A possible option for dealing with these brigands may be to have modern day Q-Ships loaded with weapons and Marines to lure and destroy pirates. Imagine big fat merchant ships getting boarded by pirates and the evildoers just disappear...
Another option could be convoys.
Flotilla Heads For Somali Waters U.S. Navy, coalition have stopped 15 pirate attacks during security patrol
Houston Chronicle
October 17, 2008
Flotilla Heads For Somali Waters
U.S. Navy, coalition have stopped 15 pirate attacks during security patrol
By Michelle Faul, Associated Press
NAIROBI, KENYA � U.S. warships watched a hijacked vessel laden with tanks while other gunboats patrolled the dangerous waters off Somalia, but pirates still seized another freighter this week � and now hold about a dozen despite the international effort to protect a major shipping lane.
Military vessels from 10 nations are now converging on the world's most dangerous waters, but analysts and a Somali government official say the campaign won't halt piracy unless it also confronts with the quagmire that is Somalia.
"World powers have neglected Somalia for years on end, and now its problems are touching the world, they have started on the wrong footing," said Bile Mohamoud Qabowsade, adviser to the president of Puntland, the semi-autonomous Somali region that is the pirates' base.
South Africa's Business Day newspaper issued a similar warning. "A lawless state, that sunk as the world watched and gave up, is now threatening international commerce," it said of the chaotic Horn of Africa country that has resisted intervention, including a disastrous U.S. mission in 1996.
The continued seizures of vessels � despite the presence of U.S. warships � highlights the difficulties of patrolling the waters off Somalia. The chief concern is that the brazen attacks could fuel terrorism and make one of the world's major shipping routes too dangerous and expensive to traverse. Insurance rates for sailing in the area zone already have shot up tenfold in a year.
The area in question is the Gulf of Aden, a 920- by 300-mile basin separating the Arabian coast from the Horn of Africa. It is used by about 250 ships a day, said a U.S. Navy spokeswoman, Lt. Stephanie Murdock.
The area was the scene of the deadly al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole off Yemen. And it is a hive of illegal activity, including gunrunning as well as people- and drug-smuggling.
The Navy said that U.S. and coalition vessels and aircraft have thwarted 15 pirate attacks since they set up a "maritime security patrol area" in the Gulf of Aden on Aug. 22.
That was with six or seven ships patrolling 2.4 million square miles of water � an area including the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea and the African coast of Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya under a coalition set up in 2001 to fight terrorism.
"It's a large water space that takes a certain amount of time to transit so, while we would want to assist all mariners, a logistics factor comes into play as to how fast we can get there," said Murdock, the Navy spokeswoman.
Yesterday, Blackwater Associates offered their services (for a hefty price, no doubt) to protect these ships. This offer included possible use of their own ship.
A merchant ship packed with these heavily-armed operatives would certainly reduce the number of pirates in the area.
There is an extensive discussion of this situation going on now in the Bismarck-Class Forum.
Lesforan wrote:Yesterday, Blackwater Associates offered their services (for a hefty price, no doubt) to protect these ships. This offer included possible use of their own ship.
A merchant ship packed with these heavily-armed operatives would certainly reduce the number of pirates in the area.
There is an extensive discussion of this situation going on now in the Bismarck-Class Forum.
My son in law dealt with the blackwater guys over in Iraq. If the task is shooting up civilians, then they are the best to hire. Of course if you want to stop the Pirate attacks, and do it like real men, You send in the USN to do the job.
As a taxpayer, every blackwater thug taken out, is one less I have to pay for. I will not quote what some combat soldiers I know say about their experiences with blackwater and the other contractors in Iraq. But no tears are shed when a few get taken out.
The blackwater operations should be shut down and only sworn defenders of the constitution should do the work of our nations defence. By that I mean Sailors, Soldiers, Marines and Airmen. I loath the greedy blackwater thugs.
Lesforan wrote:Yesterday, Blackwater Associates offered their services (for a hefty price, no doubt) to protect these ships. This offer included possible use of their own ship.
A merchant ship packed with these heavily-armed operatives would certainly reduce the number of pirates in the area.
There is an extensive discussion of this situation going on now in the Bismarck-Class Forum.
My son in law dealt with the blackwater guys over in Iraq. If the task is shooting up civilians, then they are the best to hire. Of course if you want to stop the Pirate attacks, and do it like real men, You send in the USN to do the job.
As a taxpayer, every blackwater thug taken out, is one less I have to pay for. I will not quote what some combat soldiers I know say about their experiences with blackwater and the other contractors in Iraq. But no tears are shed when a few get taken out.
The blackwater operations should be shut down and only sworn defenders of the constitution should do the work of our nations defence. By that I mean Sailors, Soldiers, Marines and Airmen. I loath the greedy blackwater thugs.
Bob B.
I agree. Pirates should be shot on sight and clearing the sea of pirates is the job of navies and coast guards.
I can understand Bob's sentiments, but the fact is that Blackwater and the military are solidly interlocked (consider the relationship between the two at Ft. Bragg). The classic use of mercenaries is to tackle jobs too politically sensitive for the official military. I believe there is a practical use for such people.
I agree wholeheartedly with Bob B. When they advertise for new cadres for civil control in the wake of Hurricane Gustav ( as they did on their web site), it's more than time to wonder where this Praetorian Guard owes its loyalty. As far as I am concerned, these guys are a clear and present danger, and the putative Black Shirts of the right wing in this country. I wish there was legal way to disband them. There is no reason for them to exist.
Gerard>
Snohomish, WA USA
If you don't know the definition of erudite, you're not.
The only differences between BW and pirates is simply BW is slightly more disciplined in the commission of thuggery, and by mischance enjoys the protection of a recognized government, nothing else. The only legitimate use of outfits like Blackwater is as cannon fodder when regular troops casualties can not be accepted. The condition of their use would be a guaranty that they would be all killed in the process so that when their usefulness is ended, not many of them would be left to plague the world with their own ends. So I have no problem with sending BW against pirates so long as we can ensure BW is more or less also wiped out when all the pirates are killed.
Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.
You guys certainly have a low opinion of Blackwater.
This company is made up of former special forces members who have decided they would rather get paid well for putting their lives at risk. They are contractors, contracted to our government.
I think it is insulting to equate them with pirates.
Incidentally, the sort of pirates we see off the horn of Africa uses equipment that cost next to nothing, rides are things that barely qualify as boats, and hit and run in such a way that it is impossible to guaranty complete security to nearby shipping without impossibly large naval presence or moving the shipping lanes out of range.
What is amounts to is: 1. Entry barrier to piracy is practically non-existent. 2. Pirating will always enjoy some prospect of success. For people with 1 in 2 chance of starving to death or dying due to lawlessness on land, 1 in 3 chance of running into a Q-ship at sea seems pretty good especially if they have 2 in 3 chance of making a life-time's wage in one afternoon of violence. (incidentally, the chance of making a decade's wage in a few month of exhilarating violence also seem to be what motives most BW thugs) What this means is unless you can provide security from lawlessness and a general means of subsistence on land superior to what can be obtained at sea by piracy, you will never eradicate piracy no matter what big words you use and what dire threat you throw around.
So some sort of presence on land, and ability to administer, or at least strongly influence the administration of, the coast near the pirate zone, is the real solution to piracy, not Q-ships and BW goon squads at sea.
Last edited by chuck on Mon Oct 20, 2008 3:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.
Maybe the crews of ships should just be armed? I mean, attacking a container ship with a crew all armed with machien guns doesn't sound too much fun to me
Ultimo Tiger wrote:Maybe the crews of ships should just be armed? I mean, attacking a container ship with a crew all armed with machien guns doesn't sound too much fun to me
1. RPGs cost $25 in an African flea market and is more intimidating then a few automatic weapons used by untrained crews.
2. How many hired Ukrainian or Philippino crews are really willing to put their lives on line for the security of their ships and cargo when very few of those crews captured by pirates actually died?
Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.
BTW, keep in mind the great pirate scourge of the past were not eradicated by Q-ships or aggressive patrols. They were eliminated when the pirates lost control over the land from which they sailed.
Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.
I cannot agree with your assessment of BW, but you do have the right idea of what is needed to eliminate pirates. Their infrastructure ashore has to be destroyed, in addition to their vessels.
What would probably work as well as anything to put a stop to it would be for the shipping companies to refuse to pay ransom.
It reminds me of one of the early uses of our Navy and Marines, the elimination of the Tripoli pirates. That situation involved crews held for ransom, too.
I guess we will have to disagree about BW. Democratic civilized societies have no place for those who are not strictly governed by the rules civil societies chooses to use to govern its own legitimate agent of violence, yet empowered one way or another to inflict the high degree of violence. That its roll may contained members who belonged to a legitimate, UCMJ governed and duly supervised special force is neither here nor there. They are no longer members of that force. They are no longer governed by UCMJ. The former status which gives their true personal motives the benefit of doubt does not apply anymore, and their subsequent conduct can not but crystallize that doubt into certainty. Beyond the fact that the very existence of outfits like BW calls into question the judgment and legitimacy of a civil government that allowed it and protected it, BW itself has also demonstrated that it has little notion of civil society. They are civilians who set themselves up high from whence they can spray machine gun fire down upon other civilians, and they expect to be able to do this with little supervision and be paid handsomely for it. They are pirates now whatever their service record said about their past.
Last edited by chuck on Tue Oct 21, 2008 3:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.
