War Nerd Update: Jack al-Sparrow vs. the Do-gooders!, By Gary Brecher. The eXiled Online, October 29th, 2008.
You can bet money changed hands, too. The shipping companies don’t like to talk about ransom, but they pay up. So there are a lot of Somalis flashin’ the bling and soupin’ up the cigar boats along the Puntland coast, yo ho ho and a bottle of money. I saw one of these tsk-tsk articles the other day with the headline, “What drives Somalis to piracy?” Dumbest question ever; even the subhead answered it for them: “Women, Money, Drugs.” Does that answer your question? Not to mention the fact, which I go into in the article below here, that Somalis are raiders, plunderers from way back. They like it. Even your fat little video-game nephew likes the idea, he just doesn’t have the guts to do it. What do you think he’s doing on his console up there in his room except blowing people away and taking their stuff? Somalis can go out and just coldbloodedly do it.
Boy, that was really illuminating...
Did you have a point in posting that?
I seem to have missed your comments on the topic...
Piracy -v- Human Rights
A not un-expected comment on the new EU flotilla being deployed to the Gulf of Aden: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...an-rights.html
What effect will this have on piracy? Little more than media hype and a few comfotable ships when escorted. If there are three hundred ships a day in the area, how about convoys or designated routes?
From the comfort of a landlubber's armchair.
davidbfpo
Blackwater meet Blackbeard
Blackwater's a little too small and just late
Hoorah, the Brits finally got a few pirates with an exchange of gunfire.
Well, the HMS Cumberland slightly outclasses a rubbermaid dhingi
Navy shoots pirate suspects dead
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed the incident took place on Tuesday, when HMS Cumberland crew members tried to board a traditional wooden dhow.
If you want to blend in, take the bus
Escalation
450 miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya is stretching their AO...
Pirates take 'super tanker' towards SomaliaNAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) -- Pirates who hijacked a crude oil tanker off the coast of Kenya are approaching a Somali port, the U.S. Navy said Monday.
The Sirius Star -- a crude "super tanker" flagged in Liberia and owned by the Saudi Arabian-based Saudi Aramco company -- was attacked on Saturday more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya.
The crew of 25, including British, Croatian, Polish, Filippino and Saudi nationals, are reported to be safe
U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet Cmdr. Jane Campbell said the super tanker weighs more than 300,000 metric tons and "is more than three times the size of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier."
the struggle against pirates
FIIA - Making a big problem smaller – extracting a functioning mini-state from a larger failed-state?
Topical comedians everywhere are having endless pirate-related fun but the story, of course, has a darker side when you look at what is happening on land and not just on the high seas.
A new country of Somaliland will not solve the problems of the Horn of Africa, but as all other international policies on Somalia seem to have failed, recognising Somaliland is surely worth considering.
If you want to blend in, take the bus
Originally Posted by sapperfitz82
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