Somali pirates hijack ship; 20 Americans aboard

[GoPackGo]

These pi-RATS want a 2 million dollar ranson or they are going to kill the guy.

What part of WARSHIP don't they get?

I say at night send in a SEAL team and take care of business.

 

[GoPackGo]

Now CNN is saying that more Pirates are headed to the area to look for this lifeboat...as are more US Navy ships.

The pirates are not smart.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
Now CNN is saying that more Pirates are headed to the area to look for this lifeboat...as are more US Navy ships.

The pirates are not smart.

That's not good. If the pirates do make the mistake of firing or even so much as aiming at a navy ship then that ship had better fire.

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
Now CNN is saying that more Pirates are headed to the area to look for this lifeboat...as are more US Navy ships.

The pirates are not smart.

That's not good. If the pirates do make the mistake of firing or even so much as aiming at a navy ship then that ship had better fire.

Looks good to me. Get as many of them together as possible and take care of the problem. Wouldn't want to let a good crisis go to waste. We are the world's policeman.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: seemingly random

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
Now CNN is saying that more Pirates are headed to the area to look for this lifeboat...as are more US Navy ships.

The pirates are not smart.

That's not good. If the pirates do make the mistake of firing or even so much as aiming at a navy ship then that ship had better fire.

Looks good to me. Get as many of them together as possible and take care of the problem. Wouldn't want to let a good crisis go to waste. We are the world's policeman.

I thought that was the UN's job?

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: seemingly random

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
Now CNN is saying that more Pirates are headed to the area to look for this lifeboat...as are more US Navy ships.

The pirates are not smart.

That's not good. If the pirates do make the mistake of firing or even so much as aiming at a navy ship then that ship had better fire.

Looks good to me. Get as many of them together as possible and take care of the problem. Wouldn't want to let a good crisis go to waste. We are the world's policeman.

I thought that was the UN's job?

You could be right. I don't claim to know about the delicacies of international law. I just know that when the u.s. is really upset, it can and will commandeer an entire country.

Self interest would not be a resolution predictor when considering somalia. But losing tankers filled with oil might be.

 

[StageLeft]

They need to make a fvcking example out of these people.

I really hope they do not tolerate any physical contact between the lifeboat and the hijacked German trawler that is supposedly on its way now there.

Much of what I knew I learned from movies, but I wonder if a seal team even could go up there at night under water with their little electric torpedo things and scuba gear and pop up out of the water and cap some pirates~!!

 

[freegeeks]

In related news: French troops kill 2 pirates and capture 3 in rescue operation. One French hostage killed.

linky

 

[StageLeft]

I read as many as four ships with hostages are going over there now. The navy is really in a pickle right now as to how to play this because in my true opinion, these pirates do not value others' or their own lives much. I think that Somalia is so war torn that many of its residents honestly do not care about their own lives as much as the average joe, and thus even threatening with the loss of their own life doesn't carry with it the weight it would against a rational person from a normalized society.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
I read as many as four ships with hostages are going over there now. The navy is really in a pickle right now as to how to play this because in my true opinion, these pirates do not value others' or their own lives much. I think that Somalia is so war torn that many of its residents honestly do not care about their own lives as much as the average joe, and thus even threatening with the loss of their own life doesn't carry with it the weight it would against a rational person from a normalized society.

These people are businessmen. They don't want to die, and the pickings have been easy. They know their up the ocean without a paddle, and the only thing they can do is bluff. These aren't terrorists looking for virgins in the afterlife. If they didn't care, they could just have shot the captain before and gone to paradise as a consequence.

If they feel they have nothing to lose, they may just do that, but it's not their first choice. Far from it.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Hayabusa Rider

Originally posted by: Skoorb
I read as many as four ships with hostages are going over there now. The navy is really in a pickle right now as to how to play this because in my true opinion, these pirates do not value others' or their own lives much. I think that Somalia is so war torn that many of its residents honestly do not care about their own lives as much as the average joe, and thus even threatening with the loss of their own life doesn't carry with it the weight it would against a rational person from a normalized society.

These people are businessmen. They don't want to die, and the pickings have been easy. They know their up the ocean without a paddle, and the only thing they can do is bluff. These aren't terrorists looking for virgins in the afterlife. If they didn't care, they could just have shot the captain before and gone to paradise as a consequence.

If they feel they have nothing to lose, they may just do that, but it's not their first choice. Far from it.

Not their first, and they aren't seeking an afterlife, but with life expectancy in that country in the low 40's (?), they all assume they'll die by the gun anyway, and they may as well go as hard at this as possible because the alternative is more poverty living in Somalia. In that region of the world lives are taken and lost so easily I cannot believe they respect them as we do.

 

[DrPizza]

Risk assessment:
The pirates live in a shit hole. If they're successful, they'll have all the respect from their friends and neighbors & enough money to live like kings for the rest of their lives.

As much as I hate to admit it, if my country was a 3rd world shit hole and I didn't have enough food for my family, and ships from countries with almost unimaginable wealth (with respect to the wealth around me) were driving past me day after day, and my country wasn't organized enough to pursue me and my friends for carrying out an illegal attack on another country's ships, then I might be seriously tempted if there was a 1 in a 100 chance of getting killed and a 90 in 100 chance of being successful.

I'm not sure what the actual odds of death/success for these pirates is, but I'm going to guess that it's more than 1 in 100 chance of being killed. (Should be easy to estimate - how many hijackings, how many pirates, how many pirates killed/captured?)

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Risk assessment:
The pirates live in a shit hole. If they're successful, they'll have all the respect from their friends and neighbors & enough money to live like kings for the rest of their lives.

As much as I hate to admit it, if my country was a 3rd world shit hole and I didn't have enough food for my family, and ships from countries with almost unimaginable wealth (with respect to the wealth around me) were driving past me day after day, and my country wasn't organized enough to pursue me and my friends for carrying out an illegal attack on another country's ships, then I might be seriously tempted if there was a 1 in a 100 chance of getting killed and a 90 in 100 chance of being successful.

I'm not sure what the actual odds of death/success for these pirates is, but I'm going to guess that it's more than 1 in 100 chance of being killed. (Should be easy to estimate - how many hijackings, how many pirates, how many pirates killed/captured?)

Yeah, I don't find their motivations very difficult to understand at all, just as I'd prefer not to see a ton of illegals pour across the border, but I fully understand why they do it.

 

[DealMonkey]

Why are we dicking around with these marine terrorists? I say it's high time we get f'ing serious and:

1.) Establish a naval blockade of Somalia. No vessel leaves the immediate coastline of Somalia without the express permission of the multi-national naval force.

2.) Bring in 2-3 predator drones armed with hellfires to help enforce the blockade.

3.) Divert enough satellite recon to the region to track every single vessel no matter how small.

4.) Establish new rules of engagement WRT the pirates. If it looks like a pirate, acts like a pirate, and we have visual confirmation of the target, we open fire immediately. We sink vessels, we kill pirates, and send a serious message back to pirate HQ that if they so much as try commandeering a rusted-out rowboat with only one oar, their asses are fair game.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: DealMonkey
Why are we dicking around with these marine terrorists? I say it's high time we get f'ing serious and:

1.) Establish a naval blockade of Somalia. No vessel leaves the immediate coastline of Somalia without the express permission of the multi-national naval force.

2.) Bring in 2-3 predator drones armed with hellfires to help enforce the blockade.

3.) Divert enough satellite recon to the region to track every single vessel no matter how small.

4.) Establish new rules of engagement WRT the pirates. If it looks like a pirate, acts like a pirate, and we have visual confirmation of the target, we open fire immediately. We sink vessels, we kill pirates, and send a serious message back to pirate HQ that if they so much as try commandeering a rusted-out rowboat with only one oar, their asses are fair game.

This sounds like a terrible idea.

1.) You want us to blockade 3,000km of coastline? We would have to devote massive resources to this, and spend a whole shitload of money on keeping the ships on station there for the foreseeable future. I don't see how that's an effective use of our time and money.

2.) You not only have the coastline itself, but ships that are operating up to hundreds of miles out to sea. 2-3 predator drones would do very little to patrol tens of thousands of square miles.

3.) It's not just satellite resources, but analysts to interpret the images and direct action based upon them. That's an awful lot of people you're devoting from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, people we don't have to spare, to stare at ocean blocks looking to see if the guy in the boat is holding a fishing pole or a rifle.

4.) Large scale, indiscriminate assault on ships in an area would probably be considered worse than just having the pirates there by most parties involved.

We will devote additional naval resources to the area, step up our patrols, and things like that. This should make things more difficult for the pirates there, we will likely be able to seize pirate ships and other such things, and disrupt their operations for a much smaller cost, and much lighter footprint.

 

[Orignal Earl]

Somali Pirates See Themselves As Unofficial Coast Guard

Pirates are People too

Gave me another point of view

 

[Bitek]

Looks like things are just getting worse. The pirates are responding by taking more hostages.
linky

Pirates hijack second US vessel File photo of the USS Bainbridge US warships are heading to the area following Capt Phillips' capture Somali pirates have hijacked a US-owned tugboat in the Gulf of Aden with 16 crew members on board - 10 of them Italians, reports say. Maritime industry sources say the tug was towing two barges at the time of the attack at 0800 GMT. The crew are said to be unharmed. Meanwhile pirates holding a US captain hostage have warned that using force to rescue him could result in "disaster". The pirates said they hoped to put Capt Richard Phillips on a larger vessel.

They are loading up on hostages and looking to swipe the Cpt and haul him away to a pirate safe house. IDK, but they can't let the pirates waltz in between a bunch of destroyers, sail back to Somalia and disappear while we do nothing. However, doing something is likely to get a bunch of people killed.
Tough call on this. Kill a bunch of civvies, or just bend over for two bit pirates..

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Bitek
Looks like things are just getting worse. The pirates are responding by taking more hostages.
linky

Pirates hijack second US vessel File photo of the USS Bainbridge US warships are heading to the area following Capt Phillips' capture Somali pirates have hijacked a US-owned tugboat in the Gulf of Aden with 16 crew members on board - 10 of them Italians, reports say. Maritime industry sources say the tug was towing two barges at the time of the attack at 0800 GMT. The crew are said to be unharmed. Meanwhile pirates holding a US captain hostage have warned that using force to rescue him could result in "disaster". The pirates said they hoped to put Capt Richard Phillips on a larger vessel.

They are loading up on hostages and looking to swipe the Cpt and haul him away to a pirate safe house. IDK, but they can't let the pirates waltz in between a bunch of destroyers, sail back to Somalia and disappear while we do nothing. However, doing something is likely to get a bunch of people killed.
Tough call on this. Kill a bunch of civvies, or just bend over for two bit pirates..

Stupid move on the part of the pirates. The US can't walk away from this without losing face, and so we won't. The more the pirates up the ante, the more they will lose.

 

[NoStateofMind]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
I read as many as four ships with hostages are going over there now. The navy is really in a pickle right now as to how to play this because in my true opinion, these pirates do not value others' or their own lives much. I think that Somalia is so war torn that many of its residents honestly do not care about their own lives as much as the average joe, and thus even threatening with the loss of their own life doesn't carry with it the weight it would against a rational person from a normalized society.

"Terror Pirates"?

 

[Cdubneeddeal]

I don't know if this has been mentioned before but in one of the news articles they mentioned something about the Seafair law of some sorts which prohibits certain organizations from taking action. What I don't understand is that isn't this the very definition of terrorism?

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: spidey07
If the pirates do make the mistake of firing or even so much as aiming at a navy ship then that ship had better fire.

What, with a main gun? At an oil tanker? How would that be good? Then everybody dies and ll the oil goes in the water. Surely that is the worst thing that could possibly happen. Much better they send in the special forces.

 

[trenchfoot]

Originally posted by: Atheus

Originally posted by: spidey07
If the pirates do make the mistake of firing or even so much as aiming at a navy ship then that ship had better fire.

What, with a main gun? At an oil tanker? How would that be good? Then everybody dies and ll the oil goes in the water. Surely that is the worst thing that could possibly happen. Much better they send in the special forces.

I'm gonna assume we have targeting & munitions technology that can, from a comfortable range, disable the rudders and screws of large vessels while minimizng collateral damage?

Don't know about the consequences of that kind of action though.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: tweaker2

Originally posted by: Atheus

Originally posted by: spidey07
If the pirates do make the mistake of firing or even so much as aiming at a navy ship then that ship had better fire.

What, with a main gun? At an oil tanker? How would that be good? Then everybody dies and ll the oil goes in the water. Surely that is the worst thing that could possibly happen. Much better they send in the special forces.

I'm gonna assume we have targeting & munitions technology that can, from a comfortable range, disable the rudders and screws of large vessels while minimizng collateral damage?

Don't know about the consequences of that kind of action though.

Ships these days don't carry specialized ammunition for things like that, no. While I'm sure we could disable the ship's ability to move fairly easily, we would still run a pretty significant risk of some collateral damage, and on an oil tanker that would be really bad. I think our ships would only fire on it as a measure of last resort.

 

[kitkat22]

I hope this ends well. This is an incredibly sticky situation. the pirates know as soon as they release the hostage that they are going to be captured. The pirates have no fuel, running low on food and a slew of navy boats surrounding them. I would almost guess doing a sleeping gas thing or similar would help solve this problem quick. The catch is to do it without them noticing. I hope the guy makes it out alive.

 

[DealMonkey]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: DealMonkey
Why are we dicking around with these marine terrorists? I say it's high time we get f'ing serious and:

1.) Establish a naval blockade of Somalia. No vessel leaves the immediate coastline of Somalia without the express permission of the multi-national naval force.

2.) Bring in 2-3 predator drones armed with hellfires to help enforce the blockade.

3.) Divert enough satellite recon to the region to track every single vessel no matter how small.

4.) Establish new rules of engagement WRT the pirates. If it looks like a pirate, acts like a pirate, and we have visual confirmation of the target, we open fire immediately. We sink vessels, we kill pirates, and send a serious message back to pirate HQ that if they so much as try commandeering a rusted-out rowboat with only one oar, their asses are fair game.

This sounds like a terrible idea.

1.) You want us to blockade 3,000km of coastline? We would have to devote massive resources to this, and spend a whole shitload of money on keeping the ships on station there for the foreseeable future. I don't see how that's an effective use of our time and money.

2.) You not only have the coastline itself, but ships that are operating up to hundreds of miles out to sea. 2-3 predator drones would do very little to patrol tens of thousands of square miles.

3.) It's not just satellite resources, but analysts to interpret the images and direct action based upon them. That's an awful lot of people you're devoting from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, people we don't have to spare, to stare at ocean blocks looking to see if the guy in the boat is holding a fishing pole or a rifle.

4.) Large scale, indiscriminate assault on ships in an area would probably be considered worse than just having the pirates there by most parties involved.

We will devote additional naval resources to the area, step up our patrols, and things like that. This should make things more difficult for the pirates there, we will likely be able to seize pirate ships and other such things, and disrupt their operations for a much smaller cost, and much lighter footprint.

1.) Remember, it's not just us, it's a multi-national naval force. Remember too, there's only a handful of ports in Somalia that we'd need to monitor.

2.) Predator drones are there to help, not do everything. They've certainly proven themselves capable of monitoring vast territory, I think you'd be surprised by how much they'd aid this mission.

3.) I don't think it would take much to deliver real-time satellite target data to naval vessels in the area so we can track individual ships, in fact, it's probably already being done.

4.) I'm not proposing large scale indiscriminate attacks, simply a shift in our ROE to a more aggressive stance. Nothing deters shitbags like these pirates like a bunch of shitbags who never make it home alive.