Americans can't do anything right

[Gfted1]

As a cheaper, easier solution, I wonder how feasible it would be to just keep a swarm of armed Predator drones over the area.

[Gorgon]

Seems to me escorts would work reasonably well. We are only talking about the bottleneck area in the horn of Africa. A small mercenary fleet could eek out a living hiring itself to shipping companies.

 

[Guard Dog]

If the pirates were smart they would have followed the mafia business plan. After taking the first few ships they then sell themeslves off as a security force to protect ships from themselves. Or just charge companies a small fee to not attack their ships.

[Enoch]

If the pirates were smart they would have followed the mafia business plan. After taking the first few ships they then sell themeslves off as a security force to protect ships from themselves. Or just charge companies a small fee to not attack their ships.

I'm sure they would do this, if they had a stable method of policing themselves internally. But there's no Don running all of the pirates-- anyone with a dingy, an RPG, and a couple friends with assault rifles can go out and hijack a ship. It would take a pretty strong organization to keep all these independent operators in line, as well as to discourage newcomers to the business from hitting ships that have already paid the protection money.

[Guard Dog]

If the pirates were smart they would have followed the mafia business plan. After taking the first few ships they then sell themeslves off as a security force to protect ships from themselves. Or just charge companies a small fee to not attack their ships.

I'm sure they would do this, if they had a stable method of policing themselves internally. But there's no Don running all of the pirates-- anyone with a dingy, an RPG, and a couple friends with assault rifles can go out and hijack a ship. It would take a pretty strong organization to keep all these independent operators in line, as well as to discourage newcomers to the business from hitting ships that have already paid the protection money.

 

True enough. Of course the Barbary Pirates tried to do as I suggested in 1804. Their utter defeat became a verse in the Marines hymn.

[Junai]

lol.

 

Except some party of me can't help but wonder if you're actually sane. See De Beer's and their very real diamond market conspiracy, (pillaging and raping of Africa guaranteed or your money back).

The testimonies of the people I mentioned previously pretty much speak for themselves. Whether I'm sane or not doesn't even enter into it.

 

Oh, and I guess we should stay on topic..

Three times hurrah for the captain.

 

The pirates want revenge. I guess the US marines got a job now.

 

J.

Edited April 13, 2009 by Junai

[Aristes]

Every testimony speaks for itself. However, that does not make it true.

 

Whatever. Conspiracies abound and if it weren't for the internet, we would never know our lives are actually controlled by the gnomes of Zurich. Or whatever.

 

Anyhow, the US has paid pirates. However, we negotiated our deal with the Barbary pirates for a time, but the out and out greed of pirates eventually exhausted our patience and resources.

 

...but I suspect that even the Barbary pirates were more organzied than the Somalian pirates. For that reason, it might not become a war we can 'win' as such, but an ongoing police action. The only real lasting solution would be stability in the region.

 

I don't know what we would need for regional stability, however. Don't throw out suggestions like foreign aid. We need something that works, not more loot for warlords to plunder.

[Rostere]

For that reason, it might not become a war we can 'win' as such, but an ongoing police action. The only real lasting solution would be stability in the region.

 

I don't know what we would need for regional stability, however. Don't throw out suggestions like foreign aid. We need something that works, not more loot for warlords to plunder.

 

True. The first step is to protect the ships from the current pirate threat, so that "crime doesn't pay". The second should be to somehow get the people in Somalia a decent job and food for the day.

[Enoch]

Yeah, it's pretty much a requirement that piracy be more organized in an age when it required warships with cannons and sizeable crews, as opposed to the present standard of a handful of half-starved fishermen with a few small arms, one RPG, and a small fishing vessel.

 

Although organization, of course, would make the pirates more vulnerable to the bread-and-butter of modern American power-- airstrikes. As soon as you have leadership and organizational structure, you have targets we can knock down with a smart bomb from a Predator.

[LadyCrimson]

Well, nice he was rescued with a happy ending for him.

 

Totally irrelevant, but I can never hear "pirates" without envisioning guys in swashbuckling clothes, parrots, and skull/crossbones flags swinging to a ship on big ropes.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

We are only talking about the bottleneck area in the horn of Africa.

 

Not exactly, they have been striking ships that are a significant distance from the original area.

[Killian Kalthorne]

Then they can die as well. The only people who can truly fix the situation in Somalia are the Somalians.

 

So we kill all the pirates until there are no Somalians left alive?

 

And here I thought economic and developmental aid was the path to victory. My bad!

You don't aid the enemy. If they do not wish to be enemies then aid can come, but if they act as thugs, criminals, and terrorists then they should be treated as such.

[Humodour]

Then they can die as well. The only people who can truly fix the situation in Somalia are the Somalians.

 

So we kill all the pirates until there are no Somalians left alive?

 

And here I thought economic and developmental aid was the path to victory. My bad!

You don't aid the enemy. If they do not wish to be enemies then aid can come, but if they act as thugs, criminals, and terrorists then they should be treated as such.

 

Please tell me you are trolling.

[Tigranes]

He is completely serious.

[Humodour]

I don't understand how he can so easily and callously conflate millions of innocent and impoverished Somalians with a couple of hundred ruthless Somalian pirates and wish death upon them all equally as if they were pests stealing his cattle.

[Wrath of Dagon]

We already tried nation-building in Somalia, didn't work out so well. I guess Australia can try next.

[Guard Dog]

Another US ship was attacked today but the somalis were repelled by gunfire from the freighter crew. I guess being a pirate isn't much fun when the target shoots back!

[Volourn]

I love how the pirate crybabies are trying to paint the Big bad Meanie US as the villains for killing their friends.

 

Kinda like the rapist pressing charges against the victim when they stab them with a knife in self defense.

 

Perhaps, they should have thought of what would happen when they started targeting Amerikans.

 

Now, the US is their '#1 enemies'.

 

HAHA!

 

Stupid pirates. Don't mess with the big boys if you cna't handle it, and don't expect symapthy when you are criminal scum.

[Killian Kalthorne]

I don't understand how he can so easily and callously conflate millions of innocent and impoverished Somalians with a couple of hundred ruthless Somalian pirates and wish death upon them all equally as if they were pests stealing his cattle.

 

This world is a cold and callous place, Krezy. If you are in dire straights then the only one who can get you out of it is yourself. Expect no one to help you. If you cannot then you are to blame. Not the government. Not your neighbor. You, and only you. This applies to me, Walsh, Volourn, and Somalia. No one is innocent, Krezy. Innocence is an illusion.

[alanschu]

Never thought I'd be able to call Hades a Neo-Conservative.

[Walsingham]

I'd got used to the forum being smarter than this. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

 

1. I'm not an expert on Somalia. I know a couple of Somalis, and have read three books on the subject. Them targeting the US is part and parcel of their culture of revenge. It's not based on a geopolitically aware threat assessment!

 

2. Can I kindly advise everyone to stop taking 'Killian's crazy statements as needing responses. Even if he were serious - and I don't believe he is - then they answer themselves. It's the politics of a twelve-year old. That, or a 19th Century British parliamentary leader. Either way... as discredited as Bill Clinton's marriage vows.

 

3. Attacks are occurring in blue water. We're talking about covering an area of millions of square nms.

 

4. You can kill as many gunmen as you like. It's a war of intimidation and attrition against a population of several millions for whom imprisonment in Europe would be a step up in living standards. Death is a daily thing, not something they see only on CNN or only happens to the aged.

 

5. Jamai, it's irritating enough that some people seem to feel shouting "oil" is an adequate analysis of all geopolitics when there actually is oil. If we start pointing at anything happening and shouting oil when there isn't any fething oil? That's just sad.

[Junai]

nm

Edited April 16, 2009 by Junai

[Darque]

Another US ship was attacked today but the somalis were repelled by gunfire from the freighter crew. I guess being a pirate isn't much fun when the target shoots back!

 

[Walsingham]

nm

 

I can only assume you were trying to say something but your mouth was clogged with undiscovered deposits of oil.

[Gromnir]

nm

 

I can only assume you were trying to say something but your mouth was clogged with undiscovered deposits of oil.

 

maybe it is seal blubber 'stead o' oil.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1639801.stm

 

oddly enough, it would seem that in 2004/2005 norway went ahead with their dubious plans, and now all o' you aspiring seal clubbers can goes to norway for holiday. huzzah!

 

have always been fascinated by the generalizations 'bout America and Americans we sees bandied 'bout by european and asians. Americans is fat, lazy and stoopid... and America is some kinda evil world tyrant-wannabe out to protect its oil interests. such notions is very simple and convenient, and is resilient beyond all imagining. having spent time teaching and studying in europe, we were surprised to find that the euro college students we met weren't any smarter than their counterparts across the pond. what really amazed us were the fact that our euro students and colleagues, after some considerable time, were able to disabuse themselves of the notion that Gromnir were fat, lazy and stoopid, but they never seemed to be able to take next step and shake off the preconception that Americans in general was fat, lazy and stoopid. our existence somehow became for them the exception that proved the rule.

 

for folks who not know and don't wish to learn, it is far more comfortable to embrace a simplistic pov. perhaps a cultural anthropologist could explain better-- some primitive blames floods and changes of seasons and plagues on God/Gods 'cause such an explanation is convenient and ultimately unassailable. 'course the modern primitive is too sophisticated to believe in God, so he instead blames evils on America and its lust for oil.

 

will be amusing if junai gets offended by our hasty generalizations.

 

HA! Good Fun!