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They don't always target large ships (some guys just love going after the big fat ones....), they target just about any possible ransoms. In that area, the piracy has spread away from the more heavily patrolled Straits to less protectible open ocean shipping lanes."How do pirates take over such huge ships?"
Pirates are wily.
Hostage dies as French attack Somali pirates - CNN.comThey don't always target large ships (some guys just love going after the big fat ones....), they target just about any possible ransoms. In that area, the piracy has spread away from the more heavily patrolled Straits to less protectible open ocean shipping lanes."How do pirates take over such huge ships?"
Pirates are wily.
Big problem. Lots of money to protect those important shipping routes. Last count there were more than 60 naval ships from several nations on patrol in that area, and more US navy supply ships in support of the patrols. The US has been picking up most of the tab, so far.
This incident will cause the piracy problem to get a lot more attention, fast.
Who votes for a good sized invasion and occupation force being sent into of parts of Somalia again ?
I've been up close to those container ships. How in the heck do a bunch of pirates in a motorized skiff pull up alongside of and stop a ginormous freighter doing 20 knots?
Very confused. It seems as though the guys on the freighter would be laughing from 10 stories up, and it also seems the pirates would be easy targets for a couple plinkers on deck of the freighter.
Am I missing something? (obviously).
The issue goes way beyond mere piracy: Somalia is a hotbed of Al Qaeda activity and has been for years. My guess is that the hijacking of these ships is for the sole purpose of raising money for Al Qaeda, and if that is true, it makes the piracy issue one of grave international concern.
Now - will any nation (or for that matter, The UN) have the testoserone to go in there - do the right thing - and clean house? When pirates along the Barbary Coast plundered international shipping in the early 1800s, The United States Marines went in there and kicked their pirate asses and put them out of business.
RWC
Yeah, they might have to pay the crews a living wage.
But hey, don't worry about it.
Americans will inevitably pay to protect those ships anyway.
That's what Americans are good for.
Paying to protect everybody's interests but their own.
It wasn't wages that ran the shipping industry out of the U.S. It was Valdez. Maritime law has never held any ship liable for anything more than the value of the vessel and it's cargo. This has been in place for hundreds of years. Valdez changed all that here in the U.S. It actually took an act of congress to override international maritime law and make Exxon liable for the cost of the spill. Once that happened the liability costs of operating a cargo shipping line in the U.S. became too high and they all moved to Monrovia, Panama, and such.
Where do you get this crap?
American Maritime industry was dying long before the Exxon Vadez incvident.
From the jungles of Somalia to the shores of Tripoli -
We will kick some pirate asses - and we'll do it with much glee!
We will throw them to the sharks for bait - just to hear their mournfull screams -
And will teach them a hard earned lesson from The United States Marines!!!
RWC
How do pirates take over a huge ship, you wait until its safe, you wait until the most liberal democrat president ever, obama to take over, you watch to see if he bows to the king of saudi arabia, if obama bows, you know he is one of you and that he will cede authority to the king of saudi arabia, once you see those signs you know its safe to take over the ship.
I've been up close to those container ships. How in the heck do a bunch of pirates in a motorized skiff pull up alongside of and stop a ginormous freighter doing 20 knots?
Very confused. It seems as though the guys on the freighter would be laughing from 10 stories up, and it also seems the pirates would be easy targets for a couple plinkers on deck of the freighter.
Am I missing something? (obviously).
Their decision to abandon the vessel that their company was paid handsomely to protect attracted some criticism. One Western aid official in the region told The Times that after calls for commercial vessels to hire security guards, it was “somewhat ironic that they jump overboard to save themselves”.
Their British employer, however, insisted that the three former soldiers were heroes who had resisted a sustained attack by heavily armed pirates with great courage and would have been killed if they had stayed any longer. “They were unarmed. They had no other option. As far as I’m concerned they deserve a medal,” said Nick Davis, a former British Army pilot who runs AntiPiracy Maritime Security Solutions (APMSS) out of Poole, Dorset. Mr Davis said his guards were unarmed because it was almost impossible to carry firearms through Customs and on to vessels in most countries, and because ships with cargoes of chemicals or gas seldom allowed weapons on board. The ship concerned, the Liberian-flagged tanker the Biscaglia, was carrying a cargo of palm oil.