It’s unbelievable how criminals just run international territory. This is dangerous. Big money can buy a lot more than weapons and ammo. Pirates may also capture cargo you don’t want to see in the hands of sinister organizations.

@ Brian Mingus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_Affair

Guns for Hostages – US-Israel/Iran.

Didn’t go well for us, or Israel, or anyone for that matter.

I say we say screw it, and start sinking the suckers (oil-rig excepted, of course). Have rescue boats (with divers) standing by, and recovery boats. If you want to go down with the ship, that’s fine Mr. Pirate, but if you want off, bring the hostages with you.

respectable international businesses and the gun-toting military= good
ragtag gun-toting national pirates = bad

Life is so simple when you’ve been brainwashed from birth.

Radiolaire: actually, the pirates are indeed quite sophisticated. it is estimated it took them 4 days sailing in open water to get to the supertanker. and they’re busy eluding the Navies of many nations. see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/world/africa/16pirate.html?_r=1&sq=somalia&st=cse&scp=4&pagewanted=all

there is no doubt that Somali fisherman have been shafted. as have just about all Somalis. this doesn’t justify piracy. really, what is happening here is greed and crime, thinly veiled behind ‘social justice’ type issues. as the pirates themselves state, all they want is money: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/world/africa/01pirates.html?scp=8&sq=pirates&st=cse

Somalia has been essentially lawless and dysfunctional since the early 90s. but, needless to say, piracy is not going to solve the country’s problems. and only a tiny fraction of Somalis benefit.

These last few years of piracy off the horn of Africa are unlike any historical precedent. In modern times, pirates are normally captured if possible, and returned to the owner of the waters they were caught in (if any) or their country of origin for prosecuting. This is not possible to do with Somalia, since there is no effective government there. So if we (the international community) are to go the route of capturing and prosecuting these criminals, we will have to do the honors ourselves and bring these people into our justice system. From the pirate’s point of view this may not be a bad thing; If the pirates succeed in jacking a ship and getting the ransom, then they win. If they are captured by one of the european or american navys, then they get a bed, adequate food and medical supplies, and possibly some foothold into western society. Compared to life in Somalia, that may still be considered winning. There is still the wildcard of being captured by the Chinese or Russian navy, but otherwise these people have very little to lose, and have a large amount of control over their fates if the international community is to act as humanly as possible.

Lethal force is rarely the best option, but it’s still an option. If these pirates are in the act of attacking a ship or become hostile while being detained, then the militaries involved should have clearance to open fire. But I think such violence should be avoided as much as possible. My reasoning for this belief is grounded in both morality (killing people for trying to survive a hell on earth is the wrong way to help them) and political thinking. The political reasoning goes like so; Any course of action that results in frequent deaths of Somalis is going to be extremely unpopular in european nations, so these navys will likely be withdrawn or reduced to a less active role. I would imagine India, Canada, New Zealand and Australia would follow the EU’s example with whatever help they are providing with the policing effort. This leaves the US Navy, the Chinese, and the Russian navys in play. Of these three, the US Navy is by far and wide the most capable and numerous, so the Americans would naturally be involved in most of the activity… and violence. Even with the Americans on their best behavior, there will be plenty of cause (be it through truths, half truths, or complete abandonment of the truth) for the other two nations involved to demonize the United States. And they will. The Chinese political system is known for degrading other nations to justify its self to the Chinese people. And Putin would not pass up any chance to demonize america, though what that lunatic gains from it is beyond me. America should not give any kindling to these peoples imaginations, especially Putin, because who knows where the sparks he generates will land.

Already, many merchant ships are organizing themselves into flotillas and passing by the gulf of Aden with an armed escort. This is a decent Band-Aid. But I hope these pirates actions remind the world of just how desperate these people are to survive. Maybe this will increase our global willingness to help heal the horn of Africa. The threat to global trade and security these pirates present us will not be fixed by marine interdictions and escorts, but by building a stable society among these same people we now feel threatened by.

Daniel et al. > It has been fifty years that the superpowerful high-tech U.S. Army has got its ass kicked by starving third-world uneducated peasants with AK-47 (where “47″ means “model of year 1947″). When will they learn?

Is sailing for 4 days in open water sophisticated? Come on! Using a mothership? Obvious! Eluding the navies of first world countries? They don’t have any tools, they were designed to sink other combat vessels, not fishing boats and dinghies. It is an hammer for flies.

Piracy is not going to solve Somalia problems? Well, maybe the tanker capture will be remembered as the equivalent of the “Boston Tea Party” or the “Annapolis Tea Party” for Somalia.

I have been reading these piracy related stories off and on for a while. When I read about the Ukrainian transport hijacking I have thought to myself, “There has to be a better way to meet the members of Delta Force, Alfa, or what ever operators get the call.” I have been surprised nothing of the sort seems to have transpired yet. Maybe it is because of reports of the following:
“The attackers generally treat their hostages well in anticipation of a big payday to the point of hiring caterers on the shores of Somalia to cook spaghetti, grilled fish and roasted meat that will appeal to a Western palate. They also keep a steady supply of cigarettes and drinks from the shops on shore.”

The costs of having any number of modern warships patrol the waters can not be an insignificant sum. That alongside the cost from the disruption directly related to the piracy itself and the ransoms leads me to wonder about the difference in costs from working on putting together a more stable nation-state. Not that I think it is the prerogative of others to straighten out Somali, as much as outside powers making the commitment to taking part in making the environment were ending the Civil War is more likely to happen. So far the plans seem to look no farther then shutting down the actions of piracy. If the high seas become too risky, those people will probably turn to other activities to support themselves. The piracy of Somalia does not seem that different in origin then the narcotics trade that is thriving in Afghanistan.

I used the word prerogative specifically thinking of the reasons you cited somebody. Prerogative as in the definition of the word pertaining to Europe, USA, China, and others do not having the right or privilege to make over other nations for their own purposes, but while still having the right to pursue action(s) that encourage and further global stability. Such things are of course open to interpretation.

That is why I tied the Somali piracy to Afghani opium crops. Both are ongoing and even growing because of the state of neglect or disrepair left by and in large part from foreign interests or occupation overrunning local issues and governance.

“Just thugs”? That’s where the problem lies between you and me. People do not become “just thugs”, there is a reason, a story behind it, and your blog note completely missed it. Moreover, being a “thug” is not an objective assessment: I gave the Boston Tea Party as an example of “just thugs”, from a british POV e.g. (but also from a legal POV), and “heroes” or “cornerstone of the revolution” from an american POV.

And I also got angry at you for trying to scare people by saying they were “extremely sophisticated”. “juggernaut”, “swarm”, “prey”: I’m not a humanities PhD, but I can see an heavily connoted lexical field when I see one.

That has nothing to do with Chinese or American, internal or foreign, politics, and even less World Cup matches. Ok, my reference to the U.S. Army getting kicked may be misleading; what it meant was that those armies are unfit to fight piracy, and that’s not because the pirates are well-equipped and trained and whatnot. You don’t need to be “extremely sophisticated” to beat the topmost armed forces.

They are just thugs, no matter their tearful origin. No one considers them freedom fighters, there is no parallel there. They aren’t real pirates either. Real pirates rockstars with huge personalities, big scraggly beards, and jeweled earrings. I was blogging the Somalia pirate thing for a while, but they just don’t have the pirate flair to hold my interest.
http://jollybloger.blogspot.com/search/label/Pirates

I guess this is just bad timing, but after the news of mass murder in Palestine, I just felt uncomfortable reading this post and some of the comments.

Okay, maybe they are just thugs. The world would be better without them. Now what? Perhaps we could just kill them off, letting their wives and children to starve? Somehow I feel that it won’t make that particular searoute much safer ten years from now…

“We don’t deal with terrorists/thugs/whatever” is, IMHO, not a fruitful approach if you are interested in reducing the amount of human misery, or even reducing the amount of human misery in your own nation. (How many American soldiers were killed in Iraq by now?)

The pirates really are just thugs. Radiolaire, if you’re ever mugged on the street, try to remember your words. Have sympathy while the muggers point a gun at you. Afterall, they probably had a good reason to tun to crime, some tragic origin story. And maybe you can thank them for only taking your cash instead of taking your cash AND killing you.

I love this post, it acts like the potion of the Dr. Jekyll. We have starving uneducated third-world armed men, stolen, poisoned (tons of toxic waste dropped by the first-world countries in somalian waters washed ashore after the 2005 tsunami), taking over civilian ship full of westerners; they are well treated, and they negotiate to return ship and crew unarmed. And the reaction here seems to be, “kill them all without mercy”.

(Sean, you’re not part of this description. At last somebody sane…)

Yes, what they want is “just money”. To do what? Your deed, as readers of a science blog, should be to be curious, to ask yourselves questions to think things through. They want money, but not to buy themselves drugs, or a porsche, or a new swimming pool.

Oh, and stop thinking about what would make a “rational economic sense”. After the general failure of the financial sector this year, I though people would stop thinking that ordinary people take sound, extremely rational economic decisions, and that you can manipulate them by changing the incentives.

You have to understand people’s motivation when they resort to armed action. Full-scale military retort never solved terrorism, the same way death penalty doesn’t improve your safety on the streets. Sure, people who have been victim of an assault want revenge (except when they’re Dukakis), but that is precisely why we have an independant judicial system where the punishment is decided by a third party.

I agree with Radiolaire in that if you want actions to stop you must ask why they occur. It is not enough to say that the first ships shouldn’t have paid money to pirates. I would give my wallet to a mugger, and I am not the cause of further muggings because of doing so.

It’s not an apology or an excuse for the pirates to ask the question “why”? It’s a responsibility to do so, if you are concerned about the situation. I think Sean, while being a darling, is shortsighted to say they are just thugs. Regardless of what fate he believes they deserve.

I mean, one either wants this problem to disappear again – pirates off our mental radar – or, one wants the problem to be solved. If you want it to be solved, you better figure out what the causes are.

I’m grateful for the post and the comments.
All the best,
Jennifer

Radiolaire,
Thank you for your concern for my pirates; we welcome support for our violation of international law. Please join me in Somalia as we are in need of a PR rep. I’m sure you will love it over here, and all of my friends will be very amiable. We promise not to hold you for ransom because everything wrong in the world is the fault of the United States, just as you say. I treasure your guilt and hope that your comfortable lifestyle will travel with you to Somalia. But please, don’t study history and see how Jefferson resolved the issue of the Barbary pirates.

Sincerely,
A friendly Somali warlord

So China decided to send some of its anti-piracy fleet (cruise missiles and special forces teams) to Somalia to protect Asian shipping. This is important and interesting for three reasons: China has been involved in fighting massive piracy in its own realms for decades (Indonesian archipelago piracy was claiming more than 100 ships a year a decade ago); China is demonstrating the strength of its new naval power to engage in distant actions; China is claiming that in protecting Asian shipping it is a friend of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India, et al.

On the same coin, we find that the US has been particularly incompetent in its own realms fighting piracy. All along the coasts of Central and South America, pirates have for years been capturing boats, killing the occupants and using the vessels for drug shipments. Many of these activities have been perpetrated by the right-wing militias bent on fighting for control of resources and wealth. At best, the US interdicts at a rate of 7% or so. Not very productive really. Hell, now these folks have stolen tourist submersibles (and began to make their own) and small naval vessels of other countries. But really, let us keep our energy focussed on Africa, where people don’t die and corporations are being forced to pay off some of their profits (certainly much more important).

My shot at an effective solution.

- instead of giving pirates a free ride back to shore accomplishing nothing, leave ‘em floating. You may not have marine jurisdiction over the particular sea area, but that also means you don’t have a absolute saying that you have to give them a lift back to shore. If you see another boat come to pick them up, move your boat into the way and block them by accident.

Pirates are not dumb, you can’t just go sinking ships in international waters. They know the profit of cargo and will calculate their ransom based on a percent margin of the final profit of whatever cargo is on the ship. So sinking these ships will lose a lot more money than just paying them off- sorta like an international mob “for protection.”

If the pirates were white and from Europe, would the world be more forgiving of them?