http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/16/2420913.htm?section=world

Games, Movies and mythology have resurfaced in the form of a group of jolly scallywags off the coasts around Mogadishu!

Come one, come all and observe as a bunch of vicious hooligans cavort around the gulf and hijack ships for untold fourtunes in Black Gold!

They sail out in fast ships, rope themselves in and board floating treasure chests at will! They, for some reason, aren't getting roasted alive by the famously warmongering US, vengeful Arabian Gulf nations or the UN!

Armed with AKs and the tag of Pirates, these somalian bilgerats are working their hardest at bringing back the days when the most frightening thing a commercial shipman could think of was the skull and crossbones - Tha' Jolly Roga'!

What on earth can be done to stop them? Should we commission privateers? Should we stop sailing there or should we, in an eventuality that every super power seems to have ignored so far, blow their scurvy asses out of the water/hidden inlets? Surely it wouldn't be a drag for ultra-rich shipping companies to hire mercenaries to guard every ship?

What do you think about these modern day men of opportunity? What do you think should be done? How many of you can admit to the fact that you didn't know pirates even existed anymore?

And why the heck are shipping companies avoiding the suez cannal instead of just cleansing it with hellfire?

(for the record, I've known about pirates in the south china sea for years but I didn't know about Somalians - I guess they've realised that pursuing ethnic cleansing on the mainland is alot more of a hassle than pirating - since if you're a pirate you can hijack one of the largest oil tankers in the world and haul it back to base without the UN sending in 10,000 troops... Or having some special forces zipline down.)

Piracy of goods on ships & trucks (the jacking of Big Rigs happens. It does) costs lives and money, so I don't like it as a human, as a Christian, and a person who likes profit and big vehicles.

They are these

Pirates are just thieves of the sea. Nothing more or less. They should be treated as any other thief, have their hands chopped off arrested and put on trial.

Amnestic:
arrested and put on trial.

I doubt one could easily arrest them, they're very good at hiding - go up inlets etc.

urprobablyright:

Amnestic:
arrested and put on trial.

I doubt one could easily arrest them, they're very good at hiding - go up inlets etc.

The same could be said of small scale thieves in cities darting down alleyways, the pirates are just on a larger, nautical scale.

The only pirates I like are One Piece pirates, and Jack Sparrow. These guys are neither, just a bunch of thieves, with guns, on boats.

Amnestic:

The same could be said of small scale thieves in cities darting down alleyways, the pirates are just on a larger, nautical scale.

Still, it'd be better if they just tomohawk'd them and put it on funniest home videos

DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to be tasteless, just having slapstick mental imagery fun. my apologies to anyone peeved.

I went with old school scaly wags it was so pirate-ish i couldn't resist seeing as I'm branded with a skull and cross bones.

Even though this is a very serious topic and I'd never want to encounter said pirates in real life... Isn't it just the little bit awesome that there are, right now, pirates roaming the high seas? What's next? Scurvy outbreaks? Spontaneous parrot ownership? Malignant eye-patch wearing? I know people got hurt, and others had things stolen from them, and I really feel for them.

But seriously. Pirates.

Why are people surprised about this?

Piracy has never left. It never will. It is just too easy for them to continue to do so as they travel in international waters. The U.S. Coast Guard can't protect a ship that is farther out than 20 miles. I doubt other nations are much different.

I commend these bloodthirsty marauders of the sea!

For them, every day is talk like a pirate day... by default...

Ultrajoe:
I commend these bloodthirsty marauders of the sea!

For them, every day is talk like a pirate day... by default...

I suppose, though it's probably less what we would consider pirate (arr matey! avast and ahoy! etc.) and more what we'd consider Somalian.

Ultrajoe:
I commend these bloodthirsty marauders of the sea!

For them, every day is talk like a pirate day... by default...

A: "Ghar, it be the time of year that we talk like LAND LUBBERS, yarr"

B: "Ha-Harr! Right y'are, messmate! Avast! Pass my the tea, would you, kind sir?"

A: *roars with laughter* "Jolly good! Up the Bund and a circle on the London Eye'll do me right and propper, A and B the C of D, forsooth!"

C: "Land ho!"

B: "Curses! No time for jaw-jumpin', lad's! We's gotta get into the Secret Base afore them coppers send us to Davy Jones!"

It is an established fact that the somali government gets paid to look the other way. That means that this piracy is state sanctionedand therefore an act of war. We should pull up off shore, bombard the coastal towns into non existance, then air strike the interior back into the stone age(should take about ten minutes!). Maybe then the somali government will think twice before doing this again, and it should prove an effective detterent for somalia's neighbours also.

Kinda weird how it's perfectly fine for US to bomb Islamists in Somalia but not pirates. I mean, at least the Islamists tried to bring that "law and order" -thing to the country. How much of the land does Somali government even control, without help from Ethiopia?

Amnestic:
Pirates are just thieves of the sea. Nothing more or less. They should be treated as any other thief, have their hands chopped off arrested and put on trial.

Maritime law doesn't require that much:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy#In_international_law

Old school piracy wasn't like this.

Most of it was government sponsored from the 1600s onwards. Basically a captain get a contract (letter of marque) from one nation to acts a privateer. Basically gave them free reign to attack ships of other nations. Nominally they had to give a percentage of their winnings to the relative admiralty but rarely did (it's not like they had accountants on board).

Especially in the Caribbean from about 1600 to 1730 English piracy was almost entirely government sponsored in the direction of disruption Spanish control of South America and with vague hopes robbing the great silver and gold fleets that used travel in huge convoys a few times a year.

A lot of a typical 'pirate's' experience would be conducting illicit trade with Spanish settlements who were banned from trading with anyone except their own people (jacking up the prices).

Interesting one of the first healthcare insurance schemes operated on most ships at this time. If a crew member lost an appendage or suffered other injury he could expect a contractual payout.

Cool huh?

Pirates plain and simple.

Apparently pirate ports in Somalia are the only places where the economy is thriving due to influx of ransom money, there is a lot of support for pirates from locals because of this. I read in one news article that the pirates hire chefs that cook western style food for captured crews to make them more comfortable.

The main problem with dealing with the pirates is that the sea is a big place and even the US navy has little hope of protecting every single ship that passes through. You have to destroy their bases to actually get rid of the buggers, but no one will go near Somalia soil for very good reasons.

urprobablyright:

Amnestic:
arrested and put on trial.

I doubt one could easily arrest them, they're very good at hiding - go up inlets etc.

The other day I was watching the news on France 2 and they had some footage of arrested Somalian pirates. Apparently, piracy is a way to avoid starving to death. Something tells me that they don't do it for the glamorous lifestyle.

1. ninjas are still cooler, and they never left, they just got better (thats why you havent heard about them unless you know one)
2. what somalian government?
3. not all thieves are the same. theres the kid that steals a candy bar from the grocery store, the parents that steal to feed their starving children, kids who go around cracking windows and stealing shit for fun, the kind who actually have STYLE, the kind that sits in a board room and does it all technically within the law, the kind that sit in board rooms and are above the law, cons, the kind who kidnap someone-but when there is no ransom paid just let them go(yeah rare but w/e) and the kind who take hostages, then when no ransom is paid are kind enough to offer the body at a reduced price. and everything inbetween of course. now, all but the first two are really bad, but there are different degrees of bad.

Unknower:
Kinda weird how it's perfectly fine for US to bomb Islamists in Somalia but not pirates. I mean, at least the Islamists tried to bring that "law and order" -thing to the country. How much of the land does Somali government even control, without help from Ethiopia?

For a start it's Muslims, not "Islamists".

Secondly, I don't think that the select few militant extremist Muslims tried to bring "law and order" to Somalia.

I'm not a supporter of the U.S.'s actions in the Middle East, but I'm just correcting you.

curlycrouton:

Unknower:
Kinda weird how it's perfectly fine for US to bomb Islamists in Somalia but not pirates. I mean, at least the Islamists tried to bring that "law and order" -thing to the country. How much of the land does Somali government even control, without help from Ethiopia?

For a start it's Muslims, not "Islamists".

Secondly, I don't think that the select few militant extremist Muslims tried to bring "law and order" to Somalia.

I'm not a supporter of the U.S.'s actions in the Middle East, but I'm just correcting you.

i know that people who follow the teaching of the (muslim holy book, the spelling of which escapes me completely right now) are called muslims, but i hear the term "islamist" a lot on the news generally when referring to terrorism, perhaps to try and seperate the two and reduce violence against muslims who ARENT insane or to subtly imply that the crazy ones arent really muslims, and are in fact going to hell according to the (muslim holy book whos spelling completely escapes me at the moment)

742:

curlycrouton:

Unknower:
Kinda weird how it's perfectly fine for US to bomb Islamists in Somalia but not pirates. I mean, at least the Islamists tried to bring that "law and order" -thing to the country. How much of the land does Somali government even control, without help from Ethiopia?

For a start it's Muslims, not "Islamists".

Secondly, I don't think that the select few militant extremist Muslims tried to bring "law and order" to Somalia.

I'm not a supporter of the U.S.'s actions in the Middle East, but I'm just correcting you.

i know that people who follow the teaching of the (muslim holy book, the spelling of which escapes me completely right now) are called muslims, but i hear the term "islamist" a lot on the news generally when referring to terrorism, perhaps to try and seperate the two and reduce violence against muslims who ARENT insane or to subtly imply that the crazy ones arent really muslims, and are in fact going to hell according to the (muslim holy book whos spelling completely escapes me at the moment)

Yet it is a blatent grammatical error, and the invention of a nonexistant word!
My inner Grammar-Nazi is crying.

And surely only the foolish and ignorant would think that because one Muslim bombed a car as opposed to an "Islamist", that all the Muslims are insane extremists with a grudge against the West.

3. not all thieves are the same. theres the kid that steals a candy bar from the grocery store, the parents that steal to feed their starving children, kids who go around cracking windows and stealing shit for fun, the kind who actually have STYLE, the kind that sits in a board room and does it all technically within the law, the kind that sit in board rooms and are above the law, cons, the kind who kidnap someone-but when there is no ransom paid just let them go(yeah rare but w/e) and the kind who take hostages, then when no ransom is paid are kind enough to offer the body at a reduced price. and everything inbetween of course. now, all but the first two are really bad, but there are different degrees of bad.

And the punishments reflect that. Shoplift as a kid for the first time? Generally get let off with a hard slap on the wrist. Steal a tanker full of whatever? You can probably expect a slightly harsher punishment on the whole.

orifice:
It is an established fact that the somali government gets paid to look the other way. That means that this piracy is state sanctionedand therefore an act of war. We should pull up off shore, bombard the coastal towns into non existance, then air strike the interior back into the stone age(should take about ten minutes!). Maybe then the somali government will think twice before doing this again, and it should prove an effective detterent for somalia's neighbours also.

Killing people is always the answer -_-

1. ninjas are still cooler, and they never left, they just got better (thats why you havent heard about them unless you know one)

Is my reply to that.

curlycrouton:

Unknower:
Kinda weird how it's perfectly fine for US to bomb Islamists in Somalia but not pirates. I mean, at least the Islamists tried to bring that "law and order" -thing to the country. How much of the land does Somali government even control, without help from Ethiopia?

For a start it's Muslims, not "Islamists".

Secondly, I don't think that the select few militant extremist Muslims tried to bring "law and order" to Somalia.

I'm not a supporter of the U.S.'s actions in the Middle East, but I'm just correcting you.

Islamic Courts Union. "...Western media often refer to the group as the Somali Islamists."

Not exactly "select few." They got most of the whole country under their control from the warlords and the government. But then Ethiopia came to aid the government and kinda crushed them.

As the name "Islamic Courts" suggests, they tried to bring Somalia under the control of Sharia law. Not exactly the most kindest law system out there (thieves lose their hand) and it's a bit controversial in the Western countries, but it seemed to bring order to Mogadishu, one of the most dangerous cities of the world.

Also, it seems the increase in piracy is because the Islamists were ousted from power and that they actually reduced it when they were in power. http://www.hiiraan.com/comments2-news-2007-oct-piracy_off_somalia_s_coast_increases.aspx

yeah pirates have never really gone away, they just weren't in the media as much anymore

Pirates killed my friend's uncle when he was up in south east Asia (south east Asia is in the north for me), so...

Modern pirates = Bad.

Ye Olde Pirates = Awesome

Vikings = Even more awesome.

Unknower:

curlycrouton:

Unknower:
Kinda weird how it's perfectly fine for US to bomb Islamists in Somalia but not pirates. I mean, at least the Islamists tried to bring that "law and order" -thing to the country. How much of the land does Somali government even control, without help from Ethiopia?

For a start it's Muslims, not "Islamists".

Secondly, I don't think that the select few militant extremist Muslims tried to bring "law and order" to Somalia.

I'm not a supporter of the U.S.'s actions in the Middle East, but I'm just correcting you.

Islamic Courts Union. "...Western media often refer to the group as the Somali Islamists."

Not exactly "select few." They got most of the whole country under their control from the warlords and the government. But then Ethiopia came to aid the government and kinda crushed them.

As the name "Islamic Courts" suggests, they tried to bring Somalia under the control of Sharia law. Not exactly the most kindest law system out there (thieves lose their hand) and it's a bit controversial in the Western countries, but it seemed to bring order to Mogadishu, one of the most dangerous cities of the world.

Also, it seems the increase in piracy is because the Islamists were ousted from power and that they actually reduced it when they were in power. http://www.hiiraan.com/comments2-news-2007-oct-piracy_off_somalia_s_coast_increases.aspx

Oh, well it appears I was incorrect.
You sir, are right.

ah that explains it.

to amnestic: when was the last time you saw a ninja getting laid? well on top of being a stupid question...
when was the last time you saw a ninja doing ANYTHING they didnt want you to see? and how do you know the guy in that picture isnt really a ninja in disguise? there are no physical characteristics that say "im a ninja" so really ANYBODY you see could be a ninja. you just dont know.