More Piracy Near Somalia

[motorfirebox]

I'm beginning to wonder when this tide turns and the pirates realize that the cargo on the ship is far more valuable than the foreign crew. I saw it in the DRC (then Zaire) following 3 civil wars and by accounts, the NGOs in eastern DRC see it even now.

Yeah... cargo's harder to move and easier to track, though. If they start doing that, it really would be pretty easy to send in some shooters and roll up enough pirates to have an overall effect.

...but I must comment again on your rush to excuse the Somali's of any blame. First we had your explanation that these poor victims were only resorting to piracy because others were illegally fishing in the Somali territorial waters and worse still others dumping toxic waste. Now that they are not drug (khat) crazed gangsters but only poor people trying to make a living.

I'm not excusing the pirates. I'm pointing out that in terms of lives lost and even money, the piracy is one of the least harmful illegal activities going on in the area. The way I see it, you're excusing everyone else in the area because the pirates are the only one who kill people with guns.

Well "the recent episode aside" has changed all that, yes?

I wouldn't say it's changed 'all that'. It's not like Somali pirates have never killed hostages before. What's going to change immediately, if anything, is our response.

You have had it explained to you by a few of the folks around here that whole communities support the piracy operations as it has lifted them out of the subsistence existence they had before. Nobody is neutral. Nobody in these villages wants the money piracy brings to go away. The current prosperity is the result of the proceeds of crime.

Er, actually, I'm the one that explained that to some of the posters here. I just don't agree that killing those who make a secondary profit from piracy doesn't count as collateral damage.

Do you really think the owners of say a full oil supertanker give a rats ass about the crew? The ransom is paid to get the ship and its cargo back. The crew are an inconvenience. I mean they may want compensation etc etc.

Sure, probably. But those owners also have to pay insurance on their shipments. I can't imagine that losing your whole crew doesn't bump your premiums a bit more than getting them back safely. And if the entire crew dies, it's going to give the rest of the employees leverage to demand increased wages (in the form of hazard pay, if nothing else).

Why waste all that fuel cruising the Somali coast ? History is clear that the navies are hamstrung by government. Time for an African land battle and cut all the hostages free from those new Somali diners croping up in the desert !

I just don't think that's realistic. We could do it, sure. But we won't. If we send in ground forces, there will be cameras everywhere and we're going to spend most of our time responding to ambushes and talking to Anderson Cooper about how terrible it all is. And we'll leave a year or two later, and piracy will spring right back up.

If we went in with the will to actually kill a lot of Somalis, it'd probably work. We don't have that will.