Somali pirates

Find out where the pirates are launching from and flatten the town. That would end it once and for all.

 

Troy- thanks for post #24.

 

So all those in the town who don't participate in piracy, or have any control over it, have to die ? Very rough justice.

 

Everyone in town profits from the pirates' actions and they know it.

 

Level the place.

 

They do ? You seem to know an awful lot about this port.

 

It is a small place called Eyl 7*58'51.11"N x 49*48'54.16"E. Elev. 139 ft.

 

Somalia is a model " failed state". The antecedents of that are only vaguely familiar to most of us, but this piracy stuff is a legacy of it. It is like the wild west on water, with stagecoaches and trains (now boats) being held up and shot up hither and thither. I don't think burning down Dodge City was the answer to it in the 1800's.

 

It makes me wonder if there is more than meets the eye in this case.

It would seem to me, it would be easy to stop with satellite images that could track their moves, helicopter gun ships that could shoot them out of the water. Escorting ships through the area.

So somewhere somehow the western governments are allowing it to continue, and I would be interested to know why.

 

I guess a couple of human rights organisations would eat alive anyone giving such orders. Politicians don't have the balls to make those decisions.

L

 

Youtube is filled with vids of various military actions against the vessels.
Small boats it appears are stopped and searched for weapons - the occupants detained and the boats are destroyed if weapons are found.

So it looks like an active campaign is in force against the practice.
I suppose the area of activity is broad enough to make total surveillance/interdiction a challenge even in this day..

Given the resources- I would guess that the practice could be effectively stopped.
I think they anti has upped- we may see more pressure brought to bear on this in the near future.


Stop paying the ransoms. Immediately retake any captured vessel by force.
Pay a visit to the top dogs orchestrating this whole mess..
Follow up by seeing if something can be done to stabilize the region.


I didn't have more than a passing knowledge of the "Barbary Pirates":

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

It makes for interesting reading.

 

i don't understand why america, australia, britain and all the other country's that are policing the world at the moment stuff around so much. afghanistan, iraq and somalia could be sorted out quickly if governments pulled their fingers out. between all our country's we should be sending assets to these places in overwhelming force. by that i mean more soldiers than the population in these places. how would the bad guys operate if there were coalition people everywhere they looked, they could only give up, there would be no choice. 1 carrier based off somalia with a heap of predators onboard watching and eliminating pirates 24/7. my idea might cost to much but i would think years of 1/2 arsed efforts would cost more.

 

We are doing nothing because, well, you need only look at the so-called leadership to learn the answer to that.

 

I agree that the only way to put a stop to the piracy is at its source. And I agree that most folks in the towns the pirates launch from are probably benefiting -- either directly, or indirectly from the money that's getting pumped into the local economy.

But as someone has pointed out, wiping out men, women, children and dogs seems a bit harsh. I don't see it happening, unless and until the piracy becomes a much bigger problem than it is.

Your faith in modern technology is as touching as your paranoia about 'western governments' is annoying. I would be interested in knowing why you would jump to a completely unsupported conclusion that western powers are deliberately allowing it to continue, given that naval vessels from 16 countries are patrolling the area at this moment -- and given the fact that if we actually took serious action against the home ports of those Somalian pirates, people like you would be screaming and carrying on about our slaughter of innocents in the name of the almighty dollar.

Unless you can somehow talk the pirates into wearing GPS units, finding and keeping track of them isn't going to be that simple -- satellites or no satellites. The ocean is a big place; Look at what it takes to find one disabled yacht during a search and rescue operation.

This isn't a video game, where a satellite just sends Mission Control a signal showing dots on a map of the ocean: green for friendlies and red for bad guys. Hundreds or even thousands of vessels need to be detected, then investigated to identify potential targets which need to be tracked. Not to mention that helicopter gunships need some sort of platform (base or ship) to operate from.

If the problem gets worse, we may have to start a close Naval blockade of Somalia, and start sending ships in escorted convoys. Both of those are expensive and cumbersome propositions, and won't be carried out until and unless the problem keeps getting worse instead of better... meanwhile, I like what the French have done: they've started assigning military personnel onboard civilian ships.

And maybe the international community should re-think its knee-jerk, inane opposition to weapons on board. Throughout most of history, merchant vessels were not only allowed to be armed to protect themselves, they were expected to be.

 

Looking at piracy without taking into account the legacy of colonialism will not let you understand the causes. Most pirates get into it either through intimidation or because there are few other sources of income. I am not condoning it, but unless there are social and economic changes along with Law enforcement, it will never end. Consider the "War on Drugs" and its failure to stop trafficking.