Do we have jurisdiction?
What legal code applies? What judges should the criminals be brought before?
If you want us to treat them like criminals, that means we need to send in detectives, make inquiries, have a court issue warrants, make arrests, arraign them… I need details. How should we go about this, specifically?
Time to ramp operations at Gitmo back up. We got another class of international “criminals” to deal with now. :rolleyes:
Hope too many sailors don’t get hurt rounding them up.
What the fuck is everyone’s deal with this “brown people” shit?
I don’t see what anyone’s skin color has to do with this situation. Other than that it provides something for people who think they are so clever with their oh-so-sly “brown” references, bravely fighting against the eeeeeevil forces of racism, to inject into the conversation, showing off how unbelievably original they are.
No worries then, but a couple others made similar comments - consider it a general statement.
I agree that arming civilian crews would be an improvement.
This is I disagree with. We had safe seas for nearly fifty years where several people have sailed around the world. We should take that privilege away because our billion dollars navies can’t do their job? It is a privilege, not a right. But if we protect the seas for corporations, I would hope we would do the same for citizens. For their ability to transit the high seas is equally a privilege, not a right. Or is the dollar value of the cargo the only criteria for determining what is worthwhile?
I see this as a wake up for the navies - if they want to justify their budgets, they need to be seen as a police force first, and a military command second. The Coast Guard writ large. It is possible there may be a naval war in the future, but I doubt it. I think the nature of warfare is making them obsolete for that task. But they are perfectly suited for anti-piracy and other policing operations.
Are you saying racism is not evil? What the fuck is wrong with you? Thats just sick.
The way we are now, as part of international piracy fighting forces. (By “treat them as criminals”, I wasn’t intending to recommend subjecting pirates to any specific national system of criminal jurisprudence, but simply dealing with them as individual malefactors rather than as agents of an enemy nation that it would be appropriate to commit acts of war against.)
Individual pirates have been tried and sentenced under the criminal justice systems of countries whose flagged ships they attacked, including the Netherlands, the US, and Yemen.
I’ll leave that to tech heads with more skills than myself, but I would be surprised if we could not establish a viable system. The MSC-HOA has a registry system in place, but I have not looked at the details.
I’m not talking about catching them in the act - that’s a no-brainer. I mean arresting them after the fact. Do we have the legal right and the physical ability to go to the individual pirates’ homes and arrest them? Because until we do, they won’t stop.
It won’t matter, more will step up and take their place.
First of all: thanks for the very original, clever “brown people” reference. This always contributes so much to debates.
Second of all, when has that “they shouldn’t have been there in the first place” shit ever, ever, ever been a justification for anything? I suppose anyone walking through certain areas in certain American cities also deserves “everything they get.” I suppose your mother would “deserve everything she got” if she went for a stroll in downtown Johannesburg and happened to cross paths with a gang of rapists. Right? According to your logic, that would seem to be the case.
Oh wait - you said “without the necessary weapons.” So I assume you’re in favor of boat crews in international waters being armed, right? I agree, that would be great. Glad we have some common ground.
Why not just sub-contract the job to the South Korean and Indian navies?
American narco squads do it routinely in the Gulf. A small boat capable of going that fast has a large outboard and the sniper has all day.
Even if they shot back a Coast Guard copter can make them wish they hadn’t.
There’s a few problems with arming the crews besides ports not letting them in. For one thing, what makes you think they’ll actually be willing to fight and possibly die for a ship they don’t even own? And if they tried, what makes you assume they’d win? And if you have hundreds of armed ships out there, how do you tell who is the pirate? How do you know that some of those new armed ships won’t decide to do a little piracy on the side themselves too, for that matter?
It sounds like classic American thinking; the idea that guns are always on the side of Truth and Justice and the guy in the white hat always wins a gunfight.
Well, that’s why you hire security services from a reputable company. No…I wouldn’t assume the crew would be able to fight very well, no matter how willing they might be (I assume it would be better than most of the alternatives which, at best means you are a hostage to pirates until the company forks over the cash).
We’re not even talking about gunships here, but a bunch of guys in a boat with some AKs and RPGs. I’d say that a .50 cal would turn most of these ‘pirate’ vessels into Swiss cheese.
What’s the non-American solution? Putting your hands over your head and hoping that they take you hostage and that the company pays up?
-XT
It would be extremely expensive to police that part of the ocean. There are ships from many nations under attack. They all have their own laws to deal with. It is never as easy as people think.
Your plan is equivalent to saying, “let’s put a transponder in all legitimate automobiles (i.e., those not used by drug dealers), and then we can just grab the ones without transponders.”
Sounds like an opportunity to make money. The rednecks get to kill people and laugh about it, the cruise line makes a million, and some pirates get culled. 
That mini-gun sure looks like it’s fun to fire. Throw in Kari from Mythbusters and I’m all over that!
-XT
I’d propose my solution to all problems: the A-10 Thunderbolt, but there are no carrier versions and I don’t know if “feet wet” is their thing.
Having said that, A-10s would wreck the shit out of every pirate vessel.
That would be huge overkill. Guys…these pirates are going out basically fishing boats…a converted tub to act as a ‘mothership’ and some rubber boats or maybe a wooden skiff with an engine bolted on the back. We aren’t talking about warships here but some schlubs with some AK’s and maybe a rocket launcher or two. That works against an unarmed civilian tanker or freighter, a cruise ship or private rich mans toy, but really any true naval warship would eat their lunch. The problem isn’t really killing them, it’s finding them in the first place. To really do more than fend these guys off or make them a bit wary though is going to take making Somalia a real, functional country again…and that is going to take more than simple military power, especially since I’m not seeing anyone stepping up to do even that.
In the mean time, IMHO the only real option is to encourage people traveling in the area to arm themselves or give the area a wider berth (which means higher costs for merchants), and otherwise to keep doing what is being done. And to basically acknowledge that sometimes the pirates are going to win because they have the initiative.
-XT