Somali pirates : will this work?

Charlie79

and who foots the bill for this "solution"? the military is already overextended...we are shipping out the national guard for christ sakes. the country is broke man..unless you suggest we take out more high interest loans from china and the federal reserve bank? china has already told us to "secure our assets" so I am sure the bank of china wil decline any additional loan applications from the us taxpayers...and the fed has already inflated our money to the point that it is worthless on the international market...so again, who pays for all this? the american overseas empire is coming to an end. It's time to pay the bills kid.

Joe G

Your solution is obvious: you should scratch your *** with a loaded .45

Mark F

500 miles offshore????? Have you seen a map of this region? And who is going to escort these convoys? Who is providing the ships, or more accurately who is going to build them since the numbers required do not currently exist? Is this all really just a gross over-reaction due to the media coverage of a single incident since only some 250 of the 25,000 ships that transit this region are attacked each year?

AL G

No, it won't work.
By the way, the "Somaili Pirate" Phone No above has a Cameroon country code.

Everyone is looking at the symptom, not the cause. If they deal with the warlords who are organising these pirates it would have a far greater effect. The warlords are making a lot of money by sending their troops out to bring back ships, If it stops being profitable, or gets dangerous for the warlords then it'll stop.
Your suggestion of shipping staying 500 miles offshore would be ineffective, ships have been taken from over 100 miles outside this suggested cordon. The bigger the cordon then the bigger the line the Naval vessels have to patrol.
How could you enforce the cordon on privately owned ships in international waters? If they want to go inside the cordon you would have no power to stop them.

ianhad

If as you say, the somalis are after fishing boats, why are they taking tankers, etc?

tonalc2

Um...the pirates are hijacking oil tankers and supply ships in the Gulf, not fishing boats.

Since tankers travel about 10 miles per hour, and cargo ships travel about 21 miles per hour (20 knots), it would be adding at least two extra days' travel (going out and coming back in).

I don't know if the shippers would consider that cost-effective; many are pointing out that the piracy only affects less than 1% of their ships (and as such aren't doing much about it).

And whose military? There are already NATO ships there; are we going to commit our Navy to protecting privately-owned ships, most from other countries?

Ime Too British

Or A Even Better Idea
Get a Boat fill it with SAS & SBS & when they try to Steal it Bob's Ya Uncle there Dead.

GoldenLion007

Screw it nuke'em and call it a day. Oh wait, Geneva Conventions. DANG IT.

rosey G.

The more obvious idea is to have 'Hired Guns' on the ships to protect them from the hideous pirates.

Hired Guns have helped tame the good ole USA in years past.

I am a US Navy Veteran and I am darn proud of the Seals and what they did but the Navy is not going to be able to protect each and every ship out there.

In my humblest of opinions I believe every ship should be armed with missile launchers and big mounted guns and at least 10 hired guns and every Merchant Marine on the ship should be trained to shoot the guns to protect themselves from these brilliant uneducated pirates.

I am not a pro gun advocate, but in this case, it appears there is no other way.

I do not condone violence, but it seems to arm the ships and have them fight back is the only choice right now.

I am proud to be an American more so after what my deal Navy Seals did the other day. Hoo Ra!!

Resistance

The solution is to make the Asian countries like China stop over fishing the waters around Africa. If those African countries could do it themselves they would. If they were not hurting so bad and could actually produce something like a fishing industry then this wouldn't be a problem.

BlacKnight

I just spoke to a commander of a pirate branch in Eyl, this is what he told me:

"We are coastguards, and we will fine all fishing vessels fishing in Somalia waters illegally. However, any ship that belongs to France and the US will not be fined, but shot at and destroyed including their crew"

You can contact this brave gentleman by dialing...

011. 221.342.12223.

I am not kidding.

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