Article

2008-11-18 Africa Horn

Pirates seize 7 ships in 12 days; latest from Iran

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Posted by tipper 2008-11-18 13:28|| || Front Page|| [11128 views ] Top

#1 It must be good business for them or they wouldn't be doing it. I suppose it is one way to send money to terrorists without it looking sneaky. Just have them hijack your boats, you pay ransom and you are off the hook for any illegal money transactions. A lot less risky that trying to sneak a few million dollars into one of their bank accounts without a hijacking to use as cover.

Posted by crosspatch 2008-11-18 13:32|| 2008-11-18 13:32|| Front Page Top

#2 Few people realize this is a genuine crisis unfolding. It looks like it will shut down most traffic through the Suez canal and even make the Cape route from the Gulf problematic.

I strongly suspect the Western naval ships have almost no options to use against small high speed boats, except perhaps sinking them (more or less at random) with helicopter gunfire, with all the drowning fluffy duck outrage that will cause.

Trying to board the boats isn't an option - too many casualties from small arms shootouts.

Meanwhile, the pirate revenues will be flowing into bigger weapons, faster boats and 'me too' operations all along the African coast.

I'll leave how this is ideal cover for islamo-terrorist operations for another day.

Posted by phil_b 2008-11-18 14:55|| 2008-11-18 14:55|| Front Page Top

#3 The solution: Commerical, slow moving Panamanian flagged vessels riding low in the water armed with pop-up MK-15 Phalanx guns and capable operators would severly curb this foolishness.

Posted by Besoeker 2008-11-18 15:01|| 2008-11-18 15:01|| Front Page Top

#4 Besoeker is absolutely right. It would only take 3-4 ships to make this happen. They could be equipped for peanuts. There should be no news cycle because they just let the attacking small boats get close then they blow the shit out of them. No cameras, no press releases...the little boats just never make it back to port. Accidents at sea happen all the time. This would work great until someone leaked it to the NYT. But even they wouldn't provide a silouhette of the vessels in question, so the pirates would be wondering which one is it??? Spincter tightening would ensue.

Posted by remoteman 2008-11-18 15:18|| 2008-11-18 15:18|| Front Page Top

#5 Besoeker, the Brits tried something similar against UBoats in WW2. Problem was the UBoats quickly learned to recognize the armed ships and avoided them.

Posted by phil_b 2008-11-18 15:20|| 2008-11-18 15:20|| Front Page Top

#6 Phil,

A) the German military was smarter
B) submarines are harder to spot coming
C) the surprise package could be portable and added to most any ship.

Piracy was stopped pretty much in the 19th century, it can be stopped now IF WE HAVE THE WILL to do so. Pirate + yardarm some assembly required.

Posted by AlanC">AlanC 2008-11-18 16:01|| 2008-11-18 16:01|| Front Page Top

#7 From the BBC,

The Law of the Sea Convention places limitations on daring action. Under Article 100 of the convention a warship has first to send an officer-led party to board a suspected pirate ship to verify any suspicions.

The warship cannot just open fire. Any inspection has to be carried out "with all possible consideration".

And most of the pirates are based in Puntland. A state no one can officially deal with because the United Nations doesn't recognize its existence.

Posted by phil_b 2008-11-18 16:03|| 2008-11-18 16:03|| Front Page Top

#8 This problem can easily be defeated the same way the U-Boats were: Convoys.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-11-18 16:29|| 2008-11-18 16:29|| Front Page Top

#9 I do not believe the US signed the Law of the Sea treaty.

Posted by Hellfish 2008-11-18 18:04|| 2008-11-18 18:04|| Front Page Top

#10 Wikipedia (for what it's worth) says we signed it but did not ratify it because of some issues with Part XI on mineral rights, but then concludes with:

On May 15, 2007, President Bush announced that he had urged the Senate to approve the UNCLOS.[7] ] On October 31, 2007, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 17-4 to send the treaty to the full U.S. Senate for a vote.[8]

referencing this Reuters link

Posted by mft 2008-11-18 20:19|| 2008-11-18 20:19|| Front Page Top

#11 What NS said, altho that also is a cost, less than the odd ransom?

Posted by .5mt 2008-11-18 22:46|| www.cybernations.net]">[www.cybernations.net] 2008-11-18 22:46|| Front Page Top

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