Eventually the pirates just start selling permits to companies allowing their ships free passage through the waters. And friends, they may think it’s a government.
I disagree, ALL of the hijackings I hear about in the news are large ships. They may very well attack smaller boats in large numbers but I never hear about them.
The attacks that make the news involve large sums of money and in a lawless country heavily influenced of Al Qaeda there is a likelyhood that we are funding a terrorist organization. Any large ship brought to port is likely to be used as a deep sea mother ship for future pirate attacks.
Why would you hear that a small Japanese fishing boat is held hostage? Not unless you are particularly interested in the subject, which I am. That’s exactly what I said, you don’t hear about those.
Cite?
I have yet to hear such thing. They don’t have the resources to man that kind of ship (you need training, y’know?). You also need insane amounts of fuel, which doesn’t make it very cost-effective. Those ships are very easily found as they broadcast information about themselves just like a plane does.
Thinking on this reminds me of the scene from the movie L.A. Story where people are lined up to get cash at a cash machine and robbers are lined up on the other side. After getting cash the next robber in line approaches Steve Martin, points a gun at him and politely says, “Hi! I’ll be your robber today.” To which Steve Martin, totally non-plussed, hands the robber a part of the money he took out and they go on their way. Business as usual in LA, no fuss, no muss.
Maybe it is just me but seems there is something wrong with that picture as a real life situation which I think is about what it would become with SteveG1’s notion. Just less humorous.
So you say “I disagree” and then repeat excatly what she already said. :dubious: :rolleyes:
Dude, Waterworld was not a documentary.
We need to have a distinction that recognizes when a region has a broken sovereignty. There should be no reason to respect the Somali sovereignty. We should send in an international strike force into Eyl to root out the pirates and kill them. Not one that is dedicated to anything other than putting a stop to the piracy, no policing efforts are to be made except for those. We need intelligence on the ground locally, the bureaucratic infrastructure to be run from Djibouti and fast attack strike teams that can go in and take out the pirates. The future of the military needs to start thinking like this.
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/files/congressional-testimony1.pdf
I am sure somebody with epaulets on his shoulder has already suggested the idea, and I am sure it it/has been considered. I am also sure it’s not as easy as you suggest. You attack one port city they move to another. The ships stay anchored outside the Somali coast, it’s not like they need an actual port with pier and stuff. This is bigger than you think. It’s not like invading Grenada.
I have read that the organizers, the ones providing the intelligence and financing the operations live in Western Countries, even Canada has been mentioned. I would start there if I were you.
Lest you think I opposed to taking any action, let me say: I want this to stop before it gets worse, or somebody else thinks is a great idea. I just don’t want some hare-brained solution that cost more lives than the actual problem.
A friend of mine works for a consultant with the DoD, he has arranged several presentations for John Robb to make his case. As it is going, John Robb’s message simply isn’t penetrating.
I am sure someone with epaulets on their shoulders has suggested invading Eyl, I doubt one has suggested doing it the way I am suggesting. 2nd Generation Warfare works more like a hammer, make things 'splode in a tactical fashion. That is not what I am suggesting. I am suggesting that we invade cities like a virus, no tactical domination of territory, just intelligence gathering leading up to surgical strikes that take out leaders.
Right, well then we need to be mobile and able to go after them where they are.
Well I am talking about revamping our entire concept of warfare so that we act on a cellular level, a more granular warfare. 4G War with state backing.
Did you read the link I posted?
She said most of the pirated ships in the news were smaller ships.
How do you think the mother ship operates if they pirates aren’t operating them?
Do you think the pirates who hijack other ships buy their own ships and fuel?
No, ships and planes don’t automatically broadcast their position. They would use transponders which can be turned off. And I don’t know about ships, but aviation transponders do not broadcast the identity of the plane, they return a signal that is tagged at the request of a radar center if it is in controlled air space.
I had completely forgotten about that movie.
I loved that scene. If only ALL bad guys were so well mannered 
Let me see if I understand. Are you suggesting that while they are in control of a hijacked ship they use it as a “mother ship”? That is what I was responding to. If you did not say that, nevermind.
There is no radar center for ships. As you approach a ship you get a signal that tells you the name and flag, tonnage and crew of a ship. This, and publicly posted information on the internet (you can access Maersk website and track a ship for example, not with coordinates but there is information of its whereabouts and type of cargo) is what pirates use to decide which ship to take. Small fishing boats are just a matter of opportunity though.
You misunderstood me.
No I’m suggesting that the mother ships used by pirates are ships they previously took.
Pirates can just shut this system off or transmit what they wish. Once out of teritorial waters there are no enforceable laws regarding this. It’s a one way street for pirates as they can use it to hunt, but not be hunted.
I agree, this is same idea I had and seems to me to be the perfect solution.
Only part you left off was the the escorting destroyers are under order to fire on, and sink, any vessel that approaches and gets to within a 1000 yards of the convoy (when out of range of normal port-related activities). I guarantee you would see an end to this crap almost immediately.
You mean the small fishing vessels that they sometimes hijack? I have no idea what the “release” rate is on those. I mostly read news on hijacked cargo ships.
I know transponders can be disabled, but the large ships are difficult to maneuver, expensive to run and hard to hide. They don’t make for good disguise. The consensus is that “mother ships” disguise as innocent fishing boats, it’s hard to pull that off when you are riding a large container ship, one with no identification. I suppose those are only useful to get a ransom.
I’ll ask my husband if he knows why this hasn’t been tried. He may know.
It would be too expensive is my guess…much more expensive than simply letting the pirates capture an occasional ship and then ransom it. Also, while I think you could get around it, modern naval navigation tends to slot ships into distinct and widely separated lanes…and commercial vessels are supposed to travel in those discrete lanes. It would probably take tweaking the software to reorganize traffic…and also you’d need to ensure ships rendezvous, which would mean possible lengthy wait times while things got organized, etc etc.
While I don’t think there are any show stoppers I don’t think anyone would be willing to foot the bill or would be too keen on all of the inconveniences and such to make it worth while to do a full blown convoy system at this point.
-XT
Yeah. Too expensive and labor intensive. Someone has to take action in some way, though, in order to remove the incentive for pirating on pain of death.
How that gets implemented in this lawless area of high traffic on the open seas is beyond me.
Perhaps companies take a hard line and say “fuck you, kill the crew, we don’t care” followed by a precision bombing run on the hijacked ship, utterly destroying it.
I’m not sure how the message can be sent to these high-seas “opportunists” except the threat of death and more of it if they continue.
I know, I don’t make sense, but there HAS to be a solution. Inspired minds in the US Navy and the collective interested parties of global commerce have certainly taken notice. Something has to give.
We come up with the hulls to deploy a task group out there on station for the next year or so and pretty much keep the area under constant patrol. We use ROV’s that are armed (both air and sea…the Navy has some prototype and armed ship ROVs that could be deployed to do patrols), we cooperate with some of the other nations who have deploy-able navies to coordinate our efforts and we get other countries to kick in some bucks.
Or, we just let the situation continue until someone fucks up and there is a serious loss of life. I’m hoping we do it the other way, even if in the short term it will cost more money…we can always make more of that…
-XT
Most normal people care about not killing, or provoking the death of innocent people. For which I am glad.
Business are not in the business of destroying their own property to teach common criminals a lesson, let alone getting their employees killed. Companies already have enough trouble getting their ships manned as it is*. People are not expendable, morally or otherwise.
*Denmark as a chronic shortage of navigators, for example. At least my husband is not in danger of losing his job.