Pirates; Somalia's ONLY Line-Of-Defense!

[Mr. Shaman]

LOOKING GOOD...Yea, for our side.

On another forum I suggested that now with 'Black Water' falling out of favor in Iraq...that large corporation of mercenaries will be looking for jobs...maybe those shipping firms need to check into hiring 'Black Water', they certainly know how to 'take no prisoners' and they are quick {real quick} on the trigger!

Yeah....they're great Ambassadors for 'Merica!!!

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[Dr.Who]

There's no need to consider apologizing for your confusion.

We are talkin'-about BUSHCO-politiks.​

Well you might be but the rest of us knw that he is no longer president and that this is a thread about pirates.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Well you might be but the rest of us knw that he is no longer president and that this is a thread about pirates.

Yeah, let's (simply) ignore what prompted the "....lawlessness and anarchy in Somalia."

Hell.....we might (actually) learn-from-the-past.

​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

I have no knowledge of 'Maritime Law' and on another forum we have this debate raging: If Maritime Law states that Merchant Ships may not bear arms and yet the pirates are violating the International Shipping Lanes for safe passage...what preempts the ability to protect the International ships...does NATO have to provide the support or is it left up to each individual company to provide support to their own countries Merchant Ships?

It's being addressed.....finally....​

"This week, Clinton said, the State Department will dispatch an envoy to an international Somali peacekeeping meeting in Brussels aimed at helping Somalia police its own territory. "We will press these leaders to take action against pirates operating from bases within their territories," Clinton said.

An international contact group on piracy will also hold meetings to improve coordination of naval patrols in the region and explore freezing pirate assets. A State Department team will press Somali government officials to act against pirates on land and will work with the shipping industry to address self-defense measures."​

 

[bododie]

Yeah, let's (simply) ignore what prompted the "....lawlessness and anarchy in Somalia."

Do tell.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Do tell.

Whatta concept, huh?


​

"It was," according to the Daily News, "something Hollywood could have scripted: three sharpshooters on the fantail of a destroyer, wearing night vision goggles as dusk settled over the sea, each drew a bead on one of the three teenage pirates standing 100 feet away in a pitching lifeboat aiming weapons at a bound (Capt. Richard) Phillips."

Excuse me, Hollywood?

The consensus reporting of this small but complicated crisis was transparent on this particular point. Hollywood not only could have but might as well have written this script. The plot is formulaic: a context (war) waiting for a pretext (outrage). The forces of inappropriate, mutually beneficial collusion are always churning, and the pirate story allowed them to consummate an unholy marriage in the nation's media outlets, which are ever prepared to pander for profit.

Here's my rule of thumb: Whenever the defense and entertainment industries seem to join hands - whenever the blood of dead Third Worlders is publicly cheered without restraint or the least compunction, and the activity is called patriotism - the only flag we ought to be waving is a red one.

One reason why war is a nonsensical "solution" to almost every problem the world is grappling with is that these problems tend to be interconnected and deeply tangled up at their roots. To bring serious firepower to bear on a random manifestation of this tangled mass of trouble does nothing but make matters worse.

A responsible media would have investigated and reported on some of the causes of Somalian piracy and given us a far more troubling story: the story of a country whose people became vulnerable to the world's worst predators - us, the civilized First World - after its last legitimate, or quasi-legitimate, government collapsed in 1991.

"Its 9 million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas," Johann Hari wrote recently on Huffington Post.

Consider that, shortly after the devastating tsunami of December 2004, a United Nations report noted that people along Somalia's northeastern coast had begun suffering from "far higher than normal cases of respiratory infections, mouth ulcers and bleeding, abdominal hemorrhages and unusual skin infections," according to a story in the Times of London from March 2005. These were diseases "consistent with radiation sickness."​

 

[bododie]

So of course you're suggesting that those brilliant teenage pirates are so concerned with the eco system. Yep. Scholars each and every one.

after its last legitimate, or quasi-legitimate, government collapsed in 1991.

Yeah, who do those Africans think they are wanting to get out from under but ANOTHER African totalitarian ruler?

I love that you care so much. Is someone stopping you from sending your money to help your fellow man because he's incapable of providing for himself, complains when Western money and forces move in, and then complains again when those same forces don't help undue the mess those who can't rule themselves seem to consistently get into? What a freakin quandry.

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

Mr. Shaman Said:

A responsible media would have investigated and reported on some of the causes of Somalian piracy and given us a far more troubling story: the story of a country whose people became vulnerable to the world's worst predators - us, the civilized First World - after its last legitimate, or quasi-legitimate, government collapsed in 1991.

"Its 9 million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas," Johann Hari wrote recently on Huffington Post.

If your able to go back and re-read my insightful post #18, you may realize that this highly volatile country even though predominately Muslim (have their very own hierarchy for their faith) they are not a warm and friendly place for foreigners and if anyone was caught doing any undercover interviews they would be beheaded (tortured and then decapitated)...not a warm friendly place to live let alone visit and expect to have anyone be forthcoming in the ways & means of the tribal conflicts. Your life would be in immediate danger.

But my question is (if your willing to answer it) why are we expected to eradicate the tyrants of the world when our very own history depicts something of the same shades of gray in what and how we came to be here in America...WHO THE HELL ARE WE TO TELL OTHER COUNTRIES WHAT & HOW TO BEHAVE??

 

[samsara15]

We might use them for a while, but I would be wary of getting too cozy with Black Water.

 

[Pandora]

Doesn't matter if they or lying or White does it???

You don't hyjack ships at sea and threaten to kill people for ransom. You just don't do it!

But THANK GOD for this...

JUST BREAKING NEWS!!!

US captain rescued... 3 pirates dead... 1 In custody!

UNITED STATES NAVY... You rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

US NAVY SEALS 1... scumbag pirate terrorists goose egg!

I had not looked at this thread till an argument on another thread about pirates. I loved your posts


This post and the first post you put on this thread were both very good. It’s great when polar opposites like us can agree on something like this.

 

[BigRob]

I have no knowledge of 'Maritime Law' and on another forum we have this debate raging: If Maritime Law states that Merchant Ships may not bear arms and yet the pirates are violating the International Shipping Lanes for safe passage...what preempts the ability to protect the International ships...does NATO have to provide the support or is it left up to each individual company to provide support to their own countries Merchant Ships?

I mean, I can see this ending up and/or becoming the most crowded part of the world for military equipped, fully armed warships of every nation with a merchant ship traveling this direction.

Which leads me to another question; wasn't there a recent study done about enlarging the Suez Canal so that these super tanker/merchant ships would fit through there? Anybody know about that, or did I just dream it?

Part of the problem is that insurance companies do not want to insure ships that are arming the crews.

On your point about the Suez Canal, how does that change the problem of piracy in the Gulf of Aiden, especially if they are coming down to the Indian Ocean? Or did you just mean something else entirely?

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

Big Rob said:

Part of the problem is that insurance companies do not want to insure ships that are arming the crews.

On your point about the Suez Canal, how does that change the problem of piracy in the Gulf of Aidan, especially if they are coming down to the Indian Ocean? Or did you just mean something else entirely?

My memory has areas of gray matter that gets fuzzy: but while working with a Jr high school student {paraprofessional for children with special needs} he was working on a problem of existing trade routes/wind currents/ocean currents and why the shipping lanes were still being used when we no longer depend on wind currents because we have evolved to diesel/fuel oil generated engines to move our merchant ships. Anyway one of the alternatives was to reroute shipments to the east across the Indian ocean and into the Pacific Ocean and then to the Suez canal instead of going down and around the end of Africa and the tremendous hurricanes/typhoons. The hypothetical question was a real exciting idea and generated a lot of discussion and problem solving for this Geography class of Jr High School kids.

There were a plethora of problems tossed out for discussion and they tried valiantly to over come each and every one...and the lack of appropriate space and limited serviceable lock depth & width through the Suez Canal was a real idea buster!!! Plus those barges that are towing tandem storage containers...would be very problematic too!

Anyway it has no real bearing on this 'pirate problem'...just something that I vaguely recalled...{{shrugs shoulders}}

 

[Mr. Shaman]

"They are not desperate bandits, experts say, rather savvy opportunists in the most lawless corner of the planet. But the pirates have never been the only ones exploiting the vulnerabilities of this troubled failed state — and are, in part, a product of the rest of the world's neglect.

Ever since a civil war brought down Somalia's last functional government in 1991, the country's 3,330 km (2,000 miles) of coastline — the longest in continental Africa — has been pillaged by foreign vessels. A United Nations report in 2006 said that, in the absence of the country's at one time serviceable coastguard, Somali waters have become the site of an international "free for all," with fishing fleets from around the world illegally plundering Somali stocks and freezing out the country's own rudimentarily-equipped fishermen. According to another U.N. report, an estimated $300 million worth of seafood is stolen from the country's coastline each year. "In any context," says Gustavo Carvalho, a London-based researcher with Global Witness, an environmental NGO, "that is a staggering sum."

Somali fishermen, whose industry was always small-scale, lacked the advanced boats and technologies of their interloping competitors, and also complained of being shot at by foreign fishermen with water cannons and firearms. The names of existing pirate fleets, such as the National Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia or Somali Marines, are testament to the pirates' initial motivations.

Beyond illegal fishing, foreign ships have also long been accused by local fishermen of dumping toxic and nuclear waste off Somalia's shores. A 2005 United Nations Environmental Program report cited uranium radioactive and other hazardous deposits leading to a rash of respiratory ailments and skin diseases breaking out in villages along the Somali coast. According to the U.N., at the time of the report, it cost $2.50 per ton for a European company to dump these types of materials off the Horn of Africa, as opposed to $250 per ton to dispose of them cleanly in Europe."​

Sounds like another Need To Nuke scenerio.​

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

Prosecutors say teen pirate was brazen ringleader
By LARRY NEUMEISTER and COLLEEN LONG Associated Press Writers The Associated Press
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 9:17 AM EDT
FBI agents escort Somali pirate U.S. officials identify as Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse... (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)
More US NewsUS Open Polo play resumes after Fla. horse deathsFDA to allow 'morning-after' pill for 17-year-oldsFBI probes finances of man believed to kill familySioux split on suit seeking money for Black HillsSC wildfire destroys homes near popular beach areaMore US NewsNEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors say Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse was not shy about making his presence known on the Maersk Alabama, brazenly tearing through the ship in a way that belied his young age and skinny, 5-foot-2 frame.

He was the first to board the ship, fired a shot at the captain, helped steal $30,000 in cash from a safe, and bragged about hijacking ships in the past, authorities said.
But the swagger authorities say the 18-year-old displayed on the ship had evaporated by the time he entered a federal courtroom Tuesday to face a piracy charge that carries a mandatory life prison sentence. He is the first pirate charged in the United States in more than a century.

The tough demeanor he was alleged to have shown on the high seas dissolved into audible sobs as his lawyers notified the court that they had spoken to his family in Somalia. When the judge asked him if he understood that court-appointed lawyers would represent him, the teenager responded through a translator: "I understand. I don't have any money." He still had a tattered white bandage on his left hand that resulted from getting stabbed by a sailor during the skirmish.

His defense lawyers portrayed Muse as a frightened kid and not the violent pirate depicted by prosecutors. They believe he is 15 years old and should be given greater protections under international law because of his age and the circumstances of his situation, and predicted he would be exonerated.

"As you can tell, he's extremely young, injured and terrified," lawyer Deirdre von Dornum said.

Muse was charged with several counts, including piracy under the law of nations. That charge carries a mandatory penalty of life in prison.

The decision by the federal government to bring Muse to justice here has thrust the teenager into international spotlight and has raised legal questions about whether the U.S. is going too far in trying to make an example of someone so young.

Muse's age was called into question by differing accounts, but the judge who heard arguments about the issue ruled Tuesday that he can be tried as an adult. The government says he's 18.

http://www.mediacomtoday.com/news/r...ass&action=9&lang=en&_LT=UNLC_USNWU00L9_UNEWS
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Holy Bat Crap...this young man armed with a lethal weapon has been making a living terrorizing large ships and stealing money/food/holding people ransom...grrr

IMO...he's able to point a lethal weapon at another human being it wouldn't matter if he was 12 years old..."do the crime you gonna do the time". Hell, he's getting 3 square meals a day and will be housed in climate controlled environment...compared to where he's lived, he's got it made!!!

 

[Mr. Shaman]

If they're so concerned abouth dear mother earth, why do they need millions of dollars in ransoms?

ooooooooooooooo......geeeeeeee......a Cheney-style "cherry-picker"!!

I guess you overlooked the rest......​

"The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died."​

Oh.....wait!!!

I forgot......the body-count has-to-be....at least....3,000, before any re-action is justified, right??

Or, are they required to be White, as well?????

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