Somali Pirates kill Four Americans

Very tragic news but it really make me wonder what on earth they were doing in hostile waters, this could of so easily been avoided. Why do people insist on putting themselves in mortal danger, it may sound heartless but I have little sympathy for them, I do feel for their family & friends they have left behind. Ok the US navy capture some of the pirates and reportedly killed some of them but thats little consolation.

Sounds horrid. A link to the news would be nice.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12541297

I’m surprised they captured 13 pirates though, given the hassle it is to punish them (legitimately) I’d thought they’d have all been (deliberately) killed during the gun-fight to…

Very sad but I wonder if we’re getting the full story as the reality for the pirates is simple: no hostages = no ransom.

What do the pirates do with the millions they have been paid in ransoms?

Burry it

What do the pirates do with the millions they have been paid in ransoms?

Scratch cards.

Rum?

Parrots, peg legs, triangular hats ?

I think it must be REALLY frustrating for the military forces that are out there patrolling the waters.

Firstly, non commercial trips by westerners, as far as i’m aware, aren’t entirely necessary and the dangers are well known. So it must irritate them when people are captured who shouldn’t have been there anyway. Sort of like going on a sightseeing holiday in a war zone.

Commercial voyages are driven by the necessity to make money. True, you can’t just stop sending cargo ships, otherwise your company disappears pretty quickly. But then it’s up the crew whether they want to undertake the voyage, their risk to an extent. And they choose to make the trip regadless of the danger.

And above all else, there’s loads of annoying little somalian pirates running (sailing) about kidnapping and killing your fellow countrymen (regardless of how foolish they have been) and you are pretty powerless do anything about it. Surely as a highly trained war machine, all you really want to do is shoot the little buggers as soon as they are within range?

I’d love to load up a yacht with enough weapons and ammunition to start a small war and then cruise off the coast of somalia posing as a tourist, picking off the pirates as they got close. Excellent fun!

Plus, you’d porbably get a 15 minute slot on The One Show when you got back, and the irish woman on that is super hot.

Why are pirates called Pirates….because they Arrrrrgh

Buy more ships and elocution lessons?

Anyone know the legality here? I.e. can US just head ouit and kill the Pirates etc?

Or does no-one care so it doesn’t matter?

If only there was a legal expert on the forum.

believe it or not, I used to be a shipping lawyer before jumping ship (hahahahah) into another practice area.

However, I don’t think I ever dealt with any matters concerning clients who wanted to sail into foreign waters and kill pirates. If I had come across clients like that, I would probably still be a shipping lawyer.

well it’s been a while since the US declared war on someone. Not that I mind though. Just as long as they don’t blow innocent people as they usually end up doing.

Did anyone see the Navy series on last night when they tried to destroy the small boat?

Large gun – failed
Helicopter gunship – failed
Deck guns (lots of them) – failed

in the end they sent over a couple of guys with axes to try and sink a small boat so if you want to defeat the Navy then use a small boat!

Shooting all the guns looked good fun though, especially the mini gun 😀

it says they have been prosecuting pirates in civilian courts. I thought piracy was instant death or is that in the old days?

love the bluntness of this reply: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_punishment_for_piracy

Don’t the French have a more direct approach when dealing with the Somali Pirates I seem to remember they have a policy to kill first ask questions later, one such engagement involving a French yacht resulted in the French yachtsmen being killed in a rescue attempt. Imo a lethal approach should be taken with these Pirates and just blow them out of the water they may eventually stop there activities.

The penalty for piracy is life imprisonment if tried in this country. The UN convention requires the suppression of piracy by seizing ships and arresting pirates it would only be if the pirates resisted seizure or arrest that you could use force.

The french have a more direct approach to everything including green peace.

Maybe they were Americans that funded the IRA or PIRA to blow up people in the UK? Or perhaps they were behind the US refusing to recognise it’s conviction for unlawful use of force by the UN World Court, and their eventual refusal to even recognise the UN World Court.

Just a thought.

I heard it was a seal with a grenade….

Nah, seals don’t swim that far north guv… more likely to be a porpoise with a pistol?

This situation needs…

I sailed through the Gulf of Aden last year and it was quite interesting to say the least, to start with we stopped off in the Maldives to pick up our security personel and get the ship “tooled up” this required wrapping the vessel in 4 layers of razor wire (the german made razor wire is the best apparently) to deter pirates from boarding then on top of that there was a 50000 volt electric fence this was so they couldn’t hang a ladder over the top of the razor wire and climb aboard.
Then there were the security gaurds, 2 ex RN officers with triple barrel names they were the advisors, and 2 ex French foreign legion mercinaries who turned out to be a bit handy in there past lifes so we found out. One in particular was once on the cover soldier of fortune magazine letting rip with a mini gun out the side of a Huey in Sierra Leone, he was quite proud of the photographs he was showing us, and quite proud that he got arrested in CDG when coming back from somewhere after his face was on soldier of fortune. He also worked for lots of private miltary outfits in north and west Africa, wouldn’t tell us how many people he had killed over the years but we kind of got the idea it was hundreds!
They also had automatic weapons but these were not to be shown unless of iminent attack from pirates, they had petrol bombs stationed around the vessel also supposed to deter but I presume they would have preffered to get the pirates ablaze!
We went in a convoy of about 15 ships with a German destroyer leading and a Japanese ????? bringing up the rear.
Saw a few skiffs (Somali pirate vehicle of choice) and one or two checking us out but no attack or attempted boarding.
Just as we were entering the convoy check point there was an attemted boarding of a container ship which the Danish navy were close to apparently they took no prisoners and just mini gunned the skiff and its contents of passengers.
Also got told by the advisors that the Chinese, Japanese and the Indian forces take no prisoners, blow the fekers up and answer questions later.

Got three days in a Maldives island resort on the company whilst the ship got tooled up so well worth the security risk IMO.

Maybe what is needed to curtail the piracy is for every national naval force involved to respond like the Danes, Chinese, Japanese and Indian forces. They might think twice about the piracy and hostage taking if they knew there was only going to be one result. One unfortunate aside to that would be, no doubt,innocents being killed/wounded for the first couple times, but once they got the message that hostage holding wasn’t going to shield them, it might put a stop to most of it.
I think if I was being held hostage by that lot, I would prefer to go out in a blaze of friendly gunfire than be executed by the pirates in the end anyway.
Another part of the equation is what the hell are civilian yachts/sailboats doing in that area knowing the high risk.

What’s the somalia situation and the reasoning behind the piracy, from a somali perspective, not a western one?

Personally I’ve no idea but that strikes me as a question that should be asked?

International waters + pirates from failed state = do what you like…

I’ve often thought an effective ‘deterent’ would be to fit out an old container ship with a full cargo of empty containers with a bunch having drop-down sides and a couple of miniguns and chainguns in each one. The old Q-ship principle. Or a sailing ship like Pelican, an Arctic trawler converted to Barbary Corsair rig. A couple of miniguns mounted on each side bow and stern to give a good field of fire. As soon as a skiff shows up, raise the Jolly Roger and cry havoc.

poverty = crime

not rocket science – can i be the first to ‘blame the evil western capitalists ‘ please can I – can I?

still rather it was a case of exterminate the pirates – wasnt the RN created originally to police the high seas / prevent piracy?

oh well

What’s the somalia situation and the reasoning behind the piracy, from a somali perspective, not a western one?

They’re all somali merchant bankers but the bonuses have really tumbled in the last few years so they do this on weekends to keep their ferraris running

http://www.somalicruises.com/

8)

raise the Jolly Roger and cry havoc

Not sure that the old medieval command to allow troops to break ranks and go looting would be “quite” the right idea given the circumstances! 😛

not rocket science – can i be the first to ‘blame the evil western capitalists ‘ please can I – can I?

Who’s blaming emdy? I’m just suggesting that there maybe some better solution that the kill them all line that this thread seems to be going down.

Prevention is better than the cure and all that caper, as clearly the naval ships don’t really seem like much of a deterrent, it’s plainly not working. But anyhow carry on with your blame nonsense.

Sell the pirates some boats and weapons then blow them up then repeat, got to be good for the economy then go to the middle east….oh hang on!

Somalia isn’t even a “failed” state, it just isn’t a state. It’s staggeringly poor and serious weaponry has been getting in for a good couple of decades. It is over-populated and drought-blighted and everything there is shit. As an added bit of joy, because there isn’t a state no-one is protecting their fish stocks from international exploitation, so foreign trawler fleets are hoovering their fish up, and anyone with toxic waste requiring an expensive licence to dump anywhere else dumps it in Somali waters. After the Indian Ocean Tsunami there were reports of radioactive waste drums being washed up on the shoreline. The potential for boat-owning people to make an honest living, or for anyone to make a plan for a better life that doesn’t involve fighting people and stealing things is fairly limited.

Without getting into a swamp of moral relativism, that these people don’t behave as we would like them to is not exactly surprising. Turning a machine-gun on them when the opportunity arises is a partial solution, at best. 🙂

the reason they took to the water was to protect their fish stocks from being stolen by foreign vessels, I guess they then realised they could make more money from robbery and ransoms than they could from tinned dolphin…