Piracy is an affront to the most fundamental rules of international law. An act of piracy is essentially a declaration of war against the entire world. As such, I believe that every port that aids pirates should be bombarded with fliers explaining in the local tongue that within 30 days time, your city and port will be leveled by the combined forces of the very annoyed and pissed off world. And we should band together and destroy one complicit port city a week until this stops permanently.

Its not like we're trying to ferret out cave living terrorists in thousand mile mountain ranges or hiding amongst the locals. The few places they do call port or even could call port would have to be fairly well known. Destroy. All. Of. It. Its not like Somalia is a real nation by any stretch of the imagination, they can't do jack shit about it. And if the Pirates start relocating, well than level anything that looks remotely close to civilization anywhere across the Somalia coast. Seek other pressures and penalties for the functional nation-states that aid this shit, if any. If necessary, declare a free fire zone on any boats within the general vicinity (after due warning of course) and start blowing away anything that moves.

These people are essentially terrorists...but unlike terrorists, they're easy to neutralize. You only need concern yourself with the flat waters and ports. If you let pirates into your port city, you're complicit. Anyone who genuinely wants to save their city from destruction is welcome to beg troops to enter and take control of the coastal areas instead.

Let them find another fucking profession...or let them die.

QUOTE (Altherion @ Sep 27 2008, 11.07)

The West has hundreds or thousands of times more power than is necessary to deal with these gnats, but we no longer have the will to do so. In the old days, the punishment for piracy was death and now we let them go because they might face the death penalty if tried. There is a reason they should fear Russia's warships a lot more than ours...

Wow...that's fucking pathetic. Pirates are a plague unto all of humanity and the Danes just let them go? Think we should try the Danish government and military authorities for every act of piracy that we can trace back to those specific pirates. Dumb motherfuckers.

I've got to say, I did get a bit warm and fuzzy once I heard the Russians were heading that way. Yeah I've got my issues with Russia, but they aren't gonna take any shit. And that's what we need at the moments with worthless pirate scum.

QUOTE (Altherion @ Sep 27 2008, 15:46)

"We have such plans for the near future," he said. "However, Russian ships will not be involved in any international operations. They will do this job on their own."

As I said, Western warships are one political animal and Russian warships are a rather different one.

In stark contradiction to my recent Russian comments....

...FUCK YEAH SOVIETS!!

Here is a BBC article on how these pirates operate and who supports them: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7623329.stm.

Whenever word comes out that pirates have taken yet another ship in the Somali region of Puntland, extraordinary things start to happen.

There is a great rush to the port of Eyl, where most of the hijacked vessels are kept by the well-armed pirate gangs.

People put on ties and smart clothes. They arrive in land cruisers with their laptops, one saying he is the pirates' accountant, another that he is their chief negotiator.
...
A recent visitor to the town explained how, even though the number of pirates who actually take part in a hijacking is relatively small, the whole modern industry of piracy involves many more people.
...
The town is a safe-haven where very little is done to stop the pirates - leading to the suggestion that some, at least, in the Puntland administration and beyond have links with them.

While there is simply no way the West (or even Russia) could be persuaded to even contemplate EHK's old-school tactics, I suspect it is not impossible that some intenrational agreement is made to blockade these ports -- nothing enters, nothing leaves. It depends on how annoying these pirates become.

QUOTE (Altherion @ Sep 28 2008, 15.17)

While there is simply no way the West (or even Russia) could be persuaded to even contemplate EHK's old-school tactics,

I like my tactics. Every nation with an air force should start dropping their MOAB equivalents all over the city of Eyl immediately. We should print pins and T-shirts advocating wiping that piece of shit off the map. Write letters to your Congressmen. B-52's and Tu-95's sharing the skies to incinerate some pirates would build the spirit of global cooperation and help bridge the diplomatic gap between freedom loving Americans and everything hating Soviets. We must take up arms and bomb the fuck out of them immediately in the interests of global peace and prosperity. Peace through strength. Love through tactical nukes. Our children and our children's children demand this of us. Seriously, when the fuck have we ever found an enemy that both us and the Reds want to kill? We absolutely should not pass this opportunity up.

QUOTE (The Iceman of the North @ Sep 28 2008, 15.47)

Just a question EHK. Is there a particular reason for your ire towards pirates? What makes them worse than highway robbers or any other sort of criminals?

Pirates attempt to undermine the very foundations of our global marketplace. Besides being thieves, murderers, and essentially terrorists, they also threaten the ability of nations to do business with eachother. As such they are a threat to global commerce and security. They make portions of the 'free oceans' danger zones for innocents. They operate completely outside the laws of any society. For petty criminals within state boundaries every nation has the appropriate police forces. There is no equivalent international apparatus to deal with them however.

They are also a relic. Something that was supposed to have died with the modern age. It is inexcusable that parts of the seas are off limits to the free peoples of the world because of these worthless scum. If a factions in a country want to blow itself up, for the most part, that's their business. Internal criminality? Their business, within reason. But these fuckers are attempting to control the seas, a shared global asset, and the mere thought of that is intolerable. Their actions are a declaration of war against the world. It deserves a swift and merciless answer.

We have the military might to smack them down. We should not hesitate to use it. Every port city along that coast that can be tied to the 'trade' enough to be called complicit should be wiped off the map.

He sort of reminds me of Julius Caesar after he was captured by the Cicilian Pirates.

That was a pretty funny episode:

On the way across the Aegean Sea, Caesar was kidnapped by Cilician pirates and held prisoner in the Dodecanese islet of Pharmacusa. He maintained an attitude of superiority throughout his captivity. When the pirates thought to demand a ransom of twenty talents of gold, he insisted they ask for fifty. After the ransom was paid, Caesar raised a fleet, pursued and captured the pirates, and imprisoned them in Pergamon. The governor of Asia refused to execute them as Caesar demanded, preferring to sell them as slaves, but Caesar returned to the coast and had them crucified on his own authority, as he had promised to when in captivity - a promise the pirates had taken as a joke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar#Early_career

Now there was a man who knew how to deal with pirates.

QUOTE (The Stranger @ Sep 30 2008, 09.43)

1. the people of Eyl most likely aren't as well armed as the pirates: the pirates are a sea arm of local gangster warlords. threatening the city of Eyl in toto with carpet bombing as punishment for something the majority of locals couldn't stop if they tried is merely tough internet talk, and frank ignorance of the realities in Somalia. That's right EHK, I am accusing YOU (finger pointed) of talking out of your ass when discussing Somalia.

Dude...everyone knows that Somalia is a chaotic little shithole that hasn't had an actual government of any sort in years. Of course cities the cities are gonna be run by the equivalent of mafia thugs or a couple of them. I don't see how this changes anything. We'll drop flyers telling them to GTFO before we bomb. Eventually the institution set up around piracy will get the message and perhaps thugs in other cities will find different business ventures.

QUOTE (Hereward @ Sep 30 2008, 12.14)

As the literacy rate in Somalia is about 35%, I hope the educated ones are feeling caring and sharing.

We'll use pictures. I'm sure the mushroom cloud is a universal language.

QUOTE (The Stranger @ Sep 30 2008, 15.47)

"everyone knows" is shorthand for "bullshit."

everyone does NOT seem to know that Somalia is partitioned into at least two pieces right now, one of which is doing quite well and is downright peaceful. everyone does NOT seem to know that these mafia thugs were bringing a level of peace and organization to the country unprecedented since the collapse of the socialist junta almost 20 years ago, and that all of this progress was retarded by a certain superpower giving their blessing to Somalia's most hated enemy for the complete occupation of the country just because we're scared of even saying the words "Somalia" or "Islamic." everyone does NOT seem to know that GTFO is a waste of paper and pronouncement of idiocy for people who don't have the monetary or mechanical means to leave a city. everyone does not seem to know that these governing institutions are NOT set up around piracy, but rather employ piracy as one of many tools to advance their CAPITALIST--NOT ISLAMIC--NOT ANARCHIC--aims.

Somalia does not exist entirely within the 90 minute span of Blackhawk Down, and making pronouncements as if the contrary were true amounts to the sophistry of invoking primordial conflicts to describe complex situations.

in short: like most issues, there is a minimum amount of knowledge necessary to opine intelligently on this topic, and you don't presently have it.

Get off your fucking high horse. You presented a simple reality that most of the people in these cities are not directly complicit in the piracy and that there really isn't a legitimate authority able (or willing) to stop it, nor can the people really do it themselves. I never doubted that. I never stated otherwise. Yet you still presumed I didn't know this shit and came back with your 'LULZ, YOU DON'T KNOW SOMALIA' horseshit without a fucking thing to base your ignorant presumption on. My reply was essentially saying 'No fucking shit'.

I'd really love for you to show me something I said before your arrogantly presumptuous accusation that contradicted the reality you mapped out. Or that showed a lack of understanding of what's going on in Somalia. Might be helpful before you all out assume that I don't have the faintest fucking clue of what's going on.

And my response is still the fucking same. Both before and after you told me shit I already fucking knew and decided to call me ignorant for it. Level everything near a coast. Especially anything that looks remotely like a port. (They may be putting their speed boats on trucks via random beaches, but they're sure as fuck not offloading all the cargo that way)

QUOTE (tzanth @ Sep 30 2008, 16.57)

EHK,

Let me get this straight: Are you really advocating in favor of collective punishment?

And here I thought you had been born again as a liberal!

Every war is collective fricken punishment. You think every Afghan was saying 'Hell yeah, lets sponsor and protect Bin Laden! Goooooooo TALIBAN!?' Piracy is essentially a declaration of war upon the world. We should respond in kind.

QUOTE (gryphon strike @ Oct 1 2008, 11.25)

So your ok with civilians becoming targets then?

Yet you are, and rightly so, outraged by 9/11 where an enemy attacked the civilians of the US.

There's a difference between recognizing that civilian casualties will be inevitable and actively seeking them out as targets. And of course between a legitimate provocation and attack and an illegitimate one. Besides, we're dropping the damned flyers. If everyone is that worried, we can simply destroy the coastlines.

QUOTE (tzanth @ Oct 1 2008, 02.21)

The only difference between them and your run of the mill armed robbers is that pirates work on the water.

Your run of the mill armed robbers are not threats to global commerce. Those standard robbers are generally the business of one country. Pirates are the business of the world, because they essentially threaten all of it.

QUOTE (tzanth @ Oct 1 2008, 02.21)

Don't you agree that it would be pretty fucking excessive to carpet bomb a whole city just to get at a few criminals?

If it'd take a significant chunk out of modern day piracy, it'd quickly pay for itself.

QUOTE (The Stranger @ Oct 3 2008, 00.56)

I have been forced to do academic research on Somalia. You have not. I will gladly defer to you on issues of the law, because you have studied American law. Kindly return the favor on this issue. I will email you the paper if you'd like. It is cited, and you can read the sources for yourself.

This is not about deference to expertise. This is about you stating facts that I had not disputed, had not contradicted, nor do I disagree with and simply assuming I didn't know them and giving me shit for it. I'll gladly recognize that you know more about Somalia than I do. But I'm far from illiterate on the subject.

QUOTE (The Stranger @ Oct 3 2008, 00.56)

simple realities: I do indeed argue that most people in Eyl, or indeed most Somali cities, have nothing to do with organized criminality in those cities. You now seem to [NO FUCKING SHIT] agree. This actually strikes me as creepier, given the different conclusions we reach.

In your first post you stated that gangster warlords essentially ran the town, piracy is likely an extension of their criminal activities, and that the locals are powerless to stop them. Nothing in any post I made before that point even remotely contradicted those facts or gave reason to imply ignorance of them. It is not 'NOW' 'no fucking shit'. Its always been 'no fucking shit'. Because that was some pretty basic shit to begin with.

As you note, I simply came to a different conclusion. Its not that I didn't know, its that I didn't much care. I'm sure a fair number of Afghan citizens didn't like the Taliban and hated the idea of harboring Bin Laden and Al-Queda, but we still fricken invaded when they attacked. An act of piracy is essentially an attack upon the world. We're part of that world. And it demands an aggressive response.

QUOTE (The Stranger @ Oct 3 2008, 00.56)

As for the second sentence, I legitimately think that you don't know the history of the Islamic Courts Union (or Unionate depending on the English rendering), or about the histories of Somaliland or Puntland.

Pre-wiki: The guys (ICU) who got their asses handed to them by Ethiopia (with our backing) who had some suspected Al-Queda connections and who the US government didn't much like. Post-wiki, interesting stuff. I see they and/or their successors are now kicking some Ethiopian ass. But I don't see how it changes much. Most of the piracy is coming from Puntland and last I checked they were never taken over by the ICU nor did any of the recent US/Ethiopian backed war appear to occur there. Warlord thugs or clan thugs seem to control that shit and whatever passes for a government in Puntland really can't do shit about it.

Again, I don't really see how that changes anything. A stable, well governed and united Somalia (or all those things in 3 or more separate states) would certainly stem the tide of piracy from that area. But so would blowing the fuck out of the coastal areas of the cities that service piracy. And one of them is a whole hell of alot easier to do than the other.

*bump*

British commandos kill two pirates in stand-off

QUOTE

British commandos killed two suspected pirates who tried to seize a Danish ship in the Gulf of Aden during an unprecedented operation involving a Royal Navy and a Russian warship, it was revealed yesterday.

The suspected pirates were shot after the Royal Marine commandos, in rigid inflatable boats launched from the frigate HMS Cumberland, were fired at from a Yemeni flagged dhow, the Ministry of Defence said.

I'll bet EHK wets himself when he hear about this...

Execute the prisoners and send the bill for the bullet to the fucking families! Fuck yeah!!!