drama on the high seas

[GodPossessed]

Could someone tell me why the snipers didn't take out all the losers in Capt Jack Sparrow Wannabe's widdle wubber boat when the hostage lept out?

[California Tanker]

Over too quick? They were too far away? They were afraid that if they killed that little boat, then a hostage on another ship in the area (the pirates have called a gathering, thinking safety in numbers) might be killed? Who knows.

I think a general invitation should go out to any country who has a ship hijacked in this gathering to send their special forces out, and at an appointed hour, have at it. The French aren't waiting, they stormed a yacht today. One hostage killed, four rescued. They're three-for-three for making sure the pirates don't get away with it. Maybe if more countries were like that...

NTM

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by GodPossessed

Could someone tell me why the snipers didn't take out all the losers in Capt Jack Sparrow Wannabe's widdle wubber boat when the hostage lept out?

High seas would make a decent rifle shot quite difficult, both the shooter's platform and the target are constantly moving, often erratically. Besides, the lifeboat they're in is an enclosed fiberglass survival boat, not a widdle wubber boat.

[yellowfin43]

I would hate to see any innocent people get killed but a message needs to be sent to these thugs that piracy won't be tolerated. When word gets back to Somalia that they are being fired upon at will, with or without hostages, It would stop quickly.

[ChuckF]

There is a balancing act in ransom negotiations, since the pirates have a strong incentive to keep the hostage alive. It's important that hostage-takers perceive a way out (i.e. think that the situation is survivable), otherwise that incentive disappears. Right now the real economic good in piracy is the value of hostages. Escalating too much too quickly could make it more profitable simply to attack, kill, and loot.

The French have been more willing to deploy elite forces, and I was surprised that Ukrainian special forces didn't storm that arms ship a while back. But as long as they had reason to believe that the hostages could be kept alive, that could have been counterproductive in the short and long term. I'm not entirely clear on the rules of engagement for piracy though. I think NATO has its own set, and the French may have their own set as well, and maybe the UN is working on some (?) which may partly explain the different approaches.

[Qingdai]

The French do have a different idea of hostage negotiations, in recent history.

I seem to remember the French going into Belgium to bomb/shoot some people who had taken French nationals hostage (either the hostage takers were Algerian or Red Army, my Google-fu is weak).

[ChuckF]

Yep, for all the cracks one can make about the French military, their anti-terrorism/hostage liberation forces are nothing to fuck with. Pretty much all reasonably developed states have highly trained anti-terrorism squads, but the French are not squeamish about using them. I think they learned some incredibly hard lessons about terrorism in Algeria and had a pretty highly developed sensitivity to the need for and use of counter-terrorism units. All this well before Russia learned those same lessons in Chechnya and the US learned them on 9/11. I am definitely not an expert, but France and is right up there with the Israel, the US, and Russia in my mental ranking of counter-terrorism forces. That is not to say, of course, that they don't have some spectacular screwups à la Rainbow Warrior.

[California Tanker]

They only screwed up Rainbow Warrior in that they got caught....
Actually, I'm not convinced that was GIGN, but a different branch of the French government.

Unlike most countries, when the French say "We don't negotiate with terrorists", they're pretty much as close to that as you'll get. I recall a few months ago, they paid the pirates their ransom, the hostages were released, then the French sent helicopters in to shoot the pirates and get the money back. Class!

A poster on another board made a very valid point on the sniper question. He posted a picture of a lifeboat similar to that in question.



Where are you going to take your shot?

NTM

[But]

I would go with a fairly uniform distribution above and slightly below the waterline.

[California Tanker]

Apparently the siege is over. Three pirates dead, one captured, American captain freed.

Good on the Navy.

NTM

[Dingfod]

Apparently Captain Phillips made another leap to freedom and U.S. commandos (Seals?) took advantage.

[MonCapitan2002]

I wonder how long it will be before a movie is made of this.

[Watser?]

Two weeks.

[ChuckF]

BBC NEWS | Africa | How Captain Phillips was rescued

Snipers determined that one of the pirates had trained an AK-47 on the captain and seemed about to fire, Vice-Adm Gortney added.
...
The snipers fired on the pirates for several minutes. Capt Phillips was unhurt despite being just a few metres away from his captors during the shooting.

Nice shooting.

I would be willing to read this guy's book when he gets a book deal. This has been a pretty interesting story.

[MonCapitan2002]

On some level it would probably be a bit therapeutic for the Capt. Phillips to do book and movie deals. The way I see, by doing so he turns what was a traumatic, harrowing ordeal into an economic opportunity.

It is a good form of revenge, I think. He'd be telling those pirates fuck you by making money off his experience.

[Dingfod]

Millions even.


Saturday another vessel was taken by Somali pirates, a tug, the Buccaneer. Is that ironic?

[Pinecone]

Aww krap!! Another side to the story. And if true it sucks.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/13-6

[Demimonde]

The facts suck, but the slant in that article sucks too IMO.

The pirates are quoted as saying they aim ""to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters... We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas"

Well the fishing industry is perfectly legal, and the dumping that occurred while so stupid as to make my head explode is legal as well. The Swiss and Itallian companies had contracts granted by the Somali government to dump there.

And the histories given are quite fantasized. Priracy in the 1600's was "egalitarian?"

[GodPossessed]

Originally Posted by Demimonde

The facts suck, but the slant in that article sucks too IMO.

The pirates are quoted as saying they aim ""to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters... We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas"

Well the fishing industry is perfectly legal, and the dumping that occurred while so stupid as to make my head explode is legal as well. The Swiss and Itallian companies had contracts granted by the Somali government to dump there.

And the histories given are quite fantasized. Priracy in the 1600's was "egalitarian?"

So do you or not have improper thoughts about Johnny Depp?

[ChuckF]

What a strange article. Pointing to the alleged fact that some pirates call themselves the "Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia" and comparing Somali pirates to American Revolutionary privateers, it seems like the author is trying to grant the pirates some kind of military-like legitimacy. Aside from the fact that the Somali state is virtually non-existent, and therefore the putative "Coastguard" doesn't enjoy that kind of legitimacy, repeated military attacks on civilian ships flying a foreign flag and subsequent hostage-taking would probably be a cause for war.

The independent Somalian news-site WardherNews conducted the best research we have into what ordinary Somalis are thinking - and it found 70 percent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence of the country's territorial waters."

1) It's Wardheer News, not WardherNews
2) Here is the editorial that discusses the "best research":

WardherNews conducted an unscientific survey and called its regular focus groups (two groups with each consisting of 15 Somali citizens) to gauge the collective opinion on the piracy in Somalia. About 70 percent of those who participated in our sampling strongly viewed the piracy as a form of crude, primitive, if you will, national defense of the country’s territorial waters.

Social research is very unstable regions, especially those as large as Somalia, is notoriously difficult to produce. But two groups of 15 people does not constitute anything approaching a relevant sample. That's why the editorial says that it's unscientific.

[Ymir's blood]

Originally Posted by Demimonde

And the histories given are quite fantasized. Priracy in the 1600's was "egalitarian?"

Actually, yes - at least compared to conventional societies of the time. European pirate ships were essentially democracies. The crew owned the ship and elected the officers. The captain was only in charge during battle and was expected to do well or else be replaced. As in all democracies, elected officials could somewhat substitute charisma for competence however. A strong leader could command respect even when prey was scarce, however they were still subject to recall should the prevailing mood shift.

Pirate ships typically had 'articles' which provided rules on how plunder would be divided and discipline enacted. There were even provisions to pay what was effectively insurance money for crewmen that were seriously injured in battle.

Some pirates, Bartholomew Roberts (the original Dread Pirate Roberts btw) did set free the cargo of captured slave ships. However other pirates simply regarded them as valuable plunder and treated them accordingly. Later, once the slave trade was made illegal, some pirates actively participated in their shipment.

Women typically were excluded from pirate crews though there were some notable exceptions: Anne Bonny and Mary Reade being the two most famous. Even so, the legend has it that they disguised themselves as men. That does seem somewhat unlikely given the close quarters and lack of privacy on a pirate vessel, however.

[Watser?]

I have a book somewhere that I am now to lazy to look up, that has average rates for the 'disability money' you would get for loss of an arm, leg or eye.

[Ymir's blood]

Wikipedia has some printed here. However, they come from Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates which is noted for taking liberties with history.

[Demimonde]

Well I know the article is overstating its claim that comercial and naval lessels of the period would throw men overboard. Admiralty law allowed a captain to use physical punishment against a crewman, but did not permit murder.

Captain Kidd on the other hand did kill at least one crewman that we know of, a gunner named Moore I believe. He also commandeered prisioners to man his ships and frequently had to put down mutinies on his ships by force. Blackbeard is reported to have marooned many of his crewmen to increase the shares of himself and the remaining members. That is hardly egalitarian.

Roberts is the exception rather than the norm of that period, IMO. He was indeed quite egalitarian. Of course the heroes of the age are remembered well. For every Roberts though there were scores more that were just plain brutes. The article claims that pirates "took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals," but ignores the fact that many many more contributed to the slave trade and continued to long after it was outlawed. Are we surprised? They were pirates.

My main complaint is that the above article is showing a fantastical representation of pirates which is an oversimplification of history. I am not surprised that their coverage of the present plays fast and loose with the facts as Chuck's above post illustrates.

ETA clarification. I realize that you made the same point about pirates and the slave trades. Dinner prep and a couple glasses of wine dulled mine memory before I came back to post. Just wanted to be sure that I recognize that and give credit where it is due.

[ChuckF]

I think one must distinguish pirates from piracy. The fact that 18th century pirates may or may not have practiced some form of democracy amongst themselves is specious to the discussion of piracy and modern pirates, around Somalia and everywhere in the world. I think someone who has been held at gunpoint for ransom would likely dispute claims of egalitarianism even if they had been well-treated by those holding the guns. The author of the CD article seems to confound the political culture of pirates with the violent realities of institutionalized piracy, as though one can excuse the other.

The article implicitly touches on a much larger and much grander point: in the absence of state institutions, state-like institutions will emerge. In Somalia, the death of the state led to territorial warlords and institutionalized piracy. That is why the superficial equation of pirates with a kind of primitive Coast Guard is so seductive. But it still does not persuade, because no one could reasonably confuse the activities of pirates with the functions of a legitimate Coast Guard. If they were legitimately policing national waters to protect the national interests of Somalia, they probably wouldn't be holding AK-47s at people's backs. (There are, of course, privateers who operate with the vague government-sanctioned pseudolegality of mercenaries.)

Pirates around Somalia are able to operate unbounded in Somalia waters and international waters because there is no functional state control over those areas. The same is true of warlords in Somalia itself. As a thought experiment, simply move the pirates operating around Somalia onto mainland USA. What would we call them? Carjackers? A gang of thieves?

It may be true (and not especially surprising) that numerous parties are engaging in destructive waste-dumping and fishing practices in Somalia waters, and that these practices are detrimental to livelihoods along the coast. There is no Somali state to raise and resolve grievances within the international community. That is a tragedy for the people of Somalia, and appears to be an intractable one. But it does in any way excuse piracy and the attendant violence.