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[Veidt]

But wouldn't this be the exact same thing a pirate would do?

I dunno. But it's most definitely the way a Somali would do things.

 

[KidGalactus]

The show is about pirates. That particular pirate ate a fruit that gave him such abilities. The joke is that in order to win these somali pirates would need to get their hands on such fruits and use such abilities, hence stepping their game up.

I'm sorry, it just seemed much wittier and lovely in my head.

I dug it man.



This thread is making me feel weird.

And I already felt weird.

I don't like it

 

[wordballoon]

so it's ok for poor people to kidnap and murder people now?

Murder isn't just for the rich. Just mostly.

 

[SpectreFire]

Should hire private security to defend ships. I know some companies already do.

What part of "countries don't like armed folks entering their territory" don't people understand?

 

[Eaten By A Grue]

Shame what happened today.

Perhaps there are companies out there that I am not aware of, but I am surprised that no private corporations have taken advantage of pirate attacks by providing armed security contractors for passenger or cargo ships traveling dangerous waters

Edit: Doh someone mentioned this a few posts back. Failing to read previous posts ftl.

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

What part of "countries don't like armed folks entering their territory" don't people understand?

You can get around it by escorting to and from, but not entering territorial waters. At that point I doubt it's needed.

 

[lightless_shado]

I dug it man.



This thread is making me feel weird.

And I already felt weird.

I don't like it

Shh its okay, I'm here now.

 

[Drkirby]

Spoilers I guess? I don't know the episode aired like 2 years ago but whatever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlUa1LgAvVM&feature=player_detailpage#t=27s

Ah, ok. I read the Manga, so I had no clue how the Anime displays Gear Second. Don't really like the glowing skin to be honest.

 

[mclaren777]

Nah..bring back an Iowa class. Why go for blind carpet bombing when you can have accurate naval gunfire...big fucking naval gunfire.

I just learned that nobody uses battleships anymore.

I think part of my inner child just died.

 

[Axion22]

Did the announcer go "HUMILIATION" after the knife kill?

 

[El Sloth]

This is terrible, but it is no excuse to bomb innocent civilians along the coastline. Come now.

Ah, ok. I read the Manga, so I had no clue how the Anime displays Gear Second. Don't really like the glowing skin to be honest.

Not so much glowing as it is just bright red. It kinda makes sense when you think about what is that Luffy is actually doing to his body.

 

[Pristine_Condition]

I'm trying to feel sympathy for world-traveling evangelists that were dumb enough to end up off the Somalian coast, but I just can't.

Surprised this troll account hasn't been perma-banned yet.

 

[AbortedWalrusFetus]

Train private yachters how to defend their boat?

I'm sure they have radar. When an unidentified fishing boat is on a collision course with your yacht, press the 'HALP PLZ NAVY' button, lock n load the XM8s and man the cannons, etc. until the Navy can respond.

I work for a software company that specializes in software that's used for Asymmetric Threat Evaluation for the maritime domain so I can speak to this a little bit.

Most countries will deny entry to their territorial waters to any ship that is carrying weaponry. Thus far the best defense against a pirate attack that can be enacted short of hiring an armed escort is a shipboard citadel with radio-communications equipment and an engine/navigation kill switch. When they are attacked they lock themselves in the citadel, kill the engines, and wait for a Naval ship to arrive. It's not foolproof since sometimes Naval ships are too far away to respond before the pirates manage to break through the citadel. This also really doesn't help with smaller vessels because they can more easily be towed, and really is only viable for commercial vessels.

The problem now is two-fold. The piracy has greatly expanded its area of operation. It's now reaching as far south as the Seychelles and as far east as India. It's also a major issues in the Straights of Malacca and all throughout the Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia area, but that area gets far less attention than the Gulf of Aden. The main reason for this is that the pirates have been using motherships with which they launch smaller attack vessels from, allowing them to go much further out to sea. The second problem really reared its head with the MV Beluga Nomination incident in the Seychelles and this current incident with the Quest. As foreign navies have been responding with more violence so have the pirates escalated their own violence, leading to much more bloodshed than before.

Because of this greater focus is being put on prevention than response. My company is working on a software platform called an Asymmetric Warfare Management System that can be used to leverage fused sensor data such as SAR Satellites, Radar, Sonar, AIS, LRIT, and several marine databases to identify both the vessels that represent threats, and perhaps equally as important, identify vessels that are likely targets for piracy so that forces can respond to piracy incidents more quickly. It's thought now that these ships are not being randomly targeted, but that there are shore based parties in developed nations that are industry insiders that are tipping pirate organizations off to potential targets in return for kickbacks from the ransom money.

It's actually a really interesting problem to work on. I'm glad I have the opportunity to work on it. I don't mean that in a twisted way, I want it to stop, but I take a lot of joy in my work and I'm proud of the fact that the software I write could potentially save lives.

 

[entremet]

Fuck them. Seriously.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Liek I said, countries don't appreciated any vessels carrying weapons or armed individuals coming around their territorial waters. Also, presence of weapons/soldiers completely changes how that vessel can be treated in international law.

They can at least be escorts in international waters. That's not a complete solution, obviously.

 

[Reneledarker]

Mmm killing pirates won't end the problems, the case of Somalia is kinda similar to what happens in Mexico whit the narco, when you have millions of poor people and no way to make a decent living, crime becomes your only option, reason why in Mexico the war against narco isn't working.

 

[Phoenix]

I'm incredibly surprised that airstrikes against known pirate havens and special forces missions have not been enacted at this point. This just reminds me so much of Clear and Present Danger and this really needs to be dealt with in a similar manner.

 

[notsol337]

The Somali government isn't properly equipped to stop any of this. We just need to show them that brutality will be met with brutality. I know it's a fairly dirty policy, but we need to simply start leaving them at sea alone when they kill all the hostages.

Without a boat. We also need to ensure they stay there long enough to expire.

Walk the plank.

 

[AndyD]

I'm incredibly surprised that airstrikes against known pirate havens and special forces missions have not been enacted at this point. This just reminds me so much of Clear and Present Danger and this really needs to be dealt with in a similar manner.

I would like to read up on international law of piracy in the modern age. Anyone have any good links?

I can't imagine there is nothing the UN can do against known pirate strongholds.

 

[bill0527]

So they just kill the hostages and then put up their hands like cowards. Then we get to pay for their lengthy prison stay. We need to have an international initiative to have trap boats going around their coast at all times. Boats that look normal on the outside but unleash hell on any pirates that try anything.

Bait Boat.

Except, when the pirates get close enough, it turns into Roboboat and exacts swift justice. Then we turn the video into a reality show and stick it on a cable channel Wednesdays at 10pm.

 

[theignoramus]

"airstrikes against known pirates havens", a sound anti-piracy solution and a pro Al Qaeda one too.

 

[Druz]

Look, they were missionaries. They went around the world to dangerous areas proselytizing and handing out bibles. No one deserves to die, but the reason they were off the coast of Somalia is that they were on a religious mission to convert people in that part of the world. They brought cases of bibles, as many as the boat could hold. These people weren't tourists who just got a little lost. That makes it different for me.

Agreed. I am not upset at all that missionaries got what was coming to them.

They travel to that part of the world thinking everyone has to adhere to their rules and commandments. It's like the British being outraged that the Americans are using guerrilla warfare instead of fighting like gentlemen. It's like walking into a jungle and getting upset because a panther tore your ass up.

They don't give a fuck.

 

[theignoramus]

It is a good thing that people with your mindset will never be anywhere near the seat of power.

not anymore at least. there were leaders that took the "load up B52 bombers and carpet bomb that shithole" approach to Indochina in the 60s and 70s (anything that flies on anything that moves!) and we know what happened. (genocidal) fanatics swelled in their numbers and went on a rampage.

 

[WickedAngel]

The Somali government isn't properly equipped to stop any of this. We just need to show them that brutality will be met with brutality. I know it's a fairly dirty policy, but we need to simply start leaving them at sea alone when they kill all the hostages.

Without a boat. We also need to ensure they stay there long enough to expire.

Walk the plank.

The Russians effectively did this with the last batch they caught, didn't they? Took their nav equipment and cut them loose in a dinghy in the middle of the ocean.

 

[Count Dookkake]

The Russians effectively did this with the last batch they caught, didn't they? Took their nav equipment and cut them loose in a dinghy in the middle of the ocean.

They should leave a camera on board so we can watch them go nuts and die.

 

[Drkirby]

I'm incredibly surprised that airstrikes against known pirate havens and special forces missions have not been enacted at this point. This just reminds me so much of Clear and Present Danger and this really needs to be dealt with in a similar manner.

An airstirke would likely kill tons of civilians, which is a bad idea when you are trying to stabilize a region. Now is a good time to make use of our Navy.

 

[Suairyu]

Oh, will someone please think of the pirates.

It's not about having sympathy for people who commit sub-human atrocities; it's about holding your paid soldiers to standards above those of the people they fight. Not exactly a hard concept to comprehend. A non-wartime kill should only ever be in prevention of crime, not in revenge punishment, else the person inflicting the kill is as bad as what he hunts. True story.

 

[SapientWolf]

The Russians effectively did this with the last batch they caught, didn't they? Took their nav equipment and cut them loose in a dinghy in the middle of the ocean.

In October 1985, Alfa was dispatched to Beirut, Lebanon, when four Soviet diplomats had been taken hostage by a Sunni militant group. By the time Alfa was onsite, one of the hostages had already been killed. The perpetrators and their relatives were identified by supporting KGB operatives, and the relatives were taken hostage. Following the standard policy of 'no negotiation', Alfa proceeded to sever some of their hostages' body parts and sent them to the perpetrators with a warning that more would follow if the Russian hostages were not released immediately. The tactic was a success and no other Russian national was taken hostage in the Middle East for the next 20 years, until the 2006 abduction of Russian diplomats in Iraq.

The Russians do not play around.

 

[hteng]

I work for a software company that specializes in software that's used for Asymmetric Threat Evaluation for the maritime domain so I can speak to this a little bit.

Most countries will deny entry to their territorial waters to any ship that is carrying weaponry. Thus far the best defense against a pirate attack that can be enacted short of hiring an armed escort is a shipboard citadel with radio-communications equipment and an engine/navigation kill switch. When they are attacked they lock themselves in the citadel, kill the engines, and wait for a Naval ship to arrive. It's not foolproof since sometimes Naval ships are too far away to respond before the pirates manage to break through the citadel. This also really doesn't help with smaller vessels because they can more easily be towed, and really is only viable for commercial vessels.

The problem now is two-fold. The piracy has greatly expanded its area of operation. It's now reaching as far south as the Seychelles and as far east as India. It's also a major issues in the Straights of Malacca and all throughout the Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia area, but that area gets far less attention than the Gulf of Aden. The main reason for this is that the pirates have been using motherships with which they launch smaller attack vessels from, allowing them to go much further out to sea. The second problem really reared its head with the MV Beluga Nomination incident in the Seychelles and this current incident with the Quest. As foreign navies have been responding with more violence so have the pirates escalated their own violence, leading to much more bloodshed than before.

Because of this greater focus is being put on prevention than response. My company is working on a software platform called an Asymmetric Warfare Management System that can be used to leverage fused sensor data such as SAR Satellites, Radar, Sonar, AIS, LRIT, and several marine databases to identify both the vessels that represent threats, and perhaps equally as important, identify vessels that are likely targets for piracy so that forces can respond to piracy incidents more quickly. It's thought now that these ships are not being randomly targeted, but that there are shore based parties in developed nations that are industry insiders that are tipping pirate organizations off to potential targets in return for kickbacks from the ransom money.

It's actually a really interesting problem to work on. I'm glad I have the opportunity to work on it. I don't mean that in a twisted way, I want it to stop, but I take a lot of joy in my work and I'm proud of the fact that the software I write could potentially save lives.

great info, can't the ships be programmed to autopilol itself to the nearest navy ship while the crew remain in the citadel? then again.. i guess it might provoke the pirates to shoot rockets at them...

 

[KingK]

I can't believe people are seriously recommending bombing the entire area. Yes, these pirates deserve justice, but not at the expense of countless innocent lives. We should hold ourselves and our military to a higher standard than the pirates.

 

[Ollie Pooch]

Bait Boat.

Except, when the pirates get close enough, it turns into Roboboat and exacts swift justice. Then we turn the video into a reality show and stick it on a cable channel Wednesdays at 10pm.

Knight Boat!

"or an inlet....or a fjord!"

 

[desertdroog]

I would like to read up on international law of piracy in the modern age. Anyone have any good links?

I can't imagine there is nothing the UN can do against known pirate strongholds.

I have been following this blog since the issue of Somalian Pirates became mainstream, a few years ago:
http://www.eaglespeak.us/

It focuses on maritime security. The writer of the blog an attorney and retired USN Reserve Captain (Surface Warfare). The blog and his writings don't just focus on Pirates, but any news that deals with blue water situations. As a blogger his opinion is readily offered up, so you either love what he writes or loathe it, but I have found his posts to be quite informative when discusses how the U.S. views its role in this arena.

 

[Krowley]

Bait Boat.

Except, when the pirates get close enough, it turns into Roboboat and exacts swift justice. Then we turn the video into a reality show and stick it on a cable channel Wednesdays at 10pm.

The bait boat idea seems like an interesting approach. Pirates might think twice if they knew that Navy Seals where hiding in a large percentage of the boats that looked like easy targets.

 

[Lionheart1337]

Pirates to us.
Coastguards to them.

 

[AbortedWalrusFetus]

great info, can't the ships be programmed to autopilol itself to the nearest navy ship while the crew remain in the citadel? then again.. i guess it might provoke the pirates to shoot rockets at them...

If they disable the rudder and simply use their other vessels to nudge the boat on the course they want the autopilot system would be useless. It's better to disable the engines. Turning a boat in water takes relatively little energy compared to the energy it would take to put it back to shore. They'd simply steer the boat toward their destination, disable the rudder, and let the autopilot control the engine. Better to just shut the engine down. The harder it is for them to get to shore the easier it is to catch them.

I can't believe people are seriously recommending bombing the entire area. Yes, these pirates deserve justice, but not at the expense of countless innocent lives. We should hold ourselves and our military to a higher standard than the pirates.

Aside from that, if people would put some thought into it they'd realize that this isn't even that good an option. Bombing is going to do absolutely nothing to these networks because there really aren't big centralized hubs like people are thinking. You can't just randomly torpedo boats because most of them are just innocent fishermen trying to make a living. More importantly, the pirates aren't ONLY from Somalia, they are also coming from Yemen and Oman (and maybe even Pakistan). We're already at war with two countries, why not start war with three more countries. Now, sure, sure, Oman and Yemen are pushovers. Now what do you do about the piracy in Malaysia/Singapore/Indonesia/South China Seas? Bomb Malaysia and Indonesia too? All 250,000,000 of them? There's no traditional military approach that can possibly work toward piracy, not to mention that it would actually cost FAR more than it costs to simply give into the pirates demands.

There are better avenues out there. Creating SLOCs that hug the coastlines of Oman, Yemen, Pakistan, and India, and creating regular patrols of those SLOCs would help. It would also put the majority of shipping vessels traveling through the area in range of land-based radar systems, in AIS range, and anything that wasn't could be covered with SAR Satellites. Unfortunately this is a longer route which will increase shipping times to southeast asia and will increase congestion. That's going to increase expenses a lot, which will hurt industry. It also doesn't factor in shipping activity that needs to be done outside of that area, such as traffic to Southern Africa.

 

[Loxley]

The Russians do not play around.

They appear to enjoy using Somali pirates as target practice.

Hey, I'm not gonna stop'em.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Update on the story:

Fifteen Somalis — as well as the bodies of the four Americans and four Somalis — remained aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise off the coast of Oman, where the high-seas hijacking ended tragically Tuesday with the shooting deaths of two couples, Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey and Phyllis Macay and Robert Riggle of Seattle. The U.S. military says Navy SEALs boarded the yacht after pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade at an American warship following it, and that they found the four hostages already shot.

Legal experts predicted that the Justice Department would move to bring the pirates to the U.S. for trial.

"The fact that there are four dead Americans will make the U.S. more interested in taking this case, rather than referring it to a foreign country," said Michael Passman, a Chicago attorney who has written about piracy law. "The U.S. may try to use this case as an example to show that they remain committed to anti-piracy."

Under federal law, the maximum penalty for piracy is life imprisonment, but because the hijacking ended in hostage fatalities — a rarity in Somali pirate attacks — U.S. prosecutors might opt for murder charges instead, Passman said.

U.S. military officials said no decisions have been announced about where the suspects will be prosecuted, but that one option is extraditing the men to the U.S.

"This happened in international waters, so they have to go somewhere," said Lt. Col. Mike Lawhorn, spokesman for U.S. Central Command in Florida. "The fact that this involved Americans gives us some jurisdiction. We have the right to protect our own citizens."

FBI investigators are trying to determine how the hijacking turned deadly.

According to one account, two rival groups of pirates may have disagreed over whether to accept an offer being made during negotiations with the U.S. Navy, which had been shadowing the 58-foot yacht since it was hijacked Friday. During the alleged dispute, one faction began shooting the hostages, according to a source close to the Somali hijackers.

In another version, pirates have claimed that they killed the hostages in response to a surprise raid by U.S. forces.

 

[poppabk]

Everyone knows that US forces have been in Somalia not that long ago right.

 

[Plasmid]

Really sad, but why hasn't this been dealt with better? Last i read a sniper literally blew a pirates head off from a U.S. ship, is the US just ignoring the problem or is it something they can't touch due to treaties?

fake edit: here's the link http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30178013/ns/world_news-africa/

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Really sad, but why hasn't this been dealt with better? Last i read a sniper literally blew a pirates head off from a U.S. ship, is the US just ignoring the problem or is it something they can't touch due to treaties?

fake edit: here's the link http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30178013/ns/world_news-africa/

That's the hijack story from a few years ago, right?

 

[AndyD]

Really sad, but why hasn't this been dealt with better? Last i read a sniper literally blew a pirates head off from a U.S. ship, is the US just ignoring the problem or is it something they can't touch due to treaties?

fake edit: here's the link http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30178013/ns/world_news-africa/

Yes, but that was a coordinated sniper shot on multiple/all pirates. Here there were nearly 20 of them on there.

It seems the soldiers may have tried a boarding and it may have failed. That might explain the one pirate killed by knife.

 

[Prologue]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110301/ap_on_re_eu/piracy

This time a family has been taken hostage.

 

[Shanadeus]

That deserves it's own thread, it's a Danish family.

 

[Forsete]

Damn, just the day before the 15 year old Danish boy posted on the family blog that they "still hadn't been boarded by pirates".

Ugh, I hope the family makes it out ok.

They appear to enjoy using Somali pirates as target practice.

Hey, I'm not gonna stop'em.

Hardcore.

 

[Veidt]

I can't wait until we get to talking about pirates, in our Somalia thread.

 

[slider]

Don't know any soldiers? Depending on the fight, sometimes a knife is easier and more tactical to use.

EDIT: nvm.