Pirates 'seize UK yacht couple'

[theartfuldodger]

What is the point these people have not earned the right to live here on this earth and should be returned to dust from where they have came, a bomb is a lot cheaper then wasting all this time and effort for a group who don't get it. Action is needed now, if it were some suffering children the world would be up in arms and action would be taken.

[johnnyandjebus]

And when you are that far down with nothing at all, have a government that is corrupt beyond our worst nightmares, have no food, your family is starving, then you will do anything. When there is no work, no schools, no support, nothing, and your brother says, lets do this thing and we will have a million dollars, then it seems they do it. And when you have absolutely nothing, what is there to loose?

Do I have an answer, nope, sorry. But I will not be sailing in that area either.

Rik

Rik

Words worth remembering when dealing with a host of issues, Iraq, Afghanistan, Native communities here in the great white north etc.

and no, I have no answers either.

John

p.s bombing the **** out of the country will no doubt kill a lot of pirates, along with a lot of innocent people struggling to scrape out an existence. I can't quite get past the idea that the lives of innocent people in Somalia are worth just about as much as mine.
Bombing the country makes about as much sense to me as bombing my neighborhood because of the drug dealer living down the street...

And yes there will be people who will miss them, their children who quite possibly will grow up with one goal in mind. Throw a bomb back at the people who killed their family.

[Superpickle]

Originally Posted by theartfuldodger

What is the point these people have not earned the right to live here on this earth and should be returned to dust from where they have came, a bomb is a lot cheaper then wasting all this time and effort for a group who don't get it. Action is needed now, if it were some suffering children the world would be up in arms and action would be taken.

Hell, if it were a Suffering CHICKEN, the Do-Gooders would be Marching on the Buckingham palace, Burning cars and Demanding a change.

but, its Only people..

[wind_magic]

Originally Posted by Superpickle

Hell, if it were a Suffering CHICKEN, the Do-Gooders would be Marching on the Buckingham palace, Burning cars and Demanding a change.

but, its Only people..

Haven't you heard, people are the problem, we're the ones destroying the environment, that's what they say - few less people means less carbon footprint, or whatever.

[sck5]

well, it sure as hell isnt chickens stealing boats and kidnapping people off the somali coast. I dont think bombing the country will do anything at all to stop the problem. Blockading them and refusing to allow any boats at all to pass the 12 mile line would solve the problem. That would cause some hardship for fishermen but that is the price they would pay for harboring pirates.

It wouldnt take long to fix things either. Start intercepting boats, take the crew off, sink them, and return the crew to shore with the message that the same thing will happen to any and all boats that put out of Somalia and go more than 12 miles offshore.

The US Navy was invented in the first place to deal with problems exactly like this one.

[sailingdog]

I don't think that returning the pirates to shore makes any sense... Shooting them is far more efficient and a much greater deterrent.

[Omatako]

With the greatest of respect I need to say that until you have lived in Africa, you will not understand the attitudes that prevail there and they're reasonably consistent all over the continent. It has been manifested in the Congo, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, the list is endless.

Africans have scant regard for human life. They kill at the slightest provocation and often without provocation. The only reason the British couple are still alive is because they represent a possible financial windfall to their captors. Once it becomes evident that the windfall is off the table, those folks are toast.

We should all be able to recall that this whole piracy thing in Somlaia started with the misguided belief that these were fishermen who were doing this as a protest for the multi-nationals fishing the Somalian waters to destruction. Well, by now we should all know that that postulation was a load of bollocks.

These people are and always have been the bottom of the food chain and they do not understand the concept of compassion - they will kill in a heartbeat when they have nothing left to gain from a situation. The reason that 95% of their nation is starving is because they only look after No.1. They don't give a toss about anybody else.

Ask Bob Geldof - he has 74 million reasons to support the above opinion.

[TQA]

The navy ship that witnessed the kidnapping and later recovered the Chandlers yacht has just unloaded it in the UK.

[Superpickle]

Originally Posted by TQA

The navy ship that witnessed the kidnapping and later recovered the Chandlers yacht has just unloaded it in the UK.

Wait just a Flogging minute...


"A Navy ship Wittnessed the Kidnapping " ????

Whos, Navy ???

And , Those scum bags did this Right in FRONT of a NAVY ship

[TQA]

The 100-strong crew of the RFA Wave Knight were under orders not to open fire as Paul and Rachel Chandler, of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, were taken from their yacht for fear that the couple could be executed by the pirates.

With the nearest warship, HMS Cumberland, two hours away, the lightly armed Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship, which was carrying a helicopter crew and 75 merchant seamen, was forced to play a high stakes waiting game, the Royal Navy said.

It is hard to believe but there was an armed UK ship within 50 feet of the kidnap.
More details from the Telegraph newspaer.

Details of the operation were kept secret by the Ministry of Defence until they were disclosed by an anonymous member of the crew who said that they had come within just 50ft of the couple at one point.

A carefully worded official account of the kidnap released last month said only that a Royal Navy vessel had found the couple's yacht empty, without disclosing that the couple were within sight at the time.

There was also no mention of the RFA vessel's involvement leading to reports that HMS Cumberland had found the yacht drifting and abandoned off the coast of Somalia.

A Royal Navy source said that the details had been withheld for reasons of "operational security".

But defending the decision not to open fire, he said: "What you have got is a hostile situation with a bunch of pirates who are clearly unhappy, you have really got to be absolutely sure of what you are doing before you start trying to release hostages because you could end up with the hostages getting killed.

He went on: "What you have got is a small open boat which is crammed full of pirates armed with AK47s and Rocked Propelled Grenades and two middle-aged yachties, all loaded into this small boat which is full of fuel.

"The ship that escorted it was the Wave Knight, that's a Royal Fleet Auxiliary, she has a helicopter and a helicopter crew and some self defence weapons but she doesn't have a crew of snipers.

"There was a very fine line of what they could do to prevent the Chandlers being taken from the yacht to the merchant vessel. "You don't have someone who is competent with a sniper rifle - and this is a very high level of competence – to start slotting pirates."

With HMS Cumberland on its way, he said that the RFA crew continued "playing for time" as long as they could but the pirates were able to escape.

He also suggested that the presence crew may have sped up the kidnap.

"By the time we found the yacht the Chandlers were not actually on board it, they were in the act of being transferred to another pirates vessel," he said.

"When they realised they were about to be bounced they took the Chandlers off the yacht onto a skiff which they had been towing."

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “We made significant effort to find the Lynn Rival and everything possible was done without further endangering the lives of Paul and Rachel Chandler.