If you ask them, they were revolutionaries trying to bring down the capitalist system. If you ask just about anyone else, they were kidnappers, robbers, and general bandits who attempted to foster terror via media actions. My point is that making ‘political motives’ one of the defining features of terrorism leaves you in the utterly stupid position of trying to define who is and isn’t allowed to have political motives.
It’s still a matter of scale. Your suggestion was pointless because of the huge disparity of scale involved, both in terms of the relative damage done to the economy and the relative wealth of those being attacked.
This seems very insane as you now make any criminality “terrorism” which removes the meaning. It is not a stupid position to say that political motives or some motive beyond “get money” is needed to call something terrorism. By this strange logic, a kidnapper is a terrorist. You abolish any sensible meaning.
The Somalis pirates have never claimed any desire to sow terror, just steal and get money.
It’s a pragmatic definition: By making them terrorists, we can apply laws to them and those who deal with them in a way that makes the problem disappear. Don’t pretend real attorneys and judges never leverage the law of unintended consequences in real cases.
By doing such things you make less legitimate a fight against terrorism. Then you are just transparently palying word game and become liars, and lose respect. This is what happened to the US in the past 8 years. Piracy is already a crime in all nations laws, there is no logic reason for confusing it with terror, and many good reasons not to confuse. it with terror since you should want to be taken seriously and not become jokes.
So would these massive, massive fines be levied by the same countries that applied lots of restrictive safety, wage and tax regulations on their shipping fleets, causing the owners to register their ships abroad, or by the umpteen tiny countries that make quick bucks by allowing registration of rust-bucket death-traps crewed with third-world day-laborers? Because I have to admit I’m kinda curious about how you propose imposing rules on a Liberian-flagged vessel owned by the Saudi government and probably insured by a company based either in London or some tiny off-shore financial haven.
Seriously, this is one of those situations where individual and collective interests diverge. For each of the companies involved it’s far cheaper and easier to run the gauntlet and pay up if they get unlucky. Collectively, self-defence and a refusal to negotiate is far better, but who’s going to set up, coordinate and enforce that?
I also just realised that the International Chamber of Commerce maintains a Piracy Weekly page of current jolly-roger related goings-on, which is the source of the data in the google mash-up. It’s interesting to see how many ships got away by the skin of their teeth.
I have heard several people on TV refer to domestic violence as “domestic terrorism” in their efforts to convince us that wife beaters are worse than Ben Laden and, by the same reasoning, the law should treat them as terrorists. The problem is that if any and all violence is “terrorism” then the word has lost its meaning. Are you going to start sending drunken trailer park trash to Guantanamo?
We will yet get to the point where overcharging for a hot dog will be “economic terrorism”.
What about hiring mercenaries? Could Blackwater put together a team to storm and seize the supertanker for few million less than the ransom price? It’s all business.
(Yes, I realize that Blackwater would then be wise to take 10% off the top and offer the rest to the pirates as a “final offer” in response to the pirates ransom demand.)
The idea of mercenaries running about in Africa is an old one, and one with a very long, sad and brutal history. Private armies and navies are things to be avoided at all costs, even in the face of piracy.
Cooperation between nations with interests in keeping the flow of cargo in that region moving will sort this problem out. The EU is sending an RN-led taskforce to join the Nato, Indian and Russian forces currently present, we don’t need Blackwater or any of their ilk buggering about down there.
They are criminal opportunists, but they are also terrorists. They threaten to murder people for money, and no doubt have or shall. The word terror in terrorist isn’t used to define a ‘social activist’ it means to instill 'terror[ to get ones way, in this case, to steal.
How would you like to be threatened with death in order to advance some criminals vista of opportunity?