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Preemptive Strike

10K views 56 replies 32 participants last post by  peterchech 
#1 ·
NATO Sinks Pirate Mother Ship Off Somalia

(March 1) -- A NATO task force intercepted and sank a pirate mother ship off the Horn of Africa in a pre-emptive bid to disrupt the raiders' attacks on merchant ships ahead of peak piracy season.

An assault team from the Danish destroyer HDMS Absalon, the NATO force flagship, boarded and then scuttled the large open boat after it left a well-known pirate camp in eastern Somalia, the alliance announced Monday. Without that ship, which served as a floating dock and supply depot to smaller and faster attack vessels, the pirates are expected to have a harder time waging successful assaults.

The scuttled boat, loaded with what NATO described as pirate equipment and supplies, was heading to offshore hunting areas on Sunday at the outset of what has in recent years been the most lucrative season for pirates operating in the region. With the northeasterly monsoons coming to an end, the wind and sea conditions for March, April and May are favorable for piracy in waters that carry a substantial amount of the world's seaborne trade among the Middle East, India, Eastern Asia, Europe and Africa.

"Disrupting the pirates' capability just off their main pirate camps sends a strong signal to the pirates that NATO and the international community do not tolerate their actions," said Danish Commodore Christian Rune, the mission commander. "Disposing of their vessels before they can head to sea hits the pirates before they can present a threat to merchant shipping."

The Absalon leads Operation Ocean Shield, a three-ship NATO flotilla off Somalia that includes the U.S. Navy's USS Boone and the British Royal Navy's HMS Chatham. American and European Union task forces are on patrol elsewhere in the region to thwart pirates and possibly terrorists who use sea lanes from Pakistan to the Gulf of Aden.

A NATO force from the Danish destroyer HDMS Absalon, shown here, intercepted and sank a pirate mother ship off the Horn of Africa.

Hummm.... Wonder if this approach will produce any effects, years of doing nothing hasn't stopped piracy so maybe doing SOMETHING will help...
 
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#10 ·
The point is that some people killed some other people and now you are saying "score one for the good guys."

I am totally against piracy, and I believe that those pirates got what was coming to them. However, I don't cheer when people die.

Who were the "much better guys" at Hiroshima?

I am not comparing this event to Hiroshima, they are totally different. I am trying to illustrate that killing fellow humans is never good. When you tread on the safety of others by being a pirate, you accept death as a possible fate. I still think killing people is wrong, and so is scuttling ships.

Doesn't it pollute the ocean? Isn't it an irresponsible way to deal with lead, petroleum products, and other chemicals?

Maybe you guys think I am an "enviro-nut" or a "liberal" or whatever.

I would not hesitate to kill pirates. However, I wouldn't celebrate their defeat as they swam helpless in the water, soon to die. Humans.
 
#16 ·
Maybe you guys think I am an "enviro-nut" or a "liberal" or whatever.

Naaahhh!!!!

Really????? Why would you think that? :p

I reckon most folks, maybe even you, would cheer the death of the pirates if it was your boat they took from you.

I know I would - and I would celebrate the anniversary of their death every year from thereon in.
 
#11 ·
I see your point Tager - and I agree with it for the most part. There's nothing good in killing. Ever.

But I don't see in the story above where anybody killed anybody. They boarded a pirate ship and sunk it. That's pretty smart - it pre-empts the killing which will beget more killing.

From that standpoint - the better guys definitely won this one.
 
#12 ·
(If you have ever read John Rawls, think about the Original Position in the context of this debate...)

Here's an alternate standpoint.

Pirates, Warlords and Rogue Fishing Vessels in Somalia's Unruly Seas

"Fishing vessels known to operate off Somalia include the following flags: Belize (either French or Spanish-owned purse seiners operating under flag of convenience to avoid EU regulations); France (purse seiners targeting tuna licensed to the food company Cobrecaf); Honduras (EU purse seiners targeting tuna under flag of convenience); Japan (longliners now operate under licence to the Republic of Somaliland); Kenya (Mombasa-based trawlers); Korea (longliners targeting swordfish seasonally); Pakistan (trawlers, but also targeting shark); Saudi Arabia (trawlers); Spain (purse seiners targeting tuna); Sri Lanka (trawlers, plus longliners targeting shark under licence to the Republic of Somaliland and based at Berbera, Somaliland); Taiwan (longliners targeting swordfish seasonally); and Yemen (trawlers financed by a seafood importer in Bari, Italy). Formerly operated as the Somali national fleet, four Yemeni trawlers and a collector vessel are now based in Aden (see photo)."

Let me say that this is not my standpoint, in fact I agree with you, but I am just attempting to debunk the myth that some killers are better than others. (I am assuming here that they scuttling included captain and crew.)

It doesn't matter if the person who kills you was a good guy or a bad guy, you are still dead.

Lets say you are born poor, Somalian, and in a coastal town. Your father is a fisherman, but the fisheries are gone. This is largely due to illegal fishing by other countries off of the Somalian coast.

Each day he goes out in his small fishing boat, and tries to catch enough to sustain your family. He sees large foreign ships flying false flags and fishing illegally. Within a few years, the fishery is completely depleted, he can't catch any fish. Your family is now completely destitute. There are no social services in your town. There is hardly a government at all. The richest men in town are pirates that steal from foreign vessels off the coast.

You get a fever. You are malnourished, and you need to see a doctor or you will die. Your father comes home one day, he brings food, a doctor, clothing, new bedding, materials to make your life better.

You don't wonder where it came from, but you are happy now that your fever is going away and you are able to eat as much as you want.

The next day your father dies and you are screwed.

So will you hear from your friends that your father was a pirate, and that some good guys on a ship killed him because he was on a boat that committed illegal acts? Will you think to yourself: "Oh, my dad was a bad guy, it's a good thing those good guys killed him!"

I doubt it.

The point is, the Somalians are not just rolling over and letting foreign countries destroy their livelihood. The structural violence that destroyed their fishery is being responded to directly with physical violence. It's not a surprise.

The pirates are being painted by the press as morally bankrupt thieves. I am pretty sure that many of them are bankrupt fishermen.

I don't doubt that many people here, on sailnet, of lighter moral constitution, would resort to the same behavior. If you are so ready to believe that one side or the other is "good" and that their actions are justified, you are just the type of person that could be convinced to become a pirate. Through self serving reasons, you can convince anyone that something is good.

Was the holocaust good?
 
#18 ·
The pirates are being painted by the press as morally bankrupt thieves. I am pretty sure that many of them are bankrupt fishermen.
In the first instance the fellow who wrote the article you posted a link to was exposed to Somalia in 1998. At that time MAYBE the story of fishermen losing their livelyhood had a modicum of validity. 12 years on the rules have changed.

If you have access to it read the article in the March Cruising World written by a person who has had direct contact of the worst kind with these terrorists yu may see that these people are thugs driven by self-interest and nothing more. Not some UN do-gooder who had limited peripheral exposure.

When someone can show me evidence of these pirates taking the money they are stealing from others and applying it for the good of the population of even their village, let alone their country, then I may start to reflect on their methods and maybe I'll even begin to understand why they are picking on folks who have a) nothing to do with the demise of their fishing industry and b) no way of influencing it either way.

Until then, if I were given to religion, I would be praying hard for a very nasty end to each and every one of them.

There is no justification for what they do and every justification for ridding the world of them. Attitudes such as yours that find ways to justify them will not help anyone.
 
#14 ·
The statement then is; you repeat what you sow, and so death is part of it, there is a British couple still being held not to mention others, what say you to them sorry for your luck, I think its time to wake up and deal only in what they understand, bullets are cheap, and a needed thing for our freedom.
 
#15 · (Edited)
Sorry Tager - you're now going down the road of the ends justifying the means. Good luck with that.

I'll just stick with the simple premise that killing is bad - in whatever form it takes. And in this case, good was done by preempting killing by sinking a boat. Your speculation about whether or not dudes were on board is just that from what I can see.
 
#17 ·
In the news here, it said the pirate crew were allowed to return to shore in one of their life boats prior to the scuttling. It doesn't appear anyone was killed. Their offshore base ship was just sunk to hinder future attempts at piracy.
 
#19 ·
Unfortunately, sometimes the killing of other human beings is a necessity. The Somalian pirates are not disgruntled fishermen trying to protect their fishing grounds, though they may have started off that way many years ago. The current crop have proven themselves to be amoral, greedy, and not deserving of any mercy.

IMHO, either you are against terrorists like these pirates or you are tacitly supporting them.
 
#20 ·
At a dinner in NYC in December I listened to a journalist from Somalia who runs the only local news web site in Mogadishu and reports for most of the international press. His discussion focused on the funding of the prirates and the distribution of the ransom money - and the industry that it has evolved into. The pirates get their funding and the majority of their arms from the various Islamic warlords/groups in the country. The ransom proceeds are divided roughly 30% to the warlords/groups, 30% to the local tribal authorities, 30% to the pirate group itself. I would suggest that the average pirate may get funds that might be used for medicine, food and blankets for his family but the "spoils" - according to the Somali reporter - tend to go to 4 Wheel drive vehicles, "fancy women," elaborate houses and the trappings of wealth; not "family value" expenditure.

Do we believe that we should permit individuals to violate international and local laws and customs to feed and clothe their family? Or should we expect, as the the hard life throughout history has shown, some of the disadvantaged can claw their way to a better life without recourse to violence and illegality and some, sadly, can not.

I may be a more attractive catch than a net full of fish, the fisherman's kids may need the proceeds from the theft of my vessel, but I'm not prepared for a world that allows the confiscation of my boat for someone else's benefit.

And as SD notes and the Somali journalist confirms; we are a long way from poor fisherman and a good way to dangerous kleptocracy on an industrial scale.

And the poor British couple are not having a good time of it -
 
#21 ·
I've never understood this whole concept that killing accomplishes nothing. Killing has accomplished a great deal throughout history. There are certainly times when killing someone is justified. If you think that sinking a couple of ships and then escorting the pirates to shore where they will simply regroup and re-arm is a solution to piracy, then I have a bridge to sell you.
 
#28 ·
And digging the Japanese out of the rest of the Pacific and Asia would have cost a lot more than those 1,000,000 Allied casualties. The Japanese Empire was a monster...
 
#30 ·
Well, I know about it from the Korean perspective. Some of my family's friends had relatives that served as "comfort women".
 
#31 ·
We face another Monster much more evil today...with out the luxury of handling it the same way...yet....sometimes there is such a thing as the good old days...Lets hope its not to late when it happens.
 
#33 ·
Well, I would recommend using conventional or FAE-based explosives instead of nuclear ones. :D Other than that minor change, I don't see a problem with handling it the same way. The rest of the world might think that's a bit drastic though. :eek:
 
#35 ·
Just to be clear..I wasn't talking Pirates either....but enough said on that
 
#37 ·
Tager, it would be nice if the world were as Mr. Disney portrayed it, with Bambi and Thumper and the woodland creatures living in peace and harmony....but that just ain't true. Perhaps you should get out your Ouija board and ask Mr. Churchill why you sleep soundly in your bed.
 
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