Mariners Develop High Tech Pirate Repellents 830
Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that owners of ships that ply the dangerous waters near Somalia are looking at options to repel pirates including slippery foam, lasers, electric fences, water cannons and high-intensity sound — almost anything except guns. One defense is the Force 80 squirt gun with a 3-inch nozzle that can send 1,400 gallons a minute 100 yards in any direction. 'It is a tremendous force of water that will knock over anything in its path and will also flood a pirate's ship very quickly,' says Roger Barrett James of the the Swedish company Unifire. Next is the Mobility Denial System, a slippery nontoxic foam that can be sprayed on just about any surface making it impossible to walk or climb even with the aid of a harness. The idea would be to spray the pirate's vessel as it approached, or to coat ropes, ladders, steps and the hull of the ship that's under attack. The Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, a high-powered directional loudspeaker allows a ship to hail an approaching vessel more than a mile away. 'Knowing that they've lost the element of surprise is half the battle,' says Robert Putnam of American Technology Corp. The LRAD has another feature — a piercing "deterrent tone" that sounds a bit like a smoke detector alarm with enough intensity to cause extreme pain and even permanent hearing loss for anyone directly in the beam that comes from the device. But Capt. John Konrad, who blogs for the Web site Gcaptain.com, says no anti-pirate device is perfect. 'The best case scenario is that you find these vessels early enough that you can get a Navy ship detached to your location and let them handle the situation.'"
Best pirate repellent of all (Score:5, Insightful)
An M-16 with a full clip.
Brett
Perfect anti-pirate device (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? (Score:1, Insightful)
Why don't they just use guns? Killing a bunch of pirates will not lead to "escalation". It will simply make it too dangerous for the pirates to be pirates. The very reason they're able to do it right now is that it's not dangerous to them at all because of people pussy-footing around them. If you just start killing them, a lot less of them will be willing to be pirates, because it will be too dangerous. It'd be pretty easy to staff ships with gunmen that are far better equipped and better trained than the pirates.
Re:Best pirate repellent of all (Score:5, Insightful)
Q-boats (Score:5, Insightful)
Piracy is a crime and should be treated as such. If there's a rash of break-ins in your hometown you don't recommend that every home owner goes out and buys a gun, you track down the criminals responsible and put them to justice.
It's well known that the pirates are getting inside information on ship locations and cargoes from associates in Europe. Feed a false tip into the system and arrest the pirates that come calling. Don't try to arm civilians to fight off what could be a relatively well trained and well armed fighting force, you'll just piss of the criminals and they'll be that much more likely to start killing people.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF? JUST KILL THEM! (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the whole idea of not arming crews was to prevent possible death to the crews. Do these people think that only applies to GUNS, and not other forms of arms? The pirates are armed with guns, RPGs and the like, not fucking water pistols. They do not have a "stun" setting. Does anyone in their right mind think the pirates, after getting a ship flooded or tasered aren't going to actually use the weapons THEY have? Do they expect the pirates to say "Gosh, you fought fair and humanely. We'll just ignore all that extra effort, pain and discomfort."
Wrong.
How about just adding armed and trained guards to the ships? Maybe armed and trained escort ships? Q-boats? A Naval destroyer sitting in the main bay, shelling their HQ?
Or is this just the kinder, gentler pirates of the 21st century?
Re:pirate repellents (Score:5, Insightful)
"pirate repellents"
WTF are we talking about... TICKS???
"We're getting boarded... must not have sprayed the pirate repellent last night..."
The best pirate repellent is two squads of armed marines. Just have the ships pick them up in the port before the gulf of Aden... and drop them off in the port after, where they can board the ship going the other way.
Much cheaper than flooding the area with warships... and more effective to boot.
If muskets worked before... (Score:3, Insightful)
I would think that if the Royal Navy was abolish piracy 200 years ago with a mixture of cannon balls, musket fire, and a hangman's noose, then, the M-16 would work pretty well.
Re:Q-boats (Score:5, Insightful)
Piracy is a crime and should be treated as such. If there's a rash of break-ins in your hometown you don't recommend that every home owner goes out and buys a gun, you track down the criminals responsible and put them to justice
Actually, I would recommend that every home owner buy a gun. If you shoot the guys breaking in, they won't do it again.
The fact of the matter is, pirates are NOT criminals. They are pirates. They are completely outside the law and anyone has a right to kill a pirate on the high seas. That was what worked 200 years ago, and its only because the surrenderists are in charge that piracy and lawlessness have made a comeback.
I'm sick of hearing about how people should trust their government for safety, when it won't do anything to guarantee it.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:3, Insightful)
Why bother with all the new 'tech' that is probably expensive, etc. And just use something known to work....a simple fucking gun?!?!?
Geez, if this were my ship, I know I'd be packing some serious heat. A boat starts coming towards me....>bang I do that for my home if an intruder comes in, why not on the high seas where you KNOW a threat like this is not un-common??
Re:Best Anti-Pirate device? (Score:5, Insightful)
I submit to you that stating "well trained and silent" before "ninja" is redundant. If one is lacking in either training or the ability to be silent, it precludes one's propensity for ninja-ness.
Re:Anything but guns (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Best Anti-Pirate device? (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, ninjas and special operations/forces are pretty much the same thing. Ninjas were pretty much feudal Japan's special forces. Their legendary superhuman abilities and magical powers are merely the results of their skill and efficiency. The incredible feats performed by the Navy SEALs and other special forces, while not as easily attributed to magical powers, their feats are often considered superhuman in that the average person could never perform the kinds of things SEALs can.
In short: NavySEALs == Ninjas
Re:What about the code? (Score:2, Insightful)
No, they don't. Which is why we are all looking for something to convince them to stay home and watch TV or play soccer rather than boarding cargos 300 miles offshore. Maybe unfucking-up their homeland of Somalia would be a better solution. But we can't do that, can we? 'cause there's not enough money to be made from it. There _was_ money to be made from fucking it up, though.
Re:Q-boats (Score:5, Insightful)
Piracy is a crime and should be treated as such. If there's a rash of break-ins in your hometown you don't recommend that every home owner goes out and buys a gun,
You may not, but I would. Especially if I had reason to believe that the local police were getting a kickback from those breaking in. In this case we have reason to believe that what passes for a government in Somalia is getting at least a kickback (if not sponsoring) the pirates.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:3, Insightful)
Lever back on the testosterone, pal. If the movie Aliens taught us anything, it's that sheer rough-n-ready manpower is not always the answer.
Marines cost to feed and shelter. They take up space that could otherwise be used for crew and cargo. They cost to train. They want to be paid all the time they're on guard. They're not easily replicated or rapidly distributed for a high-demand world. And they're still fragile meatsacks, whatever their will to fight might be.
It makes sense to layer technological solutions onto the manpower ones.
Re:Privateers (Score:4, Insightful)
There is real money involved, and tracing it might well end up leading to some interesting places; but they are all on shore(as with anything else, management is the place to be when it comes to crime). The seaborne component is a bunch of scrawny kids, with cheap eastern block crap and outboard motors. I'd be shocked if you could cover the gas money, much less merc wages, off the proceeds of a pirate hunt.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:5, Insightful)
Picking up then dropping off paid mercs or active duty soldiers would go around that problem. But it seems like paying ransom is the current preferred action.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:pirate repellents (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sort of curious why this sort of a solution is not often suggested.
It has been said that the reason crewmen are not armed is that they are not trained, and that it is illegal to have armed crewmen at many major port cities where these ships are headed.
It has also been said that stationing mercenaries or marines on board all ships all the time is prohibitively expensive, and possibly has the same legal problems.
But the area in which these problems are occurring seems to be relatively small, compared to the entire trip these ships are taking. Why wouldn't it be reasonable to drop off 10-15 marines/mercenaries at a point before they get close enough for pirates to be a threat, and pick them up on the other side. You'd think that it would be getting cheaper than just buying insurance on the cargo pretty soon.
Or, for as bad as the news makes it seem, go back to the old World War II convoy system. If the gulf is too big to have warships patrolling the entire thing, have a convoy leaving twice a day with a bunch of tankers and 1-2 warships covering it.
The fact that these steps have not been taken must mean that the chances of any one ship being taken are still small enough that most companies can afford to take the risk.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
In part because it's too expensive. You can't just start handing our guns to the ship crews, they don't have any training and some of them may not be legaly allowed to have guns (due to previous convictions etc) or they may not be trusted with guns by their own company. There would need to be specially trained people on board, something like air marshals. Note that the pirates are typically armed with RPGs and machine guns, so a single guy with a pistol wouldn't make much difference, you'd need to have a bunch of heavily armed people on each ship. Given that 7.5% of all the world's shipping goes through Suez canal, that's literally an entire army that needs to be paid by someone. The incidents of piracy are so miniscule compared to the total amount of shipping that goes through that area that shipping companies find it much cheaper to just pay the ransom.
Re:Anything but guns (Score:5, Insightful)
> I understand the liability issues involved in stocking guns on a non-military ship
Do you?
Do you really?
Because if you do, I'd like to here it.
Nobody has ever published a single believable argument against having a small secure locker of arms on a merchant ship. Further, this practice was common in all merchant fleets right up to and through the 40s.
Its not a liability issue at all. There is a far greater legal liability to the shipping companies for failure to protect their crews.
Some ports have regulations against on-board guns, BUT nearly all such ports that do have ways around them, such as advance declaration, locked cabinets etc.
No, the only argument presented against arms on merchant ships has nothing to do with liability, and often boils down to "starting an arms race" with the pirates, which is a ridiculous example of reaching and scare mongering.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps then there is a market for firearms escrow aboard ships stationed just outside of a nation's territorial waters. You could leave port, arm yourself, sail wherever, and leave your guns behind before arriving in the next port.
Re:A better plan? (Score:1, Insightful)
Is it more humane to flood those little pirate boats and let the pirates drown then just shooting them in the head?
If you give the merchant vessels guns, when the pirates do succeed, they will have more guns and it becomes a more deadly game for everyone. If you give the merchant vessels non-leathal, not so portable repellants then you don't risk them using those weapons against you.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Privateers (Score:2, Insightful)
If that's the case the shipping companies can coordinate some sort of bounty fund. If this is a multi-billion dollar industry like the news reports claim, there _is_ money to be made in killing these guys.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes lets debate between lethal and non lethal firearms instead of addressing the actual causes of the problem. Like an ineffective government and global inequality
Oh give me a fucking break. "Global inequality" doesn't give you the right to start holding human beings hostage for ransom money.
Re:Anything but guns (Score:1, Insightful)
if any of these non-lethal systems are employeed, I'm quiting my dayjob to hold frieght ships for ransom. My incentive: $millions... My disincentive: loud noises or slipping around and going home empty handed.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:5, Insightful)
All the testosterone and gung-ho aside, how about not giving them a reason to pirate? It seems that nobody here realizes that the Somali pirates are doing what they do because other nations illegal fishing (worth an estimated 300 million) in the region have depleted [freerepublic.com] their fish stocks while the UN turned a blind eye. To add insult to injury, there's been some toxic waste dumping off the coast.
That little bit of rationalization only goes so far. The fishing issue is why some people (fisherman who lost their livelihoods) turned to piracy but it's largely driven by a profit motive now. They've realized that they can extort money out of shipowners and have no reason to stop doing so as long as the reward is greater than the risk.
are doing what they do because they system has failed them and they see piracy as the most feasible method to force change.
How is piracy going to force charge in Solomia when the warlords that have ruined that country are the ones sheltering the pirates and taking a cut of the money they steal?
Re:pirate repellents (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't root for the pirates, they're just armed thieves, not liberation heroes.
But what is causing piracy is extreme poverty and a shattered Somalia. Before reaching for the gun think how this situation can be changed.
Fighting poverty would be a lot cheaper and better for everyone than fighting its causes. You can get all the sophisticated guns you want, if there's extreme poverty you'll never be safe. And I'm not only talking about Somalia. Look at your neighborhood.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:1, Insightful)
If they were only doing it to put food on their table, then when they hijack ships carrying food, such as the Maersk Alabama was, then they would have taken the food.
Do you actually believe the BS that you type?
Re:pirate repellents (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a lot of issues.
Some political some practical. non military vessel is not allowed to be armed, for one.
Second is people without training will be trying to shot someone . Trained personal under fire have a very low rate of hits. This would be worse.
Then there is the very real matter that if you just start killing them you will get escalation.
Sure, it would be great to drop a seal team onto every boat, but that's not really practical.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:3, Insightful)
That is an extremely good point, however it may unfortunately be too late to stop the piracy by just improving economic/environmental conditions alone. From my limited understanding of the issue, there are many organized groups of pirates now, most with a hierarchal leadership structure. Those at the top are probably doing considerably better for themselves than what they did as fishermen (or whatever they did before). And if it's like most other organized crime, the leaders will go to great lengths to ensure they remain in power. So even if other ways to make a living become viable again, the pirates may still be forced to remain pirates for fear of repercussions from the leadership.
I think the best approach may be to do both...use the gung ho approach to take out the leadership and collapse the organization, and rejuvenate the economic conditions so that pirates may return to other occupations, and thereby prevent the whole mess from happening again.
Re:If muskets worked before... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, contrary to the liberal hype, firearms are NOT that difficult to use properly. US Army basic training includes an grand total of three weeks basic rifle marksmanship. Frankly, I could take a willing subject and teach them the basics in an afternoon. Every ship should have some crewmen cross trained in firearms usage. Weapons lockers should be on each ship, with locks and seals when in port. If a port city or country refused to allow such secured firearms, ships would simply no longer stop there. That would last, oh, a day before they changed their minds.
A firearm is simply a tool. The function of a hammer is to drive a nail. The function of a rifle is to send a projectile down range at a high rate of speed. Or, as the SEAL's recently showed, to rapidly empty the cranial cavities of pirates.
Firearms are not "evil", no more than a hammer is "evil". A hammer, properly handled, can drive a nail, or crack a skull. A rifle, properly handled, can do the same.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no stable government in Somalia either. The lack of social system, education and so forth has in fact failed not only the pirates by their society as a whole. This is not the reason for the rampant piracy, especially when dealing with ships that are brining in food supplies.
This is good old fashioned greed, until recently it has been pretty much a win-win for the pirates. They were seldom if ever confronted and the return on investment was massive. With those conditions in place it created an environment similar to what we had with Privateering.
They claim to care about the over-fishing, the illegal dumping and so forth, but it boils down to greed. Especially when you see that it is not fishing vessels that are hit, but supply tankers with big fat cargos worth millions.
If they were there as social activists, they would be boarding vessels that actually created their problems and keeping them on their shores as a political statement. Not claiming million dollar bounties and going after the next ripe and defenceless target.
That's why they are so vocal about recent warship involvement. Their goose is cooked if world navies crack down.
Re:A better plan? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:pirate repellents (Score:5, Insightful)
But what is causing piracy is extreme poverty and a shattered Somalia. Before reaching for the gun think how this situation can be changed.
The last time we tried to intervene in that situation it didn't end [wikipedia.org] so well. If the Somalis want change I'd say that it's up to them to provide it. You can't impose freedom or change on a population that isn't willing to accept it.
Re:Well that's a smart idea (Score:4, Insightful)
> definitely going to board you no matter what
Once you've surrendered I suppose your method makes sense. I'm sure your sister is just fine with your "lay back and take it" advice.
Why to you assume they are "definitely going to board you" unless your plan is surrender at first sight?
Just how many pirates do you think can fit in an open 18 foot motor boat?
Please explain why it would be impossible for just ONE rifleman on the Alabama shooting from a stable platform to ward off 4 pirates in a pitching small boat with inaccurate arms.
Please explain what the source of arms that the pirates would deploy in answer to the "escalation" of ship-board shoulder arms.
How many three inch deck guns can you mount on an 18 foot motor boat?
You trot out the escalation boogie-man because you know it raises the specter of heavily armed warships in the hands of people who can't even read or write. Maybe even nuclear weapons.
Oh the fear.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure if one freeway accoutns for most of the crime in their jurisdiction, the police will figure out a way to assign their forces there. There are only so many merchant vessels going around the East coast of Africa at any given time. I think the limitations probably have more to do with our forces being so heavily committed on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I am rooting for the pirates maybe they can drive up the cost of the goods being transported making more local or regional options viable in areas of commerce and energy supply.
Forget your anti retard pills today? If you're rooting for them, you have to realize that most of the shipping there goes INTO Africa. They would be raising the price of aid to areas where local and regional options are insufficient. The pirates are shooting their own region in the foot for their own profit... it helps no-one. I say nothing works better against pirates than hot lead.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, I would love to be on the first ship equipped with anti-piracy non-lethal technologies.
I wouldn't want to be near such a ship. The pirates aren't limiting themselves to 'non-lethal technologies'. What are you going to do when they respond to your water cannon with an RPG? Sending people armed with 'non-lethal weapons' up against those armed with lethal ones seems pretty stupid to me.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:pirate repellents (Score:2, Insightful)
They claim to care about the over-fishing, the illegal dumping and so forth, but it boils down to greed. Especially when you see that it is not fishing vessels that are hit, but supply tankers with big fat cargos worth millions.
Why do you think that responding to running out of fish means people must only attack fishing vessels? If the water is over-fished and poisoned why would there even be any fishing vessels around anymore to attack?
Your argument is akin to saying that if a man was really starving, he would only steal groceries and not steal money to spend on groceries. Its a really blatant mental short-circuit. It suggests that you can't rebutt the GP's original point, but you are so emotionally vested in your current perspective that you have to make up a bogus argument that you can easily knock down in order to avoid considering a broader perspective. I believe that's a form of cognitive dissonance.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:5, Insightful)
Remind us of the lessons from a work of FICTION next time you get taken hostage and half your traveling companions (including friends and possibly family) get killed.
Lever back on the testosterone, pal.
You carry a squirt gun, I'll take a fully-armed crew carrying M-16s.
I have to second the GP, I really can't believe anyone even wants to consider non-lethal means ("Anything but guns?" What sort of bleeding heart came up with that line of feelgood BS?) to deal with armed killers on the high seas. These people board mostly-defenseless ships and kill people, loot the cargo, and take the "important" people for ransom. Just fucking kill them. No "alternatives" necessary.
When container barges start carrying half a dozen 150mm guns, you'll watch this crap vanish overnight. Somehow I don't think various Three-Stooges-esque slapstick "solutions" will accomplish more than pissing the pirates off.
As an aside, these clowns only get away with this because they attack highly-multinational ships, crews, and cargos, so no particular country feels a need to respond. When they do go after, say, a mostly-American (or even mostly-French, recently) ship, we end up with living crew and a few less pirates. Good riddance.
Re:Best pirate repellent of all (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would you give a poorly trained sailor a gun, when it takes a few hours to train him to use it? I have fired less than 200 rounds from my AR-15 (the semi-auto version of the M-16) and I can make a head shot at 300 yards under stress (with optics), or a torso shot at 100 yards under stress (with iron sights).
A one or two week training course in weapon skills and combat tactics (which are at least as important as the weapon skills), would give the sailors a huge advantage over the untrained pirates.
Typical M-16 magazines hold 30 rounds. A trained user should be able to get at least five kills from that magazine, and reloading takes only a few seconds. After the first or second death, the pirates would probably flee.
Small arms are far more effective than the mad-scientist weapons mentioned, because they are much cheaper, far more reliable, easier to use, and have a deterrence factor: pirates will avoid ships they think involve a high risk of death, and dead (or wounded and captured) pirates don't get to raid again. Also, unlike the fixed position water cannons and sound cannons, small arms can be used more easily once the pirates have boarded. If the water cannon was a better weapon than a rifle, then military ships and land units (which, unlike commercial ships, do not have legal restrictions on what weapons they employ) would use them instead of rifles.
My suggestion would be having a few designated marksmen (the best shooters on the ship) with a semi-auto .308 with a good scope for long range engagements. If they can hit one or two pirates before they board, the pirates will probably turn around. The rest of the firearms-trained crew should have something like UMP-45 submachine guns, which are a much better choice in close quarters. Of course all of these weapons should be locked up (unless they have an armed patrol), until a threat is discovered. With modern detection equipment, they should have plenty of time to muster and equip themselves.
Note: M-16s, like most modern firearms, use magazines not clips. A clip is a device that grips the back of the rounds and leaves most of the round exposed. A magazine is an enclosed box with a spring at the bottom for self feeding.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:1, Insightful)
The only difference between us and them is that they do it to put food on their table.
There is another important difference. The "it" that they do involves murder, physical property distruction and theft, and sometimes rape/kidnapping. The "it" that we do involves duplicating some digital data.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:pirate repellents (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't give a damn what their situation is, by turning to Piracy, holding men captive and demanding ransom, they lose all rights to sleep safely in their beds. The Americans had it right, splatter their brains on the bulkhead. India had it even better... blow the bloody mothers out of the water.
Welcome to the ways of the real world, peace and love don't mean squat. Its how big your gun is and how much damage you are willing to take before backing down. Why do you think they left the Yank's alone for so long?
Re:Or more detailed reasons... (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part2.htm [un.org]
You may wonder how armed Naval ships can have and use weapons, but that is because they are not merchant ships and are ruled by other naval treaties in respect to international law.
If this law was changed, you have to keep in mind that would allow Chinese and Russian merchant vessels to be armed while in US ports so it is a very sticky situation.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:5, Insightful)
Roger that. And the first way to promote change in productive directions is to stop them from thinking that "taking a ship's crew hostage for millions of dollars in ransom" will result in a change in anything but their body temperature.
These people aren't pirates because the see any "global inequality", they are pirates because they think they can make millions of dollars easily and face no consequences. It's no different than any criminal activity, white collar or blue.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:3, Insightful)
Before reaching for the gun think...
okay, let's look at my neighborhood (or the immediate surrounding areas). a lot of people have it really rough and there is a lot of poverty. but if you kick down my door i am not stopping to think about how rough you have it or how hungry your kids are. if you threaten someone with violence expect a reaction in kind. i won't shoot first, but i will if you threaten me. it's called self-defense and if you don't like it, don't go around attacking people on the high seas or in my front room.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure if the american govt is just a big lumbering oaf or destabilizes the region on purpose. Either way they fuck up everything they touch.
Ah, yes, it's all our fault. Sorry, I forgot that as an American I'm responsible for everything that goes wrong in the world. The Somali warlords bear no responsbility at all.
Re:If muskets worked before... (Score:4, Insightful)
Killing is a different matter altogether. That requires a different kind of training that you can't teach in an afternoon, and sometimes not at all.
No amount of training can prepare you to kill someone. The prospect of THEM killing YOU is a fairly effective motivator though......
Re:pirate repellents (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't need a cop in the USA since most places you go a private citizen can legally have a gun in their car for self defense. Of course the vast majority don't because being kidnapped and help for ransom isn't high on the threat list here.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:2, Insightful)
Yep, he did read it, and I read it too. It doesn't change the fact that if this were the reason for it they would be attacking fishing vessels and waste dump barges instead of capturing valuable container ships and ransoming the crew and cargo for massive profit.
So, just why do you think there are any fishing vessels to attack? If the waters have been depleted and poisoned, who is going to fish there now? And what benefit is there to attacking the waste barges? They have nothing of value, you can't eat garbage and you can't ransom it for shit. The fish are already gone, maybe they'll come back in a few decades if the place gets cleaned up, but what are you going to do in the meantime?
This is equivalent of saying "My neighbor keeps stealing my TV, so I kidnap the children of all the other neighbors EXCEPT his and sell them back so I can buy myself a yacht."
No, this is the equivalent of running out of options and taking the route with the highest return for the least risk.
Its really easy to sit back and ignore the conditions that lead up to a situation, demonize the other guys and ignore root cause because it satisfies your own tribalistic tendencies. But that approach never actually fixes problems, it just makes more.
lets turn the analogies around (Score:3, Insightful)
a lot of the commentary here has to do with the idea the crews should be armed
the rationale being that this is the best policy in civic life as well
well, crews are not armed, because when you give arms to a handful of guys in the middle of the ocean, interesting scenarios develop involving needless death. not even the majority of such scenarios having anything to do with pirates. hey, don't argue with me. this is official policy on the high seas for a reason
which is exactly why no one should have guns in civic life as well: why multiply the number of scenarios in which the outcome is death for the victims, nevermind the perpetrators
i'd actually like to see the common sense we have on the high seas apply to common sense in civic life: stop the proliferation of guns in civic life, which only results in thousands of needless deaths due top pointless escalation from random domestic situations, posturing teenagers, curious children, miscommunications, accidents, etc.
not that you will see gun proponents ever admit this. in their eyes, a gun is always and forever more used only according to the most virtuous of reasons, and the outcome is always good. even though reality and history and statistical fact proves otherwise, by orders of magnitude
but don't argue with me. argue with the wisdom of those who maintain ships on the high seas
as for what to do about the new pirate situation off of somalia that seems to challenge this wisdom: ships in convoys, chaperoned by warships, just world war i&ii in the north atlantic when german uboats were on the prowl. just like we deal with crime on land: with police, not with the arming of random yahoos on the street with dirty harry complexes
Re:pirate repellents (Score:3, Insightful)
Get off your high horse, before a Somali takes it for ransom... I mean "aid".
Re:pirate repellents (Score:3, Insightful)
Although I feel like I shouldn't respond to such a blatant troll, since your post was modded up I have no choice but to respond here. (Since nobody else has gotten it right so far)
Calling the GP post BS is just plain wrong. Toxic waste was dumped in their waters, this is a fact [timesonline.co.uk]. In addition, illegal fishing of their waters is a fact [google.com]. Your response for the GP to "STFU" is simply uncalled for.
However, none of these facts justifies kidnapping and ransoming people who had nothing to do with those crimes. Many of the first Somali pirates probably started off with noble intentions, but after seeing the potential money that could be made by simply hijacking ships (rather than telling people to get lost) most pirates joined in and the ransoming we see today was born.
At the same time, the GP's suggestion that simply stopping people from illegally fishing and dumping waste in Somalia's waters will end piracy is obviously wrong. As the parent correctly points out, the motivation has become greed. With that said, that means the solution to piracy needs to be a two pronged approach: Stop pirates from hijacking ships, and expel foreign fishermen/polluters from Somalia's exclusive economic zone. If there are fish to catch and punishments for piracy, people will go back to legal methods of income.
So in the future, the GP and P should consider thinking about the other sides argument a bit and coming up with a more logical solution than their gut-reactions ("evil international community" vs. "evil pirates")
Killing them all is a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
wowzers (Score:3, Insightful)
This thread seems to have stirred up a lot of buzz.
People who have no stake whatsoever, or who are impacted only in a very negligible way by this piracy, probably a mere two cents out of their big fat wallets, seem spoiling for a fight. Lots of cowboy swagger here...
Some things I'm wondering...
Re:pirate repellents (Score:3, Insightful)
I think I now know remotely how a black guy must have felt back in the fifties, when the roles were reversed. But in 2009, all things Whitey does or ever did are considered incredible atrocities while everyone else gets a guilt-free genocide every now and then.
If you really believe that white in 2009 = black in 1950, then I can only conclude that your grasp of American history, as a German, is about as good as the average American's grasp of German history.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:3, Insightful)
What happened to the option of just pulling some fish out of the ocean and making an honest living? Last I heard there were plenty of fish in the sea.
Re:pirate repellents (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with that (and merc's or proper military being stationed aboard ship) is that ports will not allow a ship to dock when its carrying any kind of weapon. Having to police small arms in every port is not cost effective and requires too much co-operation from the shipping companies/sailors to declare arms.
Besides, most governments wouldnt allow it simply because they fear attack, governments remember the merchant warships from WWII and governments don't really need reasons to be paranoid. (strange how governmental memory works, armed merchantmen are forefront on their minds but they seem to forget about their lack of ability of occupy foreign lands).
Piracy is limited to very small parts of the world so keeping firearms and/or troops on board all the time isn't cost effective. If a company keeps guns on board then they need to make sure the crew is trained to use them effectively otherwise its a waste of resources. Piracy is really limited to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean around Myanmar.
However the real problem with the Gulf of Aden pirate situation (anyone who thinks it's just the Somali's is deluding themselves, rouges and SOF's the world over would be taking part in this, just using Somalia as a base of operation) is who is going to pay for it. A military patrol of the waters from Tanzania to Egypt and the UAE is incredibly expensive and ongoing cost. No government or corporation wants to foot the bill so we keep having this problem. Of course we could onload/offload marines around the effected area's, this would get around the nervous government problem but it fails in two ways. The most effective means of defence against pirates it to take them out before they board, a repel boarders situation is difficult and dangerous, for the crew and marines, secondly it still doesn't cover who is going to pay for it, keeping enough marines in the area on standby is going to be incredibly expensive even with a multinational effort.
This situation could be used as a proving ground for large scale UCAV operations, unfortunately the UCAV's would need to be rushed into service which rarely turns out well in wartime and almost always goes wrong in peace time. Also, generals could oppose it, with Navy commands being notoriously conservative and Air Force commands beginning to follow suit and become reluctant to change.