their livelihood depends on it. Why not pit them against professional-grade opposition?;)

[Dowly]

US flagged ship get's captured and everyone are screaming about it. What happened to the all the other ships that got captured? They dont deserve a thread? Fricking sick of this US this US that bull****. The sailors knew the risks of goin there, big farking thing.

[nikimcbee]

I thought you guys were joking about the battleship thing.:oops:

Dude, can you imagine the international ramifications of destroying Somalia's ports, no matter what methods are used? We might as well make a guest appearance on one of those "Save the Children" commercials and start punching starving babies. It would be an unjustified escalation of force, and it would harm civilians more than pirates.

I don't foresee any international objections to setting up private security firms in ports on either end of pirated routes. It wouldn't cost taxpayer money, it wouldn't be an escelation of force, it wouldn't disrupt shipping, it might lower insurance costs, and it would work wonders as a deterrant. After all, any ship could have security forces aboard.......
Better yet, maybe I could have a cool new job:DL
Imo, we should focus on diplomatic efforts to allow such companies to operate.

The PCness and lawyers piss me off too but you can't just say "to hell with them!" The people behind legal entanglements and PC BS are masters at this game, because their livelihood depends on it. Why not pit them against professional-grade opposition?;)

The thing is, noone wants to make a move, because they don't want to beheld liable for anything. It's just embarassing, all these nations with a military force are cowering like a bunch of scared kittens and caving in to these guys. Maybe we could pay for some bounty hunters to go after these guys. With all of our technology and special forces, somebody should be able to track them then destroy them. Lets just say for fun, we (anybody frankly) aggresively go after them, what's the UN gunna do? Nuttin! They'll sit in the corner and bark.

[UnderseaLcpl]

The thing is, noone wants to make a move, because they don't want to beheld liable for anything. It's just embarassing, all these nations with a military force are cowering like a bunch of scared kittens and caving in to these guys. Maybe we could pay for some bounty hunters to go after these guys. With all of our technology and special forces, somebody should be able to track them then destroy them. Lets just say for fun, we (anybody frankly) aggresively go after them, what's the UN gunna do? Nuttin! They'll sit in the corner and bark.

I like your idea of hiring bounty hunters. Unfortunately, state-sponsored hiring of private entities to violate the sovereignty nations is frowned upon even more than direct state intervention. There's a lot of implied sneakiness to it. Even legitimate use of state-sponsored private entities to effect foreign policy is considered disdainful (by people I disagree with, I might add)
Just look at Blackwater or Executive Outcomes.

You and I both know that the state really only serves two interests; self-interest, and politics. They never do anything right. What they should be doing is empowering private entities to take care of the problem themselves, and stop trying to solve the problem with their PC BS.

The only real solution is to let people handle their own damn affairs. Which would you rather have if you were being assaulted, a gun or a phone? States around the world argue furiously that calling them will fix your problems, but they never do, and even when they do it's too damn late.
"But" they argue, "we'll prevent such things from happening!"
Yeah, they've done a bang-up job so far.
This applies to firms, as well as individuals, especially when international politics are involved. No state is going to pass a reasonable global solution through its' legislative bowels and come up with a golden egg that everyone will treasure. It has never happened, and it will never happen. Too many conflicting interests are at stake.

The only real answer is to let private firms select private firms to ensure their security in international waters, or not. Maybe they get lucky and the pirates don't attack their vessels. Maybe they aren't lucky and pirates do sieze their vessels. If that happens, it's their own fault for trying to cut corners. Who has a truly productive use for a company that cuts corners? Who chooses them to ship their goods? Who would insure them? Too bad for them.

As with many things, no one has a choice unless they choose choice. Our efforts should be focussed upon navigating international barriers to provide businesses with that choice.

[pythos]

Time to bring back convoys, and arm the merchant ships.

Why is this so hard to figure out? I heard the instructor at the merchantmen academy say "It's gonna be hard". Why? Why will it be hard?

Haven't the people in charge read history, saw how the arming of merchants pretty much put a halt to U-boats carrying out most surface attacks?

These pirates are in small outboard motor boats!!!!

Those frigging destroyers have PHALANX systems on them, a system that can track an destroy incoming missiles, why can't they be used on stupid little pirate boats!!!?

This is insanely stupid. This should never have happened.

[SteamWake]

US flagged ship get's captured and everyone are screaming about it. What happened to the all the other ships that got captured? They dont deserve a thread? Fricking sick of this US this US that bull****. The sailors knew the risks of goin there, big farking thing.


I raised the anti pirate flag years/months ago,. went un noticed. Im really curious to see how this one works out.

[fatty]

21,000 vessels transit the Gulf of Aden every year; that's almost 57 a day. Weighing the imposed costs of contemporary maritime piracy against the prospective costs of equipping all of these ships with weapons or security detachments, plus enhancing port security measures and policy to accomodate foreign-crewed and heavily-armed ships... I don't anticipate arming merchant ships or their crews being accepted as favourable options.

[pythos]

Okay then, re institute convoys. We have destroyers, let's use them. Perhaps the Germans had it correct years ago when they made the U-cargo ships. The Huge submersible cargo boats.

[Ishmael]

US flagged ship get's captured and everyone are screaming about it. What happened to the all the other ships that got captured? They dont deserve a thread? Fricking sick of this US this US that bull****. The sailors knew the risks of goin there, big farking thing.

There's a reason for my US-centroism. The US Navy is only obligated to protect and defend US-flagged ships and that's all they SHOULD protect. At the end of World War 2, the US had the largest merchant fleet in the world. Then steamship companies didn't want to pay US wages or obey US safety laws so they flocked to flags of convenience like Panama and Liberia. The final result is as you see it. The US warships should sink any pirate-controlled vessel that gets within 50 miles of the lifeboat, hostages or not. Piracy is a scourge to honest sailors everywhere and it will continue until it is stamped out. If these other ships want naval protection, they should contact the Liberian or Panamanian Navy, otherwise they should reregister under US flag with US crews. I note that it was ONLY the US crew who retook control of their vessel. As far as civilian casualties, the people who live in these pirate lairs are all making money off of the trade and are therefore complicit in it. As long as the benefits of Piracy outweigh the consequences, piracy will continue there as it did in the Caribbean and Madagascar in earlier times.

[Tribesman]

There's a reason for my US-centroism. The US Navy is only obligated to protect and defend US-flagged ships and that's all they SHOULD protect.
Don't talk rubbish , read your constitution and understand your navies obligations under the law of nations .
Then you will perhaps understand the obligation your navy has from which there can be no derogation .

So on a side note , any thoughts on the French skipper who died in the rescue attempt .
Was it the pirates or a stray shot from the French that killed him ?
Or given that it appears his reason for ignoring the warnings was that he thinks the government was lying to him did they perhaps just shoot him for being stupid ?
I wonder if his wife still holds the view that piracy around Somalia is just a myth that is hyped by the media to stop people from having the freedom to travel .

[Platapus]

The US warships should sink any pirate-controlled vessel that gets within 50 miles of the lifeboat, hostages or not.

A bit rough on the hostages aint it?

"We had to kill the hostage in order to save her" does not make a good headline :nope:

[Max2147]

Unconfirmed reports say that another US vessel has been seized by Somali pirates: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7994980.stm

[JALU3]

Here's an idea, since the Mogadishu UN/AU backed government is not effective in controlling its territory, both land and sea, the state of Somalia should be retrograded to the status of a Trust Territory, as it was post WWII. A lead nation should be designated, and a UN military mission be reestablished to bring law and order to the territory and its territorial waters. Those who do not comply are considered hostile, and appropriate action be taken. Once a safe environment is established, aid agencies can enter to assist in any humanitarian issues, and appropriate groups should be tasked to direct rebuilding efforts regarding critical infrastructure. With that the natural market should create a need which would be fulfilled by internal sources, or create trade via importation.

[fatty]

Here's an idea, since the Mogadishu UN/AU backed government is not effective in controlling its territory, both land and sea, the state of Somalia should be retrograded to the status of a Trust Territory, as it was post WWII. A lead nation should be designated, and a UN military mission be reestablished to bring law and order to the territory and its territorial waters. Those who do not comply are considered hostile, and appropriate action be taken. Once a safe environment is established, aid agencies can enter to assist in any humanitarian issues, and appropriate groups should be tasked to direct rebuilding efforts regarding critical infrastructure. With that the natural market should create a need which would be fulfilled by internal sources, or create trade via importation.

Couldn't have said it better myself :salute:

[JALU3]

Couldn't have said it better myself :salute:

Coming from someone who wrote a groundbreaking, IMHO, paper on the subject I am humbled by your statement. Security/Economic need, right. Gotta address both here. Thank you Fatty:salute:

[UnderseaLcpl]

Here's an idea, since the Mogadishu UN/AU backed government is not effective in controlling its territory, both land and sea, the state of Somalia should be retrograded to the status of a Trust Territory, as it was post WWII. A lead nation should be designated, and a UN military mission be reestablished to bring law and order to the territory and its territorial waters. Those who do not comply are considered hostile, and appropriate action be taken. Once a safe environment is established, aid agencies can enter to assist in any humanitarian issues, and appropriate groups should be tasked to direct rebuilding efforts regarding critical infrastructure. With that the natural market should create a need which would be fulfilled by internal sources, or create trade via importation.

That's a great idea and I support it fully as long as America isn't part of it.

[JALU3]

NEWS UPDATE: MSNBC reports that the lifeboat has reached a point due to natural drift to within 20 miles of Somali coast (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/30168161#30168161). (Side note, MSNBC is LOL as they show in this video (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/30165868#30165868) a Spruance Class Destroyer and a, Iowa Class Battleship in the graphic (haven't you noticed some news agencies are now calling the A. Burkes Battleships (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gSXyAok3YrJTZLKD31SAjC9pfvkgD97EDC0O0) (more LOLs)))
That's a great idea and I support it fully as long as America isn't part of it.
Why shouldn't the US play a roll in it, if the US didn't lead the backing out after the Battle of Mogadishu, there may have been a chance of bringing security and order in that country. Rather that administration, having extended the mission objections without providing adequate support to said mission, did not provide overwhelming force to achieve the objectives, thus leading to the Osama Bin Laden coming to the belief that the US was only a "paper tiger". (http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/shows/binladen/timeline.html) But that's a different arguement, that relates to it, but isn't directly connected.
I do see the US as having a roll in this idea, but definatly not a leading one. The US has one of the few global logistic abilities that very few other nations posess. However, at the same time, it is overstretched (until the eventual draw down of US forces in Iraq), even with the continuing growth of its active force (i.e. the increase in BCTs). What I would like to see is an AU or other region power, such as India, take the lead, with other nations providing support and expert know how that the lead nation lacks.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Why shouldn't the US play a roll in it, if the US didn't lead the backing out after the Battle of Mogadishu, there may have been a chance of bringing security and order in that country. Rather that administration, having extended the mission objections without providing adequate support to said mission, did not provide overwhelming force to achieve the objectives, thus leading to the Osama Bin Laden coming to the belief that the US was only a "paper tiger". (http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/shows/binladen/timeline.html) But that's a different arguement, that relates to it, but isn't directly connected.
I do see the US as having a roll in this idea, but definatly not a leading one. The US has one of the few global logistic abilities that very few other nations posess. However, at the same time, it is overstretched (until the eventual draw down of US forces in Iraq), even with the continuing growth of its active force (i.e. the increase in BCTs). What I would like to see is an AU or other region power, such as India, take the lead, with other nations providing support and expert know how that the lead nation lacks.

I have a lot of reasons for not wanting the U.S to be involved at all (or as minimally involved as possible), most of which reach beyond the bounds of controlling piracy and into the realms of proper administration of state.

This is a difficult thing to argue, because you are very right on a number of points. U.S. logistic support would be very helpful to restoring order in Somalia, and I agree that the U.S. should not have a leading role in any such effort. You are also correct in stating that U.S. withdrawl from Somalia was a less-than-ideal outcome, and that it possibly contributed to future violence ( unless I mistake your meaning)
Furthermore, I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of having some other nation assume the burden of Somalia.

Despite how correct you are in many things, I maintain my stance of U.S. non-involvement.
Firstly, there is the assumption that U.S. withdrawl from Somalia caused a problem, or that continued U.S. presence would have been wise. Somalia was in dire straits before the U.S came along, and our presence ultimately did nothing to fix it, nor could it have. Somalia is an economic quagmire. It is a near-worthless piece of land with an almost equally worthless and factionalized populace. Like many quagmires, this is a quagmire that the U.S. did not create. Europe is responsible for it.
Let them fix the problem.

Seondly, there is the matter of U.S. success in nation-building and/or foreign aid in Africa, or for that matter, the success of any nation in nation-building Africa. The point stands on its' own. You already know what the statistics say.

Honestly, I think you have great case for solving Somalia but I don't see why the U.S should be a part of it at all. The risks are great, the rewards are small, and it is none of our business. Better to let some other nation(s) deal with it and forget the whole business.

My preference is to stand on the principles that made the U.S. great to begin with. Private industry and non-interventionism. Also, by looking out for America's interests and paving the way for private firms to ensure the security of our shipping (should our shipping companies choose to employ it) we can avoid all the hassle of wasting taxpayer money whilst benefitting from the economic cost to (and any anti-pirate success of) other nations. The world is already pissed at us for interfering all the time, it would be a simple political matter to transfer state regulation of piracy to other nations if we are sufficiently obsequious.

Finally, I will address your implied desire for the U.S to effectively back up its' foreign policy (the paper tiger thing). Honestly, if we just stayed out of other nations' business, it wouldn't be a problem. Free trade with all nations, alliances with none. We need to move in the direction of "we weren't there, don't blame us" Ultimately, no one is going to be mad at us for not being involved at all. They only ever get mad at us for interfering incorrectly.

You really do have a great idea for Somalia, but I don't think U.S intervention on any major scale would be effective or appreciated, even if it does work (which it usually doesn't) at best, we'd be accused of colonialism or supporting colonialism. At worst, the U.S would take the forefront(as it often does with major international endeavors) and then we would be accused of imperialism (already happening) and the predictable backlash would follow.

The only winning move is to not play the game at all. Let some other nation take the fall (or the credit, as unlikely as it is) for once.

[JALU3]

You know funny thing there. It's lose/lose, always. When the US is not involved you hear foreign individuals say, why isn't the US doing something with its massive wealth and resources. When the US is involved, you'll here complaints about the US wanting to take the lead, or forcing our way upon others. I think in the end there is no way the US wont get blamed for something or receive negative image results regardless of how it responds/acts regarding something. There'll always be someone with access to a camera or a microphone to paint the US as doing something they don't like, even if that something is not doing something.

Somalia's problems are internal, but as we have seen, they have been unable to fix it themselves, and it effects our interest due to our shipping through the area. Sure, it would be best if the private companies would take care of themselves by hiring private security and what not, but as we have seen they have been unable or unwilling to. Therefore, it falls back upon the navies of the vessels that ply those waters to conduct some of their most basic duties, that is to protect its nation's merchant vessels. With that being said, the problem originates in Somalia, and will not be solved until order is restored to that region. In absence of order, there can be no recovery, which would lead to solving the problems which lead to the piracy.

Thus stopping piracy at sea is only treating the symptoms, and not actually curing the disease. In this case the disease are the lawless conditions in Somalia.

As I had said, US Intervention as far as ashore matters, should be minimal. I would support supporting another nation taking lead, and assisting that nation when it needs it, and providing expert support in areas that it lacks the ability in. But the question is, would enough nations be willing to put in the effort and resources it takes to come to a "win condition". Otherwise, the piracy will be a continuing problem.

[Max2147]

Here's an idea, since the Mogadishu UN/AU backed government is not effective in controlling its territory, both land and sea, the state of Somalia should be retrograded to the status of a Trust Territory, as it was post WWII. A lead nation should be designated, and a UN military mission be reestablished to bring law and order to the territory and its territorial waters. Those who do not comply are considered hostile, and appropriate action be taken. Once a safe environment is established, aid agencies can enter to assist in any humanitarian issues, and appropriate groups should be tasked to direct rebuilding efforts regarding critical infrastructure. With that the natural market should create a need which would be fulfilled by internal sources, or create trade via importation.
Good luck in finding a nation that wants to take that on.

Imperialism and colonialism didn't end because the European nations had a sudden change in heart and decided that the other races of the world should be allowed to rule themselves, it ended because it was horribly unprofitable.

Even if everything goes right in the "Somali Mandate" (for lack of a better term) it will be horribly expensive for the lead country, and you can bet that nobody will step up to the plate to help them shoulder the costs. No European nation will step up - the stigma of imperialism is just too strong, and none of them are exactly swimming in cash. Because of Afghanistan and Iraq the US doesn't have a dime or a troop to spare, and even if we did the memory of Blackhawk Down would keep us out.

The grim reality is that a Somali Mandate operation would probably go horribly wrong. Any operation would require troop deployments to subdue the warlords. That would put off the Somalis in a big way. People become irrational when it comes to foreign troops on their soil. The troops may be helping them, but they still resent their presence. I remember after Katrina, Castro offered the services of the Cuban army to help the recovery efforts. Can you imagine the outrage if he had just sent the army in on his own accord, without even asking us? Even if all they had done was hand out blankets and food we would have still been irate at their presence.

In Somalia you'd have that outrage, and everybody is armed. It wouldn't take long for a cycle of violence to break out and spiral out of control. Then you'd end up with an Iraq-style quagmire, only without the stubborn insistence on sticking it out.

But getting back to the issue of who would take it up, there are only two nations I can think of that might want to take on such a Somali Mandate: Russia and China. When you think of either of those nations controlling Somalia (and the adjacent shipping lanes), suddenly the mandate idea doesn't seem too appealing. In fact, piracy suddenly seems like a better option.

One easy step the US/international community could take is to recognize Somaliland's independence. Despite zero help from the international community, they've managed to set up a relatively peaceful and democratic state on their own.

[Bewolf]

So, the guy is free. Three of the pirates got killed. The US clearly send a signal there, one I can fully support. The pirates had enough time to give up, they gambled and lost.

Hope these pirates learned a lesson today.

[SUBMAN1]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7996087.stm

-S

[Syxx_Killer]

Now that's what I call a happy ending! :yeah: There are four less pirates to worry about (three that were killed and one taken into custody which I didn't see mentioned in that article).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/piracy

[Ivan Putski]

Great news indeed, now they need to clean their strongholds out.:yeah:

[SandyCaesar]

Well done, Navy! That's the way you do it!:salute:

(Additional salute: :salute: for the brave man who gave himself up for his crew, and for the crew of the MV Maersk Alabama who regained control of their ship. Go Merchant Marines!)

Now to ensure that it won't happen again...

[Etienne]

So, the guy is free. Three of the pirates got killed. The US clearly send a signal there, one I can fully support. The pirates had enough time to give up, they gambled and lost.

Hope these pirates learned a lesson today.

I hope the lesson won't be 'Shoot the crew first, ask questions later.'

[Platapus]

While this is a very happy ending to this horrible crime, I am concerned with what will happen next time.

US forces apparently took advantage of the fact one of the pirates was negotiating on a US Navy vessel when the incident happened.

This is a trick you can only pull once. :(

Very happy the Captain was rescued. :salute:

[nikimcbee]

Huzzah to the SEALS:salute:

[SUBMAN1]

This is a trick you can only pull once. :(

Doubt it. They aren't smart enough to think it might happen again.

-S

[nikimcbee]

Somebody needs to find their mothership, and put 2 mk 48s into it! Pirate problem resolved.:yeah:

[Zachstar]

Not in the least bit.

These pirates are criminals but there are root causes that will only ensure many generations of pirates to come. Because pirating gets them many many times the amount any jobs in their homelands give.

The only way to win this war is to get a government in that can establish a coast guard and get their waters and ports back from the hands of the pirates.

[Takeda Shingen]

Doubt it. They aren't smart enough to think it might happen again.

-S

Agreed. Also, it serves to demonstrate to other pirates what they can expect when taking for ransom the crew of a US-flagged vessel. These guys are motivated only by money, not ideology. In this case, they recieved no money and three lost their lives in the process. Good show, Navy.

[Takeda Shingen]

I hope the lesson won't be 'Shoot the crew first, ask questions later.'

Shooting the crew doesn't get them anywhere. To make their money, they must ransom either the crew, the cargo or the ship itself. What, are four guys going to just going to operate a container ship by themselves?

[nikimcbee]

Agreed. Also, it serves to demonstrate to other pirates what they can expect when taking for ransom the crew of a US-flagged vessel. These guys are motivated only by money, not ideology. In this case, they recieved no money and three lost their lives in the process. Good show, Navy.

Speaking of lost at sea! Long time, no see Mr. Takeda

[Takeda Shingen]

Speaking of lost at sea! Long time, no see Mr. Takeda

Yeah, I got a job on this container ship, and you just wouldn't believe what happened...

[mr chris]

Hats off to the USA for being a country with a no nonsense attitude to these pirate scumbags. Hopefully the rest of the world will take heed of there lead, When it comes to deal with scum like this.

[gordonmull]

Good result. Every nation should be following America's example in this particular case. The message needs to be "Become a pirate, become dead."

[Max2147]

Shooting the crew doesn't get them anywhere. To make their money, they must ransom either the crew, the cargo or the ship itself. What, are four guys going to just going to operate a container ship by themselves?
True. One reason the pirates have been so successful at getting ransoms is that they've treated the crews well. If they start killing the crews they won't get anything except a ship they can't use and a bunch of cargo that they don't want.

It sounds like Obama gave the order to shoot if the captain's life was in danger, and the US sailors decided that the pirates were about to shoot. Fortunately, our guys didn't miss. Some reports have said that the captain started the whole thing when he tried to swim away, but that hasn't been confirmed. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7996213.stm

[Etienne]

Shooting the crew doesn't get them anywhere. To make their money, they must ransom either the crew, the cargo or the ship itself. What, are four guys going to just going to operate a container ship by themselves?


The crew itself's probably not worth that much money - Easily replaced, probably don't work directly for the shipowner, and most of them are from countries where tort laws aren't up to US standards anyway. (It's probably not the country where the ship's registered, probably not the country where the company owning the ship is based and definetly not the country where the guy owning the ship lives...)

The only difference it might make is that the navy would be a lot more open to shooting, althought that would piss off the owners handsomely.

As for operating the ship, yes, four guys could do it. Especially if one of them has some engineering knowledge, or if they keep one of the engineers around to get the engine going.

When I was in nautical school, there were a lot of second and third hand stories going around of pirates offing the entire crew, or at least the captain and the chief engineer as an example. Don't know how much of that was campfire stories and how much was truth, but the stories were floating around.

Anyway, we'll find out soon enough if the pirates have changed their MOs...

[gordonmull]

It seems that the pirates do not attack in force. Why not just TRY to get every nation which is running cargo ships in the area to start randomly putting marines on them? Eventually the pirates will run into a very big problem for themselves. They won't know which ships are crewed with highly trained, well armed military and this should act as a deterrant at least.

For this to work I have to take the more violent side of things and say take no prisoners. Shoot them on sight and pursue them until they are dead :stare:. Until they learn piracy = death then they will continue to do as they do. I'd have thought that in boarding a ship you would be at the tactical disadvantage so any casualties on the marines' side should be minimal.

Between the US and the UK we've got plenty of troops in backwater countries that we had no business getting into in the first place, so why not Somalia as well? At least our men would be doing something productive for a change and it would be good training for our collective marine infantries.

Really, and sadly, these pirates do deserve to get shot for what they put merchant sailors and their families through.

[fatty]

Doubt it. They aren't smart enough to think it might happen again.

-S

No, the pirates have pretty significant technological sophistication with all things considered. With their satellite phones and laptops, news is probably spreading pretty quickly between the pirate communities. So while they may not fall for the same trick twice, it is a double-edged sword because a) this situation was extremely unusual anyway and has never happened before in recent history and b) news of the military's firm handling is also circulating; the deterrent is starting to gain credibility.

[fatty]

When I was in nautical school, there were a lot of second and third hand stories going around of pirates offing the entire crew, or at least the captain and the chief engineer as an example. Don't know how much of that was campfire stories and how much was truth, but the stories were floating around.


These kinds of events were not unusual about 20-30 years ago when piracy was a bit bigger around Latin America and the west coast of Africa. Rapes, murders, and assaults were a little more common, especially in attacks on ships anchored in port. For good and fairly graphic accounts of these kinds of violent attacks may I recommend Piracy Today: Robbery and Violence at Sea Since 1980 by the late Cpt. Roger Villar. Villar compiled several pretty thrilling reports of raids on yachts and other pleasure craft that end tragically.

Modern piracy is a pretty bloodless affair, though. Casualties to piracy in the last five years are in the single digits. As someone else said (maybe Takeda), they are not ideologically motivated. To inflict mass casualties is not an objective.


Anyway, we'll find out soon enough if the pirates have changed their MOs...

Yeah, the figures for the first quarter of 2009 should be out in the next few months.

[SandyCaesar]

Hats off to the USA for being a country with a no nonsense attitude to these pirate scumbags. Hopefully the rest of the world will take heed of there lead, When it comes to deal with scum like this.

I'm afraid I have to correct you. The French have been carrying out commando raids for a while, maybe not as immediately dramatic as the Americans but equally gutsy. Unfortunately, the last one just a few days ago didn't go quite as planned and led to a hostage KIA. I don't think the commandos would object if the pirates get hanged at the yardarm for murder.

Regardless, that was an extremely bold play on the US part that paid off. Now, if all hands will brace and stick to the guns when the rather noisy threats of retaliation come, I think the antipiracy mission is in good shape.

[Fincuan]

Hopefully the rest of the world will take heed of there lead, When it comes to deal with scum like this.

You won't believe, but the French have been dealing with them the same way for some time now, and have several succesful "anti-pirate" ops under their belt. The most recent was just days ago, and while four hostages were rescued one was unfortunately killed.

Maybe the French have run out of white flags :D

edit: Damnit, just a bit too slow

[nikimcbee]

I think India has also attacked a ship or two a few months ago.

[Freiwillige]

Great job! Now we need to Make an international kill zone saying that any unknown vessal will be sunk 50 miles or more off shore on sight. Time to get hard with these thugs. And also why are we feeding them. Sorry if you cant feed em, dont breed em. Enough of this "we are the world crap." Nature is a cruel mistress and its time we let her run her course. Cause giving aid is one thing, Giving endless aid without fixing the underlying problems is another.

[Letum]

It seams piracy isn't the only crime in Somali waters.
Radioactive hospital waste traceable back to Europe has been washing up on
the beaches and foreign boats often trawl illegally in the unprotected Somali
waters, contributing to the lack of fish and near-famine there. No wonder
some groups of pirate groups are calling them selves the "National Volunteer
Coast Guard of Somalia".

The recent success against the pirated is a justice, but the region could do
with a lot more justice.

[Onkel Neal]

Rescue Fuels Debate Over Arming Crews (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/world/13shipping.html?hp)

But the expanding range and seafaring skills of Somali pirates are prompting some experts to start calling for changes. The killing by United States Navy sharpshooters of three Somali pirates during the rescue on Sunday of Richard Phillips, the American captain of the container ship Maersk Alabama, has further raised the stakes, with at least one Somali pirate on shore threatening vengeance on the next American seafarer captured.

Honestly, I don't see why the US Navy just doesn't enforce a Somali no-sail zone. Somalia has no real government, just sink anything that hits the water over knee deep.

[darius359au]

I can't see why the nations with warships in the area don't set up Q-Ships and put special forces types on random ships transiting the area , after the first few pirate attacks get stomped ,'the badguy's are going start wondering 'Is this a normal unprotected ship or are we going to get killed?" , And it would be alot cheaper than arming every crew or escorting every ship.

[Letum]

Honestly, I don't see why the US Navy just doesn't enforce a Somali no-sail zone. Somalia has no real government, just sink anything that hits the water over knee deep.

That's inhumane.

Where does one start?
Firstly that would penalise and kill civilians for more than it would pirates,
not least because Somalia has been in a famine, or on the brink of one,
since the late '80s and the dwindling fish stocks on the Somali coast, that
are not being illegally fished by foreign vessels, is a major food source for
Somalia.
Have you no respect for innocent life?
Have you no respect for National sovereignty or international law? Just
because America can attack civilian boats in dismembered 3rd world
countries and cause mass starvation, doesn't mean it would ever be right
to do so.
Have you no consideration for the way this would further tarnish the,
already dim, view the vast majority of the world rightly has for your nation?

Why the 'cowboy' attitude to foreign policy so many Americans and
American leaders have?

[Etienne]

Rescue Fuels Debate Over Arming Crews (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/world/13shipping.html?hp)



Honestly, I don't see why the US Navy just doesn't enforce a Somali no-sail zone. Somalia has no real government, just sink anything that hits the water over knee deep.

An excellent article. One of the best I've read on the subject.

The problem with a no-sail zone is picking out the legit fishermen. You start killing those people, their familly starve, their sons grow up and decide to avenge their fathers... Yeah. Last ship I was on, we had (for some reason) a guide to distinguishing Somali fishermen from pirates. It wasn't as simple as "shoot everyone wearing a ski mask".

A few helicopter carriers patrolling the areas, possibly setting their AIS to look like merchant ships... And something like an AWAC looking for swarms of small crafts. That might do the trick. :D

[Frame57]

Great job! Now we need to Make an international kill zone saying that any unknown vessal will be sunk 50 miles or more off shore on sight. Time to get hard with these thugs. And also why are we feeding them. Sorry if you cant feed em, dont breed em. Enough of this "we are the world crap." Nature is a cruel mistress and its time we let her run her course. Cause giving aid is one thing, Giving endless aid without fixing the underlying problems is another.I agree 110%. :up:

[JALU3]

It seams piracy isn't the only crime in Somali waters.
Radioactive hospital waste traceable back to Europe has been washing up on
the beaches and foreign boats often trawl illegally in the unprotected Somali
waters, contributing to the lack of fish and near-famine there. No wonder
some groups of pirate groups are calling them selves the "National Volunteer
Coast Guard of Somalia".

The recent success against the pirated is a justice, but the region could do
with a lot more justice.
VOA News Source supporting dumping claim (http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-03/2005-03-15-voa34.cfm?CFID=170694391&CFTOKEN=99427637&jsessionid=6630e452e37d4e51094152714e562eb6b1f1).
That is aweful yes, and it may have been one of the factors, including the fishing of their former protected fisheries by foreign flagged vessels that lead to the intial piracy which at that time was more geared at protecting their livelihoods. But once they went into piracy/hijacking operations, any mitigating reasons why they are breaking age old laws of nations against piracy go right out the window. That is not to say that there shouldn't be an effort to police the waters from allowing foreign vessels to dump said waste in what is de jure Somalian waters.
-----

You know, my former brothers in arms and I, use to always make fun of the Navy commercials (oh, and let's not get started on those Oorah Marine (http://www.rangerup.com/marines.html) Commercials (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiVP9aOfOQM)), since so many focus on that very small percentage that get SEAL after their rating or SO rate designation. It would be as if the commercial told everyone they could be a Ranger (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzg3_LC3bGU) or SF (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2BKyttIRlg). But this time, you gotta give those SEALs their due, good job you squids. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fetNQ6uxCx0)

-----

Another alternative is, since there have been statements made recently that any French or American personel will be considered open game to terrorist (http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE53A1LP20090412?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=22&sp=true), is to have a Marine Squad on each vessel passing through the area, have them embark US Flagged or US crewed vessels going east or southward at Djibouti, via forces stationed at Camp Le Monier. If they are entering the area from the south have them embark in Kenya. If they are entering the area from the east have them embark at Diego Garcia. And if they entering from the north have them embark in Oman. Have them disembark and be transported back, if the vessels are not planning to reenter that area, or remain on the vessel if they are going to reenter the area. Armed with their standard armarment (M-16, M-240) plus a Javelin or SRAW, and the'd pose a sizable thread against any pirate at their present armarment level (AK-47s and RPGs); yet one can argue whether they would provide an overwhelming force.
If anything this type of mission would harken back to one of the orignal missions any marine force would have, that is security of the ships at sea.

[mr chris]

You won't believe, but the French have been dealing with them the same way for some time now, and have several succesful "anti-pirate" ops under their belt. The most recent was just days ago, and while four hostages were rescued one was unfortunately killed.

Maybe the French have run out of white flags :D

edit: Damnit, just a bit too slow

Well i stand corrected:up:

Well the French getting there hands dirty well i never.:D
I hope they keep this new found backbone up:arrgh!:

[Tchocky]

On the nuclear issue

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-02/2005-02-23-voa23.cfm

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates-1225817.html

[Tribesman]

I think India has also attacked a ship or two a few months ago.
Yes , but they screwed up . The Indian navy killed the hostages and sunk their vessel and the pirates escaped .

Honestly, I don't see why the US Navy just doesn't enforce a Somali no-sail zone.
Because the navy isn't big enough effectively to cover that large area with all its other commitments and those seas are too important and busy to close anyway .

[Bewolf]

I hope the lesson won't be 'Shoot the crew first, ask questions later.'

Me neither. But as I can see it, these pirates had a choice for the longest time. I am a humanist, but that's not an excuse for a lack of self responsebility, especially when knowing the facts.

[Onkel Neal]

[/URL]

Another alternative is, [URL="http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE53A1LP20090412?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=22&sp=true"]since there have been statements made recently that any French or American personel will be considered open game to terrorist (http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-03/2005-03-15-voa34.cfm?CFID=170694391&CFTOKEN=99427637&jsessionid=6630e452e37d4e51094152714e562eb6b1f1), is to have a Marine Squad on each vessel passing through the area, have them embark US Flagged or US crewed vessels going east or southward at Djibouti, via forces stationed at Camp Le Monier. If they are entering the area from the south have them embark in Kenya. If they are entering the area from the east have them embark at Diego Garcia. And if they entering from the north have them embark in Oman. Have them disembark and be transported back, if the vessels are not planning to reenter that area, or remain on the vessel if they are going to reenter the area. Armed with their standard armarment (M-16, M-240) plus a Javelin or SRAW, and the'd pose a sizable thread against any pirate at their present armarment level (AK-47s and RPGs); yet one can argue whether they would provide an overwhelming force.
If anything this type of mission would harken back to one of the orignal missions any marine force would have, that is security of the ships at sea.


Yeah, I agree. It would only take a couple Marines on each vessel and this problem would cease to exist.

[AVGWarhawk]

Yeah, I agree. It would only take a couple Marines on each vessel and this problem would cease to exist.


:yep: Fight fire with fire.

[Tchocky]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the only way to solve the problem is to sort out what's happening on land. Piracy is dependent on a friendly shore.

[AVGWarhawk]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the only way to solve the problem is to sort out what's happening on land. Piracy is dependent on a friendly shore.

There is talk of doing this. As I understand it there is military action talks going on now to help Somalia create a security force and their own coast guard plus root out these pockets of pirates.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aYhvgOfyTmYA

[nikimcbee]

I'm curious how the take-overs happen, what kind of tactics the pirates use to take a ship. They were saying on the radio, that they were going farther out to sea by using a mother-ship. I say if they find the mothership, they blow it out of the water.

It would be interesting to see a map of the area where the pirate attack have occured and route shipping traffic away from the pirate area.

They really need an exclusion zone, with a picket line or something. The
legitimate call in anybody else, gets chased out or sunk.

[SteamWake]

Their 'mother ship' is a bunch of thatched huts....

But...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aYhvgOfyTmYA

[AVGWarhawk]

Mother ship


http://samstours.com/blog/media/blogs/samstours/MotherShip.jpg


http://moinansari.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/somali-pirate-mother-ship.jpg

[fatty]

I'm curious how the take-overs happen, what kind of tactics the pirates use to take a ship. They were saying on the radio, that they were going farther out to sea by using a mother-ship. I say if they find the mothership, they blow it out of the water.

It would be interesting to see a map of the area where the pirate attack have occured and route shipping traffic away from the pirate area.

They really need an exclusion zone, with a picket line or something. The
legitimate call in anybody else, gets chased out or sunk.

Here's your map. (http://www.icc-ccs.org/index.php?option=com_fabrik&view=visualization&controller=visualization.googlemap&Itemid=219) As you can see, the Gulf of Aden is a pretty tight space and there are not too many places for shipping lanes to be re-routed. Pirate attacks extend a good ways north of the Somaliland coast, east from Puntland, and then all the way around the horn.

You heard right about the motherships. Hijacked trawlers or merchants are used to tow go-fast boats out beyond Somali terrorial waters and towards the shipping lanes, increasing the pirates' range many times over. From their go-fasts, pirates use ladders or grappling hooks to board the ships, which usually reduce speed and comply after they see the RPGs and heavy machine guns the pirates are wielding.

The problem with going after the motherships is that they aren't flying the Jolly Roger. In other words, in these very busy shipping lanes, intelligence is imperfect. The Indian navy discovered this last November when they blew up a suspected mothership only to find later that it was a Thai trawler which had been attacked by pirates, and that they had killed 15 innocent sailors in the process. There are many people in this area that operate legitimate fishing operations for their livelihoods or food. Domain awareness is non-existant; unless you can see their guns, it is very challenging to discern from Somali pirates and Somali fishermen.

Somali Fishermen (http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0ffDdwW4Ob2K6/610x.jpg)

Somali Pirates (http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/pirates.jpg)

To erect pickets without careful planning or to start blowing up random ships that don't respond to hails will be damaging to legitimate interests and worsen the problem in the long-term.

[sonar732]

-----

Another alternative is, since there have been statements made recently that any French or American personel will be considered open game to terrorist (http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE53A1LP20090412?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=22&sp=true), is to have a Marine Squad on each vessel passing through the area, have them embark US Flagged or US crewed vessels going east or southward at Djibouti, via forces stationed at Camp Le Monier. If they are entering the area from the south have them embark in Kenya. If they are entering the area from the east have them embark at Diego Garcia. And if they entering from the north have them embark in Oman. Have them disembark and be transported back, if the vessels are not planning to reenter that area, or remain on the vessel if they are going to reenter the area. Armed with their standard armarment (M-16, M-240) plus a Javelin or SRAW, and the'd pose a sizable thread against any pirate at their present armarment level (AK-47s and RPGs); yet one can argue whether they would provide an overwhelming force.
If anything this type of mission would harken back to one of the orignal missions any marine force would have, that is security of the ships at sea.

I don't think they would need to make a port call to embark/disembark. They have the USS Boxer which carries 2000 Marines. Between 25-42 helicopters depending on it's compliment. Just have a choper land on the cargo ship or have the Marines repel down on the ship.

[sonar732]

-----

Another alternative is, since there have been statements made recently that any French or American personel will be considered open game to terrorist (http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE53A1LP20090412?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=22&sp=true), is to have a Marine Squad on each vessel passing through the area, have them embark US Flagged or US crewed vessels going east or southward at Djibouti, via forces stationed at Camp Le Monier. If they are entering the area from the south have them embark in Kenya. If they are entering the area from the east have them embark at Diego Garcia. And if they entering from the north have them embark in Oman. Have them disembark and be transported back, if the vessels are not planning to reenter that area, or remain on the vessel if they are going to reenter the area. Armed with their standard armarment (M-16, M-240) plus a Javelin or SRAW, and the'd pose a sizable thread against any pirate at their present armarment level (AK-47s and RPGs); yet one can argue whether they would provide an overwhelming force.
If anything this type of mission would harken back to one of the orignal missions any marine force would have, that is security of the ships at sea.

I don't think they would need to make a port call to embark/disembark. They have the USS Boxer which carries 2000 Marines. Between 25-42 helicopters depending on it's compliment. Just have a choper land on the cargo ship or have the Marines repel down on the ship. The Reagan administration had barges in the Gulf during the Iran situation which acted like staging bases for choppers and special forces. Have the same here in multiple locations.

[Letum]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the only way to solve the problem is to sort out what's happening on land. Piracy is dependent on a friendly shore.

Also a lack of legitimate opportunities in Somali life, but it is going too be a
very, very long time until Somalia is anywhere near that stable.
More short term solutions are needed right now.

[Onkel Neal]

Three shots, all to the head (http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/04/13/somalia.rescue.breakdown/index.html), at 75 feet, in a rocking boat, in the dark...those SEALs know their stuff :salute:

[Max2147]

It sounds like they planned to do something like this all along. Why else would you parachute in a SEAL team?

Kudos to President Obama for getting the right guys in the right place, and major kudos to the guys on the ground for being absolutely perfect! Our military has taken a few knocks in the past few years, but events like today prove that when they get to be an actual military like they're supposed to be instead of a glorified police force, they're still the best in the world.

[HunterICX]

Another country that shows an example on how to treat with pirate scum.:salute:

HunterICX

[Jimbuna]

A fitting end :up:

The wife and daughter came back from Philadelphia and New York today....seemingly this story has been big news over in the States all week.

[death5089]

I believe the US government shouldnt have even acted. They are in Somali waters and merchants and tourists know the risks of traveling through them. The Somalis did not engage a MILITARY or GOVERNMENT target under ORDERS from THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT. They raided a MERCHANT vessal. Its sad that we waste time on people who attack merchants that really have no right to be there in Somali waters when its obvious the Somalis dont want us there. I salute those brave pirates:salute:
Should sent all the americans to davy jones:arrgh!:

[Fincuan]

That's one of the worst trolls I've ever seen. Show me where the merchant was inside Somali waters and I'll tell you more.

[death5089]

obviously the navy of somalia is something that is nonexsistent, its navy is based off of piracy practically. Wherever these pirates hunting grounds are, are their waters. They live in a tribal society in which is a soceity where whoever you kill, you can take what is theres. I hate how the western world does not understand this. What is considered robbery to us, is life to them. How dare you call them scum. If you grew up in the same place as they, you would be supportive of the pirates.

[fatty]

It makes absolutely no difference even if the ship was within Somali boundaries. Somali has ratified UNCLOS '82, and under the regulations of innocent passage, a merchant ship has every right to enter Somali territorial waters. That's how it is.

[Subnuts]

Capturing an unarmed merchant ship in international waters and threatening to kill the crew if their government doesn't fork over a few million is hardly what I'd call "heroic." These pirates certainly aren't using the ransom money to buy goods and services for the common Somali. They're just in it for easy money - certainly not what I'd call a bunch of modern-day Robin Hoods!

[JALU3]

I don't think they would need to make a port call to embark/disembark. They have the USS Boxer which carries 2000 Marines. Between 25-42 helicopters depending on it's compliment. Just have a choper land on the cargo ship or have the Marines repel down on the ship. The Reagan administration had barges in the Gulf during the Iran situation which acted like staging bases for choppers and special forces. Have the same here in multiple locations.

Well the Boxer has to come back to it's beautiful homeport sometime, Sunny San Diego. So that LHD serving as a Sea Control Shipping, wont always be there, nor will the US always keep one in rotation for CTF-150/151. Furthermore, helicopters only have so much range. Thus the reason why I wanted to have common points of embarkation/debarkation for US Flagged/Crewed vessel which to take on said marines. Also, wouldn't it be nice for a Marine to have recoup time ashore? It's not like the places that I have mentioned, minus Kenya, don't already have a military presence or a SOFA to accommodate.

As for barges, as long as they are international waters, they'd be fine. But you're talking about sea (http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/seabasing.pdf) basing (http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=8284&type=0), a concept that has been touted since at least the 90s. This project found its way to the cutting or trimming room floor of the FY2010 US defense budget. (http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Gates-Lays-Out-Key-FY-2010-Budget-Recommendations-05367/) I think the 11th LPD will find life in Congress due to multiple districts benefiting by said construction, but since Sea-Basing has only been an exercise concept, with only limited trails, I don't think it'll have the same luck.

I believe the US government shouldnt have even acted. They are in Somali waters and merchants and tourists know the risks of traveling through them. The Somalis did not engage a MILITARY or GOVERNMENT target under ORDERS from THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT. They raided a MERCHANT vessal. Its sad that we waste time on people who attack merchants that really have no right to be there in Somali waters when its obvious the Somalis dont want us there. I salute those brave pirates:salute:
Should sent all the americans to davy jones:arrgh!:

One of the first obligations of a government, since the times of wood and sail, is to protect and defend its merchant ships. The US has an obligation to defend its flagged/crewed ships from piracy, merchant raiding, and hijacking. So your argument is moot, as already shown by more knowledgeable people on this subject than you. :arrgh!:

[Max2147]

obviously the navy of somalia is something that is nonexsistent, its navy is based off of piracy practically. Wherever these pirates hunting grounds are, are their waters. They live in a tribal society in which is a soceity where whoever you kill, you can take what is theres. I hate how the western world does not understand this. What is considered robbery to us, is life to them. How dare you call them scum. If you grew up in the same place as they, you would be supportive of the pirates.
No, what's robbery to us is also robbery to them. You make Somalis sound like a bunch of savages who have no sense of right and wrong. That's not true. Their way of life may be different than ours, but that doesn't mean that they're completely devoid of morals.

You're trying to defend the pirates here, but you're even more racist than those who are calling the pirates scum.

[fatty]

LA Times is reporting that the ship was assaulted 240 NM off the port of Eyl, which makes that well beyond Somali territorial waters and Somalia's exclusive economic zone, so this particular attack took place in international waters.

[SandyCaesar]

obviously the navy of somalia is something that is nonexsistent, its navy is based off of piracy practically. Wherever these pirates hunting grounds are, are their waters. They live in a tribal society in which is a soceity where whoever you kill, you can take what is theres. I hate how the western world does not understand this. What is considered robbery to us, is life to them. How dare you call them scum. If you grew up in the same place as they, you would be supportive of the pirates.

Ah, I see. So you're saying because their society condones anarchy, robbery, and murder, we should let them do it to us?

Real brilliant argument there. :nope:

By the same token, using your own argument, the pirates should understand if we blast them out of the water. After all, our society (by which I mean just about every country that uses the sea) condones the enforcement of freedom of the seas, even if theirs does not. By your argument, no police force in the world has the right to take action against any criminal, because said criminal is operating in a tribal society in which is a soceity where whoever you kill, you can take what is theres even if it's a just a robber and his cohorts that constitutes said "society".

Plus, even if robbery is a fact of life for the Somalians, I really doubt that they treat it as morally right. Standards may be different, but right and wrong are pretty universal, and by no recognized moral code is outright banditry considered right. Similarly, no moral code describes defending against banditry as wrong.

(I'm aware it's probably a troll poster, but all the same...)

[darius359au]

Under international law Pirates are still subject to Summary Execution, (Hasn't been done in awhile though) , so that's whats happened here!

[Onkel Neal]

That's one of the worst trolls I've ever seen. Show me where the merchant was inside Somali waters and I'll tell you more.


Haha, actually that's one of the most classic troll jobs I've seen here in a while. Really laid out the bait! :haha: Let's see who bites....

[Jimbuna]

Ah, I see. So you're saying because their society condones anarchy, robbery, and murder, we should let them do it to us?

Real brilliant argument there. :nope:

By the same token, using your own argument, the pirates should understand if we blast them out of the water. After all, our society (by which I mean just about every country that uses the sea) condones the enforcement of freedom of the seas, even if theirs does not. By your argument, no police force in the world has the right to take action against any criminal, because said criminal is operating in a even if it's a just a robber and his cohorts that constitutes said "society".

Plus, even if robbery is a fact of life for the Somalians, I really doubt that they treat it as morally right. Standards may be different, but right and wrong are pretty universal, and by no recognized moral code is outright banditry considered right. Similarly, no moral code describes defending against banditry as wrong.

(I'm aware it's probably a troll poster, but all the same...)

Good response http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/thumbsup.gif

Haha, actually that's one of the most classic troll jobs I've seen here in a while. Really laid out the bait! :haha: Let's see who bites....

http://imgcash6.imageshack.us/img144/8426/lookherewd0.gif


http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c188/VikingG/funny/258Troll_spray.jpg

[Aramike]

Ah, I see. So you're saying because their society condones anarchy, robbery, and murder, we should let them do it to us?

Real brilliant argument there. :nope:

By the same token, using your own argument, the pirates should understand if we blast them out of the water. After all, our society (by which I mean just about every country that uses the sea) condones the enforcement of freedom of the seas, even if theirs does not. By your argument, no police force in the world has the right to take action against any criminal, because said criminal is operating in a even if it's a just a robber and his cohorts that constitutes said "society".

Plus, even if robbery is a fact of life for the Somalians, I really doubt that they treat it as morally right. Standards may be different, but right and wrong are pretty universal, and by no recognized moral code is outright banditry considered right. Similarly, no moral code describes defending against banditry as wrong.

(I'm aware it's probably a troll poster, but all the same...)This post and its poignant rebuttals fall into my "Classic" category.

Kudos. :rock:

[JALU3]

But back at the point at hand, I think that there have been several solutions to piracy in the Horn of Africa area that have been proposed by myself and others here. This is a continuing problem as shown by the recent hijacking of two Egyptian Trawlers and a Greek managed, St. Vincent and the Grenadines flagged, bulk carrier. (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090414/D97I6RSG1.html) Granted this is an international problem, which requires an international solution. Yet, until everyone can reach an agreement, the nations of registry each have an obligation to those ships which are part of their Merchant Marine Fleet (due to said registry) to protect and defend said ships. Hopefully this will reduce the use of Flags of convenience, which may actually increase the livelihoods of the Merchant Mariners, as well as remind the seafaring States of one of their oldest obligations.

[Platapus]

Perhaps the leaders of the world need to dust off the works of Alfred Mahan, Julian Corbett, and John and Philip Colomb. They weren't writing fiction back then :nope:

[MothBalls]

So which is going to come first? The big screen version or will it go straight to a made-for-tv movie. Only problem is most action movies only have one hero, Arnold, Sly, Claude, Chuck, Steven, none of the big names would share top billing.

I think that in the movie version the three seals should be played by Sailor Steve, Jimbuna, and commanded by Neal. KP could play the rescued captain. Just have to come up with a title.

[death5089]

No, what's robbery to us is also robbery to them. You make Somalis sound like a bunch of savages who have no sense of right and wrong. That's not true. Their way of life may be different than ours, but that doesn't mean that they're completely devoid of morals.

You're trying to defend the pirates here, but you're even more racist than those who are calling the pirates scum.

I am not rascist at all. My family is from Afghanistan and Pakistan, two of the most tribal places in world. Our society is one of revenge and those men and boys have no choice but to steal for survival. We are talking about a place where people still have to hunt to survive. They are like viking raiders and yet everyone treats them like they are the bad guys. I am not saying that everyone there is without morals but i understand why these men are pirates in one of the poorest countries in the world. Do not condemn them, they have experienced more turmoil than anybody else.

[Max2147]

I am not rascist at all. My family is from Afghanistan and Pakistan, two of the most tribal places in world. Our society is one of revenge and those men and boys have no choice but to steal for survival. We are talking about a place where people still have to hunt to survive. They are like viking raiders and yet everyone treats them like they are the bad guys. I am not saying that everyone there is without morals but i understand why these men are pirates in one of the poorest countries in the world. Do not condemn them, they have experienced more turmoil than anybody else.
I've lived with Pakistanis. Their society isn't, tribal, it isn't based on revenge, and they never stole a thing from me. They were good, honest, civilized people that I'm still good friends with.

Just because somebody's had a tough life doesn't mean we can't condemn then when they commit crimes. These pirates don't steal to survive, they steal to get rich. They have a very luxurious lifestyle.

Saying that a society is based on theft, revenge, and murder is very racist indeed, even if you don't intend to be racist. It's even more racist because it's completely false. The vast majority of Afghans/Pakistanis/Somalis are honest, moral people who think that murder and theft are horrible things.

[Jimbuna]

Fun facts about Somali pirates.

1) Being Muslim, they aren't allowed to drink rum.

2) They say "Allah hu Akbarrrr Jimlad"

3) They are secretly led by Abu Hamza. The hook hand is a dead giveaway.

4) Their girlfriends are as skinny as Keira Knightley. They put it down to the local Famine Diet.

5) They're currently embroiled in a fight to the death with the Ethiopian Ninjas.

6) None of them are in the Caribbean. But if their great-great-grandfathers hadn't been so good at hide-from-whitey, they might be.

[JALU3]

News Update: US Flagged ship M/V Liberty Sun has been attacked, but have escaped an attempted pirate attack. The ships is now presently being escorted by a Coalition vessel.

http://www.libertymar.com/images/lmc002.jpg

Press Release from Liberty Maritime (the company that operates the vessel) (http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-14-2009/0005006060&EDATE=)
CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/04/14/pirate.attack/)
ABC News (http://abcnews.go.com/US/International/story?id=7331134&page=1)

Again, another ship that was attempting to bring aid to those in need. You would think that they would learn, or were they attempting to make a point that US Merchant Mariners are no longer safe? Thankfully we won't know. Furthermore, thankfully they aren't more organized.

So what about that Marine detachment idea? What about providing logistics support to IGASOM?

[Onkel Neal]

You know what's really sad? Some of these ships are carrying food aid to feed these people. And they attack them. :nope:

[Letum]

You know what's really sad? Some of these ships are carrying food aid to feed these people. And they attack them.

In their defence, I very much doubt they know about that and 'carrying food
aid' might mean one container of food amongst 100 containers.

That said, I doubt it would stop them attacking if it was packed full of aid and
they knew that. Who can say.

[Onkel Neal]

Some interesting details about Navy SEAL sniper training. (http://www.slate.com/id/2216031/)

I didn't know this was considered an "easy" shot for them :o Zounds!

[SteamWake]

Some interesting details about Navy SEAL sniper training. (http://www.slate.com/id/2216031/)

I didn't know this was considered an "easy" shot for them :o Zounds!

Yea they practice this kind of thing (sniper fire off a rolling deck) quite a bit.

Everyone was saying 'miraculous shot' ... for me it would be a miracle, for them its nothing new.

[Onkel Neal]

US unveils plan to tackle piracy (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8001102.stm)


The US four-point plan includes sending an envoy to the Somali donors' conference in Brussels on 23 April to work on plans to improve the situation in Somalia.
She said the US would work with the Contact Group on Piracy Off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS) to expand the multinational response to piracy.
She called for states to take responsibility for prosecuting and imprisoning captured pirates.

"These pirates are criminals, they are armed gangs on the sea, and those plotting attacks must be stopped." She called for continued work releasing captured vessels, as several ships and their crews remain in the hands of pirates.

On Wednesday the Greek maritime ministry announced that a Greek cargo ship and its 24 crew, held by pirates since mid-March, had been released.
She also said the international group had to consider ways to track and freeze pirate assets.
"It is time to eliminate the financial payoff of piracy," she told reporters.


In other words, nothing. :arrgh!:

[nikimcbee]

I think we should form our own subsim special ops group. You know what they say, if you want the job done right, do it yourself.:yeah:

I'll just put this in there for fun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIfuaUTH9Y4
...if you can find them, maybe they can help.
(did you look in the GT forum?):haha:

[Jimbuna]

US unveils plan to tackle piracy (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8001102.stm)



In other words, nothing. :arrgh!:

I reckon my Q Ship and SpySat mods would be of more benefit to the solution :doh:

[Tribesman]

In other words, nothing.
In other words carrying on with the work stated by the last administration .

[geetrue]

Perhaps the pirates have advanced knowledge of what ship is headed to neighboring Kenya with food aid and the head pirate passes it on to the mother ship which in turn tells the teenage pirates to take this one or that one ...

Two US flag ships in a row within a week , both with food aid leads me to wonder :arrgh!:

[Skybird]

According to an internal expert by the conservative CSU, a defense state secretary and the speaker of the Bundeswehrverband, the German government has now decided that the German navy from now on should be allowed to take off the gloves and use board weapons to supress piracy with all needed means and even target and sink pirate vessels. All three voiced concern that so far the german navy had made itself ridiculous. the Bundeswehrverband even said that we cannot avoid to target motherships and dstroy them, and landing on captured ships and free them by the use of armed force, since the pirates are now operating like an economic enterprise, using ransom to invest in better weapons and increasing their operational area. calls for an international tribunal are rejected, since it would take years to even just install that.

News source: Die Welt, Neue Osnabrücker Nachrichten.
German language: http://www.welt.de/politik/article3570508/Deutschland-will-Piratenschiffe-versenken.html

It seems the French and Americans finally set a new pace, which I welcome.

But we have an national election year over here, and the great coalition already has fallen apart long time ago. If the SPD can see a chance to make profit from attacking this decision, it will.

So, I believe in Germans sinking pirate ships when I see it.

[Onkel Neal]

Insanity: The pirates were detained, but allowed to go free after questioning.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/04/19/pirate.attack.foiled/index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/04/19/pirate.attack.foiled/index.html)

[sunvalleyslim]

Ok Neal.
Iit's time SubSim starts its own Maritime Security System. We can start our own Security Company that will aid the ships. We will deploy Our Security Team to stand watch on the Ships. Hey if we can spot a smoke trail at 15 miles, we can find pirates. We bring aboard each ship besides our Security team, 2- 20mm cannons and 4 .50 cal machine guns, well placed aboard. With night vision we scan the seas. Any vessel that comes within 2 times the distance of an RPG is fair game. One warning shot, if they don't turn away, it's History........Just waiting to know how much we should charge for our "Security" What do you guys think is a fair price? Let me know..........:rock::rock:

[UnderseaLcpl]

@sunvalleyslim

That is the most awesome idea ever! It's almost totally unfeasible, but I'd quit my job to work for subsim security in a heartbeat.
You might want to reconsider the 20 mike-mikes, though. In addition to being very hard to port around, they generally require more than one crewman. That would increase manpower costs, thus increasing our rates. The .50 cals would have more than enough firepower, anyways. We could probably skip the RPGs as well and just use frag grenades. Other than that, all we'd need would be automatic small arms.

Unfortunately, it's hard to come up with a price for such services without a rough estimate of overhead costs. I've come up with a ballpark figure of $1.50 per head, per mile as a conservative minimum estimate for labor costs. It works out to about $30 an hour for the employee. For additional overhead costs, I'd recommend an initial charge that varies depending upon the port in which the service originates, the method of personnel delivery/extraction, and the port in which the service terminates.
If based in the U.S., we might even qualify for subsidies that could offset some costs.

Sadly, we have two major obstacles right off the bat. The first is the red-tape navigation that such ventures require. The second is the fact that state anti-pirate patrols in affected waters would surely dissuade our customer base from utilizing our services. Why buy something when you (or someone else) has already paid for it? This complication is exacerbated by the fact that ships and cargoes tend to be insured.

Basically, the first thing we would have to do is raise funding to lobby Congress to make this thing feasible in the first place, in addition to accquiring the neccessary licensures and permits. Then we'd have to repeat the process in every country we operated out of, not an easy thing for a mercenary company.
Unless we have some independently wealthy members who have political clout and a willingness to invest, we'd likely be bankrupt before we ever contracted our first client.

I still think it would be an awesome idea, but we have some major hurdles first.

[Happy Times]

Quote:
Originally Posted by death5089
I am not rascist at all. My family is from Afghanistan and Pakistan, two of the most tribal places in world. Our society is one of revenge and those men and boys have no choice but to steal for survival. We are talking about a place where people still have to hunt to survive. They are like viking raiders and yet everyone treats them like they are the bad guys. I am not saying that everyone there is without morals but i understand why these men are pirates in one of the poorest countries in the world. Do not condemn them, they have experienced more turmoil than anybody else.


I've lived with Pakistanis. Their society isn't, tribal, it isn't based on revenge, and they never stole a thing from me. They were good, honest, civilized people that I'm still good friends with.

Just because somebody's had a tough life doesn't mean we can't condemn then when they commit crimes. These pirates don't steal to survive, they steal to get rich. They have a very luxurious lifestyle.

Saying that a society is based on theft, revenge, and murder is very racist indeed, even if you don't intend to be racist. It's even more racist because it's completely false. The vast majority of Afghans/Pakistanis/Somalis are honest, moral people who think that murder and theft are horrible things.

Its funny how you want to believe your false perception is true.
Someone that has born in the culture says its tribal and you shrug it of like its nothing.

Regardles of where you might have lived the vast majority of Afghans/Pakistanis/Somalis are tribal.
So are Saudis and Qataris etc, nothing to do with wealth or even education, its the culture.

[Skybird]

We certainly must not "hate" them. Meeting them in a determined manner is enough.

It does matter in what state of mind you fight. Do it with an ice-cold attitude, so that you do not get washed away with your somersaulting emotions - and later finding yourself having done things that you regret and for which you must apologize. If you fight in a way that leaves you apoligizing, you will learn that it troubles your mind for a long time after, for your conscience is not clean.

Determination and calmness are perfectly enough.

[AVGWarhawk]

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q62/avgwarhawk/NavySniper.jpg

[Max2147]

Its funny how you want to believe your false perception is true.
Someone that has born in the culture says its tribal and you shrug it of like its nothing.

Regardles of where you might have lived the vast majority of Afghans/Pakistanis/Somalis are tribal.
So are Saudis and Qataris etc, nothing to do with wealth or even education, its the culture.
And someone that was born in the culture also told me that it wasn't tribal. What's your point, that I should trust somebody who said, "I salute those brave pirates... Should sent all the americans to davy jones" over my close friends?

Tribes have an influence on those societies, but it's not tribal in the sense that revenge, murder, and theft are the law of the land. That's how the poster I was quoting meant it.

[Happy Times]

And someone that was born in the culture also told me that it wasn't tribal. What's your point, that I should trust somebody who said, "I salute those brave pirates... Should sent all the americans to davy jones" over my close friends?

Tribes have an influence on those societies, but it's not tribal in the sense that revenge, murder, and theft are the law of the land. That's how the poster I was quoting meant it.

Im not sure how he ment it but this is what im talking about.

The Middle East's Tribal DNA
by Philip Carl Salzman
Middle East Quarterly
Winter 2008, pp. 23-33

http://www.meforum.org/1813/the-middle-easts-tribal-dna

Conflicts within the Middle East cannot be separated from its peoples' culture. Seventh-century Arab tribal culture influenced Islam and its adherents' attitudes toward non-Muslims. Today, the embodiment of Arab culture and tribalism within Islam impacts everything from family relations, to governance, to conflict. While many diplomats and analysts view the Arab-Israeli dispute and conflicts between Muslim and non-Muslim communities through the prism of political grievance, the roots of such conflicts lie as much in culture and Arab tribalism.

Tribalism and Predatory Expansion
Every human society must establish order if it is going to survive and prosper. Arab culture addresses security through "balanced opposition" in which everybody is a member of a nested set of kin groups, ranging from very small to very large. These groups are vested with responsibility for the defense of each member and responsible for harm any member does to outsiders. If there is a confrontation, families face families, lineage faces lineage, clan faces clan, tribe faces tribe, confederacy faces confederacy, sect faces sect, and the Islamic community faces the infidels. Deterrence lies in the balance between opponents. Any potential aggressor knows that his target is not solitary or meager but rather, at least in principle, a formidable formation much the same size as his.

Balanced opposition is a "tribal" form of organization, a tribe being a regional organization of defense based on decentralization and self-help. Tribes operate differently from states, which are centralized, have political hierarchies, and have specialized institutions—such as courts, police, tax collectors, and an army—to maintain social control and defense.

Understanding the influence of tribalism upon the development of both Arab culture and, by extension, Islam, requires acknowledging the basic characteristics and dynamics of Middle Eastern tribalism. Part of any tribesman's job description is to maximize both the number of children and of livestock. There are practical reasons for this: First, children aid in labor. Nomadic pastoralism requires heavy physical work. Workers are needed to conduct many tasks simultaneously. Family members are more committed to common interests than individuals recruited for reciprocity or pay. Large families also enhance political stature. Because technology remains constant across tribal societies in any given area, the factor that determines military strength is how many fighters an individual can muster. The man who can call on five or six adult sons and a similar number of sons-in-law to support him is a force with which to reckon. Cultural values underline this emphasis on progeny. A man is not a man if he cannot produce children, and a woman is not really an adult if she does not become a mother.

Maximizing livestock possession is also important. Livestock generate income of offspring, products, and services. They produce milk and meat. Camels offer hair; sheep supply wool, and goats provide underwool, all of which can be spun into yarn or woven into bags and food covers, and goat hair can also be woven into sheets and used as tent roofs. Camels enable distance travel. Sold at market, they supply money to purchase goods not produced locally, such as firearms, brass household goods, tea, and sugar. Their sale also provides funds to buy agricultural land, peasant villages, and urban villas.[1]

There are also important social reasons to maximize livestock possessions. Upon marriage, the husband's family compensates the wife's kin with livestock. Any man with political aspirations should own animals. Slaughter of sheep or goats enables hospitality for guests.[2] Loan or grant of livestock can establish or reinforce alliances with other families and create useful obligations to be repaid in provision of labor or political support.

Tribal success, though, counted in increasing progeny and livestock, strains pasturage, water, and arable land. To accommodate enlarged populations, it becomes necessary to expand tribal resources through geographical expansion, often at the expense of neighboring populations. Alternatively, some tribes may capture herds and seize pastures and water resources through predatory raiding. Such a strategy often appeals to young tribesmen who see it as a quick way to independence and prominence.[3] Either way, tribesmen are ready to fight. Their tribal structure enhances feelings of unity and normalizes antipathy against outsiders. Challenging neighbors over territory and livestock not only feels natural and justified but is also desirable.

Raiding is the modus operandi of predatory expansion with the capture of livestock the first priority. Attacks on the human population tend to vary according to the cultural distance of the outsiders. Those close are treated with some consideration: Men are allowed to escape, and women are not harmed, nor is housing destroyed. Among Bedouin, women from other Bedouin groups are often left some mulch animals to support their children.[4] But resistance is met by force, and injuries or deaths lead to blood feuds. Tribes can respond to blood feuds with large parties bent on vengeance. Conflict can thus escalate to all-out battle. Losers can escape by retreat, taking their household and livestock with them. This leaves the territory open for occupation by the winners.

The concept of "honor" infuses raiding and predatory expansion. First, fulfillment of obligations according to the dictates of lineage solidarity achieves honor. Second, neutral mediators who resolve conflicts and restore peace among tribesmen win honor. Third, victory in conflicts between lineages in opposition brings honor. Violence against outsiders is a well-worn path for those seeking honor. Success brings honor. Winners gain; losers lose. Trying, short of success, counts for nothing. In Middle Eastern tribal culture, victims are despised, not celebrated.

Nothing is more common in the history of tribes in the Middle East and North Africa than battles between tribes, the displacement of one by another, and the pushing of losing tribes out of their territories. Sometimes, losing tribes became dependents of stronger tribes, allowing them to continue to access territory while, at other times, losing tribes retreated to peasant areas from where they were absorbed into the peasantry, and lost their tribal nature.[5]

While tribal organization facilitates the ability of Middle Easterners first to defend life and property and second to make a living through pastoralism, it also facilitates control over other people and their resources. The principle of alliance, with the closer against the more distant, applies both within and outside the tribe. Just as all members of a small lineage are obliged to unify and support the lineage against another lineage, all members of a tribe are expected to unify and support the tribe when it is in conflict with others. This does not mean that all members of the tribe line up in one gigantic regiment but rather that other members of the tribe see themselves as unified against outsiders and will provide material support if and when necessary. Tribal solidarity and balanced opposition remain powerful means of predatory expansion.[6]

Tribal Influence on the Rise of Islam
It is against this backdrop of tribal interaction that Muhammad's actions should be considered. Prior to Muhammad's ascendancy, the tribes of northern Arabia engaged in raiding and feuding, fighting among themselves for livestock, territory, and honor. Muhammad's genius was to unite the fissiparous, feuding Bedouin tribes into a cohesive polity. Just as he had provided a constitution of rules under which the people of Medina could live together, so he provided a constitution for all Arabs, which had the imprimatur not only of Muhammad but also of God. Submission—the root meaning of the Arabic term islam–to God and His rules, spelled out in the Qur'an, bound into solidarity Arabian tribesmen, who collectively became the umma, the community of believers.

Building on the tribal system, Muhammad framed an inclusive structure within which the tribes had a common, God-given identity as Muslims. This imbued the tribes with a common interest and common project. But unification was only possible by extending the basic tribal principle of balanced opposition. This Muhammad did by opposing the Muslim to the infidel, and the dar al-Islam, the land of Islam and peace, to the dar al-harb, the land of the infidels and conflict. He raised balanced opposition to a higher structural level as the new Muslim tribes unified in the face of the infidel enemy. Bedouin raiding became sanctified as an act of religious duty. With every successful battle against unbelievers, more Bedouin joined the umma. Once united, the Bedouin warriors turned outward, teaching the world the meaning of jihad, which some academics today say means only struggle but which, in the context of early Islamic writing and theological debates, was understood as holy war.

The Arabs, in lightning thrusts, challenged and beat the Byzantines to the north and the Persians to the east, both weakened by continuous wars with one another. These stunning successes were followed rapidly by conquests of Christian and Jewish populations in Egypt, Libya, and the Maghreb, and, in the east, central Asia and the Hindu population of northern India. Not content with these triumphs, Arab armies invaded and subdued much of Christian Spain and Portugal, and all of Sicily. Since the Roman Empire, the world had not seen such power and reach. Almost all fell before the blades of the Muslim armies.

Conquest of vast lands, large populations, and advanced civilizations is a bloody and brutal task. Most accounts of Islamic history glide over the conquests, as if they were friendly takeovers executed to everyone's satisfaction. Boston University anthropologist Charles Lindholm, for example, wrote, "The Muslim message of the equality of all believers struck a cord with the common people of the empires, who, theoretically at least, were liberated from their inferior status by the simple act of conversion. The rise of Islam was both an economic and social revolution, offering new wealth and freedom to the dominions it assimilated under the banner of a universal brotherhood guided by the message of the Prophet of Allah."[7] It may have been the best of all possible worlds, so long as one had not been one of the slain, enslaved, expropriated, suppressed, and degraded.

There are some accounts that address the Islamic conquests more frankly. Andrew Bostom, an associate professor of medicine at Brown University who edited a collection of primary source descriptions of jihad, provides lengthy quotes from major Islamic authorities, ancient and modern, verifying the obligation upon all Muslims to make holy war against infidels.[8]

The Arab and Islamic conquests were not unlike tribal raids against distant, unprotected peoples, but on a much larger scale. One of the main characteristics of the Arab empire was the enslavement of conquered peoples.[9] During conquest, men were commonly slaughtered while women and children were taken in slavery. Muslim invaders spared men who willingly converted but still enslaved their wives and children. In conquered regions, Muslim troops often took children from parents while along the periphery, it was normal to raid for slaves.

Bostom and other scholars provide historical accounts of such jihad.[10] One Greek Christian account describes the Arab invasion of Egypt as "merciless and brutal." Not only did the Muslim invaders slay the commander of the Byzantine troops and his companions, but they also put to the sword all who surrendered including old men, babes, or women.[11] Similar slaughters occurred across Palestine and Cyprus. Muslim troops were particularly brutal toward non-Muslim religious institutions. During the caliphate of Harun al-Rashid, many Christian monks were put to death. One Muslim historian estimated that Arab armies destroyed 30,000 churches throughout Egypt, Syria, and other central lands.[12] An Armenian historian reported that, following a rebellion in 703, General Muhammad bin Marwan invaded the province, massacring and enslaving the populace. He wrote a letter to the nobility, giving guarantees of safety in return for surrender. They surrendered, at which point the Arab invaders shut them in churches and burned them alive.[13]

While writers today depict the Muslim civilization in medieval Spain as tolerant, a Grenadan Muslim general from the late thirteenth century wrote that "it is permissible to set fire to the lands of the enemy, his stores of grain, his beasts of burden, if it is not possible for the Muslims to take possession of them." He further advised razing cities and doing everything to ruin non-Muslims.[14] Muslim generals instituted similar practices in Afghanistan and India.

Tribesmen can treat non-members with disdain. Tribal identity coalesces in opposition to the "other." Common Muslim attitudes toward non-Muslims reflect the influence of these tribal values. The historical evidence for the degradation of Christian and Jewish dhimmi [subjugated religious minority] in Muslim lands is overwhelming, both in quantity and near unanimity in substance. Much is documented in Bat Ye'or's Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide.[15] In eleventh-century Al-Andalus, for example, Abu Ishaq, a well-known Arab poet and jurist of the day, expressed outrage at the presence of a Jewish minister in the court of the ruler of Granada. He argued that the Muslim leaders should "[p]ut [the Jews] back where they belong and reduce them to the lowest of the low … Do not consider it a breach of faith to kill them." Soon after his call, local residents slaughtered approximately 5,000 Grenadan Jews.[16] Such sentiments were not exceptions limited in time and scope. Egyptian president Anwar Sadat spoke in closely parallel terms to Abu Ishaq's when, on April 25, 1972, he declared, "[The Jews] shall return and be as the Qur'an said of them: ‘condemned to humiliation and misery.' … We shall send them back to their former status."[17]

Arab Muslims frequently subjugated their non-Muslim brethren across the width and breadth of the Muslim world. The Spaniard Badia y Leblich traveled in Morocco at the end of the nineteenth century as a Muslim named Ali Bey and reported the Jews there to be "in the most abject state of slavery."[18] William Shaler, the U.S. consul in Algiers from 1816 to 1828, described the Jews of Algiers to be "a most oppressed people," not even permitted to resist any violence from a Muslim and subject to conscription for hard labor without notice.[19] Contemporaneous chroniclers describe the Jews of Tunis and Benghazi similarly.[20]

Such treatment is rooted in the Muslim belief that Islam was God's word and God's way and any other religion or belief was false. Muslims believe Judaism and Christianity to be superseded by Islam. All non-Muslims were infidels who should be subject to Islam. Jews and Christians were to be allowed to live as inferiors and subordinates, dhimmis, but with obligatory, legally-mandated humiliation; other infidels, such as Hindus and pagans, could choose between conversion to Islam and death although, in practice, many Muslim conquerors preferred to derive economic benefit from their enslavement.

The theological foundation of the Arab empire was the supremacy of Islam and the obligation of each Muslim to advance its domination.[21] The relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims is thus defined by Islamic doctrine as one of superiority versus inferiority and of endless conflict until the successful conquest of the non-Muslims.

Islam also reflects tribal notions of honor with regard to women. Within the Arab tribal society in which Muhammad was born, women's reproductive capacity was necessary for lineage strength. The ability of the lineage to allocate women where needed most for strategic purposes, whether endogamously to contribute to the number of offspring or exogamously to establish or maintain an alliance, required obedience. The close attention of community members to the sexual behavior of women reflects not only a concern for fulfilling community norms but also a keen self-interest in rank competition and the way different groups may rise or fall.

But have Muslims carried down views expressed in the fourteenth century C.E. to the present day? Here anthropologists contribute to the discussion. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, later professor of social anthropology at Oxford University, had close contact with the Bedouin of Libya during World War II. In his studies of eastern Libya encapsulated in The Sanusi of Cyrenaica, he observed that the Bedouin saw it as their special religious responsibility to carry out holy war, jihad, leaving others to pray and study the Qur'an.[22] When the Italians invaded Libya early in the twentieth century, the Bedouin of Cyrenaica were unwilling to accept Italians as rulers under any terms, no matter how generous. Although the Bedouin were heavily outgunned, they chose to fight for decades until they were virtually exterminated.

From a political point of view, Islam raised tribal society to a higher, more inclusive level of integration. But it was not able to replace the central principle of tribal political organization. Framing Muslims in opposition to the infidel preserved the balanced opposition. As with tribal lineage, affiliation and loyalty became defined by opposition.

The basic tribal framework of "us versus them" remains in Islam. The conception "my group, right or wrong" does not exist because the question of right or wrong never comes up. Allegiance is to "my group," period, full stop, always defined against "the other." An overarching, universalistic, inclusive constitution is not possible. Islam is not a constant referent but rather, like every level of tribal political organization, is contingent. People act politically as Muslims only when in opposition to infidels. Among Muslims, people will mobilize on a sectarian basis, as Sunni versus Shi‘a. Among Sunni, people will mobilize as the Karim tribe versus the Mahmud tribe; within the Karim tribe, people will mobilize according to whom they find themselves in opposition to: tribal section versus tribal section; lineage versus lineage, and so on.

The structural fissiparousness of the tribal order makes societal cohesion difficult. Affiliation places people and groups in opposition to one another. There is no universal reference that can include all parties. Oppositionalism then becomes the cultural imperative. While the tribal system based on balanced opposition effectively supports decentralized nomads, it inhibits societal integration and precludes civil peace based on settlement of disputes through legal judgment at the local level.

Islam's Bloody Borders
What does this mean today? The tribal notion of balanced opposition has profound implications on modern conflict. The Arab-Israeli debate is polarized and almost every "fact" contested by the other side. Too often, though, Western academics, journalists, and policymakers focus on the debate without reference to how Arab culture shapes and impacts the conflict.

Any outside observer without any prior knowledge of the Arab-Israeli conflict would find the unrelenting rejection by Arabs of Israel to be confusing. It would be difficult to fathom why Arabs who currently struggle to get along with one another would not look with enthusiasm to neighbors who could and would assist them in bettering their circumstances. The Arab situation, compared to Israel's, is bleak. In all spheres of life except for religion, Arab society and culture has declined in importance and influence. In global competition with other societies and cultures, Arabs have for centuries been losers. Israel, on the other hand, is a parliamentary democracy with established civil liberties. It is perhaps the most multiracial and multicultural state in the world, gathering as it has Jews from all corners of the world. It has also accepted and, albeit imperfectly, incorporated a substantial population of Arab Bedouin and Palestinian Arabs, both Muslim and Christian. Israeli science and technology makes major contributions to medicine and high technology. IBM and Intel each have three research and development centers in Israel while Microsoft and Cisco Systems have built their only non-U.S. facilities there. Motorola has its largest research and development site in Israel. Israelis are close cousins of the Arabs. Hebrew and Arabic are both Semitic languages. And, even religiously, Jews are a fellow "people of the book."

Rather than accept any Israeli contribution—even Arab countries at peace with Israel refuse, for example, to accept disaster relief from the Jewish state—the Arab rejection of Israel is close to absolute. Four factors contribute to Arab rejectionism: (1) conflicting material interests, (2) use of Israel as an external enemy by Arab leaders to diffuse internal discontent, (3) Arab organizational principles based on opposition, and (4) the challenged honor of the Arabs. These last two factors are perhaps the most important. Not by coincidence, they derive from Arab tribal culture and are now incorporated as general principles in Arab cultures.

Conflicts in material interest—such as over land and water—are important, but they are common whenever people live together. Seldom do they become intractable. Arab rulers' diversion of internal discontent outward toward Israel is also important. But it is the balanced opposition drawn from tribalism that impacts enmity more. The Arab saying, "Me against my brother, me and my brother against my cousin; me, my brother, and my cousin against the world," holds true. Take for example the situation of Libya in the years prior to World War I: Prior to the Italian invasion of Libya in 1911, Arab Bedouin there fought Turkish overlords. But, rather than stay neutral or join the Italians, the Bedouin instead sided with their co-religionists against the Italians. For much the same reason, Arabs will unite in enmity to any non-Arab, let alone non-Muslim. In the conflict with Israel, the most basic Arab social principle is solidarity with the closer in opposition to the distant. "Right" and "wrong" are correlated with "my group" (always right) and "the other group" (always wrong). The underlying morality is that one must strive always to advantage one's own group and to disadvantage the other group.

For Arab Muslims confronting Jews, the opposition is between the dar al-Islam, the land of Islam, and the dar al-harb, the land of the infidels. The Muslim is obliged to advance God's true way, Islam, in the face of the ignominy of the Jew's false religion. Islamic doctrine holds that all non-Muslims, whether Christian or Jewish dhimmi or infidel pagans, must be subordinate to Muslims. Jews under Qur'anic doctrine are inferior by virtue of their false religion and must not be allowed to be equal to Muslims. For Muslim Arabs, the conceit of Jews establishing their own state, Israel, and on territory conquered by Muslims and, since Muhammad, under Muslim control is outrageous and intolerable. As Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University and an expert on Arab politics explains, "Underneath the modern cover there remained the older realities of sects, ethnicity, and the call of the clans."[23] There is no way, in this structure, to reach beyond the Arab versus Israeli and Muslim versus Jew opposition to establish a common interest, short of an unimagined attack on both Arabs and Israelis by some group more distant. In this oppositional framework, it is impossible to seek or see common interests or common possibilities. Israel will always be the distant "other" to be disadvantaged and, if possible, conquered.

A corollary principle, also with roots in Arab tribalism, is honor. Arab honor consists of the warrior's success in confrontations against outsiders. Only the victorious have honor. The more vanquished are the defeated, the greater is the victor's honor. As Ajami observes, in the Arab world, "triumph rarely comes with mercy or moderation."[24] Arabs are taught, and many have taken to heart, that honor is more important than wealth, fame, love, or even death. Imbued with such a sense, today's Arab finds himself in an untenable situation: Juxtaposing their recent history to the years of glory under Muhammad, Arabs can see only defeat visited upon defeat. First there was the breakdown of Arab solidarity and fighting among the Arabs themselves, then the Turkish Ottomans conquered the region. The decline and fall of the Ottomans led to conquest and occupation of almost all Arab lands by the Christians of Europe. Even their successful anti-colonial struggles turned into empty victories with Arab populations subject to power-hungry rulers, sadistic despots, or religious fanatics.

What honor can be found in defeat and oppression? And what self-respect can Arabs find without honor? In a world of defeat and failure, honor can be found only in resistance. Arab self-respect demands honor be vindicated through standing and fighting, no matter what the cost. In a 2006 interview, Pierre Heumann, a journalist with the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche, asked Al-Jazeera editor-in-chief Ahmed Sheikh whether enmity toward Israel is motivated by self-esteem. Sheikh explained, "Exactly. It's because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab."[25] Lebanese poet Khalil Hawi echoes a similar theme in his 1979 volume Wounded Thunder in which he laments the failure of the Arabs to defeat Israel. "How heavy is the shame," Hawi asks. "Do I bear it alone?"[26]

These four factors—the defense of honor, segmentary opposition, transference of discontent outward, and conflicting material interests—militate in favor of alienation between the Arabs and Israel and the tenacious rejectionism of the Arabs. The two cultural factors—honor and opposition—are influences deeply embedded in Arab character. What appears to be reasonable to Westerners will not appear reasonable to Arabs. Such is the power of culture.

The conflict between Arabs and Israelis, Muslims and Jews, is not the only major conflict between Muslims and others. On the contrary, military contests along the borders of lands dominated by Muslims are pervasive. Samuel Huntington, a Harvard political scientist, observed, "The overwhelming majority of fault line conflicts … have taken place along the boundary looping across Eurasia and Africa that separates Muslims from non-Muslims. While at the macro or global level of world politics, the primary clash of civilizations is between the West and the rest, at the micro or local level it is between Islam and the others."[27] Among the conflicts enumerated by Huntington are the Bosnians versus the Serbs, the Turks versus the Greeks, Turks versus Armenians, Azerbaijanis versus Armenians, Tatars versus Russians, Afghans and Tajiks versus Russians, Uighurs versus Han Chinese, Pakistanis versus Indians, Sudanese Arabs versus southern Sudanese Christians and animists, and northern Muslim Nigerians versus southern Christian Nigerians.

Indeed, everywhere along the perimeter of the Muslim-ruled bloc, Muslims have problems living peaceably with their neighbors. Muslims may only comprise one-fifth of the world's population, but in this decade and the last, they have been far more involved in inter-group violence than the people of any other civilization.

Leadership
Muslim Middle Eastern countries, from Morocco to Iran, are dictatorships. None are ranked free, and some, such as Egypt, Iran, Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, are ranked not free, the lowest category.[28] The propensity of Arab states and Iran to dictatorship also has roots in tribal culture. There is an inherent conflict between peasants and nomads. Peasants are sedentary, tied to their land, water, and crops while tribesmen are nomadic, moving around remote regions. Peasants tend to be densely concentrated in water-rich areas around rivers or irrigation systems while pastoral tribesmen, in contrast, are spread thinly across plains, deserts, and mountains.

To state leaders, cultivators are vulnerable and rewarding targets who cannot escape without sacrificing their means of making a living. In comparison to peasant cultivators, pastoral nomads are much less vulnerable than cultivators to state importunity. Both their main capital resource, livestock, and their household shelter are mobile. While farming follows a rigid schedule of planting and exploitation, nomadism requires constant decisions and initiative, which instill willfulness and independence. Mobility and guerilla prowess make tribesmen less vulnerable than peasants to state control.

States struggle to impose effective control over the nomads. State authorities do not, however, always take a modest, compromising attitude in dealing with tribes. The Ottomans tended to be a bit more stringent in their own heartland. If tribes in Anatolia were deemed to be too independent, the government responded rigorously. Ottoman authorities forcibly settled unruly tribes and, in the 1920s and 1930s, Reza Shah subjected and forcibly settled in villages Iran's nomadic tribes—the Qashqai and Basseri of the southwest, the Lurs of the west, the Kurds of the northwest, the Turkmen of the northeast, and the Baluch of the southeast.[29] When occupying British officials deposed Reza Shah in 1941, many of the tribesmen reverted to nomadism.

In order for states to retain control over and exploit the production of their subjects, they must transform tribesmen into peasants. Governments cannot extract taxes and recruit soldiers from tribesmen, but they can do so from sedentary populations. Peasants are socially fragmented because the state has monopolized responsibility for collective action. Fast forward to the modern day. This tribal dynamic leads to dictatorship. Dictatorship occurs in one of two ways: In some societies, political leaders must use repression to stymie the centrifugal force inherent in tribalism. In countries, though, such as Libya or some Persian Gulf emirates, tribes are encapsulated in the national government. Tribal leadership morphs into the governing structure. Tribal notables become regional if not national elites. Either way, a rigid governing structure takes root.

Conclusions
What part does tribal organization and culture play in contemporary Middle Eastern life? Is it possible to say that tribes in the Middle East are primarily of historical interest with little influence in modern Middle Eastern societies, at least outside the state? After all, in the Middle East, there are established state organizations with governments, bureaucracies, police, courts, armies, and political parties. If Middle Eastern states are developed countries with modern institutions, then it might be easy to assume that the influence of tribes and tribal life and culture is minimal or nonexistent. It would then follow that the argument that Middle Eastern culture is imbued with tribal culture and organization and that balanced opposition underlies many aspects of contemporary Middle Eastern life must be heavily discounted or rejected altogether. Middle Eastern societies are not "modern," however, in the sense that European and American societies are. The tribal spirit holds sway. Its influence upon Islam permeates even the most cosmopolitan Arab states even if the tribal influences enshrined in the religion espoused or revealed by Muhammad are, almost fourteen centuries later, forgotten. Indeed, had Islam, whatever its many dimensions and complexities, not incorporated the balanced opposition structure of the tribal society that it sought to overlay, it is doubtful whether it could have been as accepted and successful as it was.

Philip Carl Salzman is the author of Culture and Conflict in the Middle East (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2007), on which this excerpt is based.

[1] Fredrick Barth, Nomads of South Persia (Oslo: Oslo University Press, 1961), pp. 98, 104-11.
[2] William Lancaster, The Rwala Bedouin Today (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland, 1997).
[3] Ibid.
[4] Louise Sweet, "Camel Raiding of North Arabian Bedouin: A Mechanism of Ecological Adaption," American Anthropologist, 67 (1965): 1132-50; William Irons, "Livestock Raiding among Pastoralists: An Adaptive Interpretation," Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, 50 (1965): 393-414; Lancaster, The Rwala Bedouin Today, p. 141.
[5] E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Sanusi of Cyrenaica (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1949); Emrys L. Peters, The Bedouin of Cyrenaica: Studies in Personal and Corporate Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
[6] Marshall Sahlins, "The Segmentary Lineage: An Organization of Predatory Expansion," American Anthropologist, 63 (1961): 322-43.
[7] See, for example, Charles Lindholm, The Islamic Middle East, rev. ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002), p. 79.
[8] "Part 3: Muslim Theologians and Jurists on Jihad: Classical Writings," in Andrew Bostom, ed., The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2005), pp. 141-248.
[9] Andrew Bostom, "Part 2: Jihad Conquests and the Imposition of Dhimmitude—A Survey," in Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad, pp. 86-93.
[10] "Part 6: Jihad in the Near East, Europe, and Asia Minor and on the Indian Subcontinent," pp. 383-528, "Part 7: Jihad Slavery," pp. 529-88, "Part 8: Muslim and Non-Muslim Chronicles and Eyewitness Accounts of Jihad Campaigns," pp. 589-674, in Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad; P.M. Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, and Bernard Lewis, eds. The Cambridge History of Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); David Cook, Understanding Jihad (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Efraim Karsh, Islamic Imperialism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006).
[11] Demetrios Constantelos, "Greek Christian and Other Accounts of the Muslim Conquests of the Near East," in Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad, p. 390.
[12] Ibid., p. 393.
[13] Aram Ter-Ghevondian, "The Armenian Rebellion of 703 against the Caliphate," in Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad, p. 412.
[14] C.E. Dufourcq, "The Days of Razzia and Invasion," in Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad, pp. 419-20.
[15] Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002.
[16] David G. Littman and Bat Ye'or, "Protected Peoples under Islam," in Robert Spencer, ed., The Myth of Islamic Tolerance (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2005), p. 93.
[17] The Jerusalem Post, Feb. 24, 1995.
[18] Travels of Ali Bey in Morocco, quoted in Littman and Ye'or, "Protected Peoples under Islam," p. 99.
[19] An 1826 report by Shaler, quoted in Littman and Ye'or, "Protected Peoples under Islam," p. 101.
[20] Littman and Ye'or, "Protected Peoples under Islam," p. 102.
[21] Bat Ye'or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002), pp. 40-1.
[22] Evans-Pritchard, The Sanusi of Cyrenaica, p. 63.
[23] Fouad Ajami, The Dream Palace of the Arabs (New York: Vintage, 1999), p. 155.
[24] Ibid., p. 134.
[25] Pierre Heumann, "An Interview with Al-Jazeera Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Sheikh," World Politics Review, Dec. 7, 2006.
[26] Ajami, The Dream Palace of the Arabs, p. 97.
[27] Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1996), pp. 254-8.
[28] "2007 Subscores," Freedom in the World (Washington, D.C.: Freedom House, 2007), accessed Sept. 28, 2007.
[29] Hassan Arfa, Under Five Shahs (London: John Murray, 1965), p. 253-7.

To receive articles regularly by email, join the MEF News mailing list.

To receive the full, printed version of the Middle East Quarterly, please see details about an affordable subscription.

This text may be reposted so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.

http://www.meforum.org/1813/the-middle-easts-tribal-dna

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

[Max2147]

Im not sure how he ment it but this is what im talking about.
These are the initial posts I was disagreeing with:
I believe the US government shouldnt have even acted. They are in Somali waters and merchants and tourists know the risks of traveling through them. The Somalis did not engage a MILITARY or GOVERNMENT target under ORDERS from THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT. They raided a MERCHANT vessal. Its sad that we waste time on people who attack merchants that really have no right to be there in Somali waters when its obvious the Somalis dont want us there. I salute those brave pirates:salute:
Should sent all the americans to davy jones:arrgh!:
obviously the navy of somalia is something that is nonexsistent, its navy is based off of piracy practically. Wherever these pirates hunting grounds are, are their waters. They live in a tribal society in which is a soceity where whoever you kill, you can take what is theres. I hate how the western world does not understand this. What is considered robbery to us, is life to them. How dare you call them scum. If you grew up in the same place as they, you would be supportive of the pirates.

[Happy Times]

These are the initial posts I was disagreeing with:

Oh ok, i didnt read every post in this thread.
I just think his assesment of the tribal culture to be correct.
If he seriously belives what he wrote about killing Americans he should move back to the mountains between Afganistan and Pakistan.
To get some non tribal revenge delivered on him from the sky.:D

[Onkel Neal]

Ok, Hillary, I'm with you on this one: Clinton says releasing pirates sends 'wrong signal' (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/20/clinton.pirates/index.html)

Pirates must die.

[AVGWarhawk]

Ok, Hillary, I'm with you on this one: Clinton says releasing pirates sends 'wrong signal' (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/20/clinton.pirates/index.html)

Pirates must die.

See post #162:D