'Surprisingly, he discovered the world was not a nice place...'
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Originally Posted by
motorfirebox
Just woke up with this full-blown realization regarding the difficulty of taking on pirates by force: the hostages.
Not to be picky or snarky, but how could you overlook that? I'm pretty sure Stan and Carl did not and I know I didn't.
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The Quest incident (among others) shows that if the pirates feel too threatened, they'll kill hostages. And we know that the various pirate crews are...in frequent communication with each other.
Well, yeah.
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All of which boils down to this: we can't just roll up a boat at a time for the sake of deterrence. We would have to conduct something like 10-20 hostage rescue operations ... We would have to take out every pirate who is currently pirating, pretty much at the same time. ... I bet we'd still lose more hostages in a day than we normally lose in a year. Or three.
Yes -- and all that is why there has been no western military action (directed at the Piracy...) on land thus far. Nor is there likely to be unless the pirate crews continue to get greedy -- then the west will react and it will not be pretty. While every effort would be made by most forces to insure hostage survival, the overall fate of the hostages will not determine what is done if military action were to be ordered. In that unlikely event, the hostages will be part of that collateral damage you mentioned...
Reality thucks... :(
To say nothing of the folks at the UN, and ....
their Security Council Resolutions (just since 1 Jan 2008) that are material to the Somali pirates and the remedies that may be employed against them:
1801 (2008),
1811 (2008),
1814 (2008),
1816 (2008),
1831 (2008),
1838 (2008),
1844 (2008),
1846 (2008),
1851 (2008),
1853 (2008),
1863 (2009),
1872 (2009),
1897 (2009),
1910 (2010),
1916 (2010)
1918 (2010),
1950 (2010) and
1964 (2010).
All of the above add up to a Rule of Law situation (international law enforcement as to piracy), where the Laws of War (sometimes applicable to a Chapter VII peace enforcement situation) generally do not apply.
To change the constraints in any substantial manner would require a change in policy. The problem (as in many situations) is not founded in military strategy and tactics, but in governmental policy (here, international governmental policy).
Regards
Mike