The Blog of Record

This would do more to stop piracy than anything all the governments in the world are now doing:

We sail up and down the coast of Somalia waiting to get hijacked by pirates. We encourage you to bring your ‘High powered weapons’ along on the cruise. If you don’t have weapons of your own, you can rent them on the boat.

Cabin space is limited so respond quickly. Reserve your package before June 29 and get 100 rounds of free tracer ammo in the caliber of your choice.

We guarantee that you will experience at least two hijacking attempts by pirates or we will refund half your money back, including gun rental charges and any unused ammo (mini gun charges not included). How can we guarantee you will experience a hijacking? We operate at 5 knots within 12 miles of the coast of Somalia. If an attempted hijacking does not occur, we will turn the boat around and cruise by at 4 knots. We will repeat this for up to 8 days making three passes a day along the entire length of Somalia. At night the boat is fully lit and bottle rockets are shot off at intervals and loud disco music beamed shore side to attract attention.

Testimonials:

“I got three confirmed kills on my last trip. I’ll never hunt big game in Africa again. I felt like the Komandant in Schindlers list!” — Lars, Hamburg Germany

“Six attacks in 4 days was more than I expected. I bagged three pirates and my 12yr old son sank two rowboats with the minigun. PIRATES: 0 – PASSENGERS: 32! Well worth the trip. Just make sure your spotter speaks English” — Donald, Salt Lake city Utah USA

“I haven’t had this much fun since flying choppers in NAM . Don’t worry about getting shot by pirates as they never even got close to the ship with those weapons they use and their shitty aim–reminds me of a drunken’juicer’ door gunner we picked up from the motor pool back in Nam” — ‘chopper’ Dan, Toledo USA.

“Like ducks in a barrel. They turned the ship around and we saw them cry in the water like little girls. Saw one wounded pirate eaten by sharks–what a laugh riot! This is a must do.” — Zeke, Springs Kentucky USA

Too bad they don’t seem to have any contact information.

You kind of knew it was coming:

A crew member on a U.S.-flagged cargo ship captured by pirates off the coast of Somalia is suing his employers, claiming they sent him into pirate-infested waters without adequate protection, his attorney said Monday.

Richard Hicks of Royal Palm Beach, Florida, a crew member on the Maersk Alabama, was set to file suit Monday against Waterman Steamship Corp. and Maersk Line Limited, according to the attorney, Terry Bryant.

Hicks, working as chief steward and preparing food for other crew members, heard over the loudspeaker that pirates were on board, and he and other crew members gathered in the ship’s engine room for nearly 12 hours, Bryant said in a news release.

“The engine room was dark and hot, maybe 130 degrees,” Hicks said in the news release. “We were all cramping up with heat stroke symptoms when we were able to take a pirate hostage and tried to negotiate the return of our captain.”

I’d be surprised if he was among those who took that pirate hostage.

When you saw images of the Maersk Alabama crew celebrating the news of  their captain’s rescue, you might as well have wondered, “Which of them will be the first to sue – or will it be a class action?”

Well, this one:

(AP Photo/David J. Phillip.)

I think this is how people – including outlaws – naturally organize when there is no government ruling over them:

18th-century pirate constitutions established democratic governance for their roguish commonwealths. Crewmembers elected their captains by popular vote and democratically removed captains who dared to misuse their power. Because of this surprising system, far from tyrannical, the average 18th-century pirate captain was a dutiful, elected executor of his constituents’ will.

Historical pirates understood what James Madison pointed out in the Federalist Papers—that the most important check on leaders’ use of power is society’s ability to select them. But they recognized this, and implemented it, more than half a century before Madison put pen to paper.

It may be interesting to study social organization in the Somali pirate towns – before destroying them, of course.

(Via Prof. Greg Mankiw.)

Barack Obama has just become the fourth president who has had to deal with a hijacking of an American ship at sea. Will he act like LBJ – or like Ford and Reagan? And what will he do about the Somali piracy problem after the Maersk Alabama crisis is over? Putin, the mullahs in Tehran and the only fat man in North Korea have a great opportunity to see what America’s new president is worth.

The pirates took a bulk carrier named the Malaspina Castle and stand to get a good ransom. I guess the slippery foam dispensers and infrasound guns to make the pirates soil their pants didn’t work as advertised, uh?

For the Marines guarding pirates aboard the Navy’s only pirate brig, it must feel like a nice break from their usual duty.

The Invisible Hook: Why pirates treat their captives well.

Newsweek has a very interesting interview with the leader of the pirates who hijacked the MV Faina, full of tanks, and the Sirius Star, full of oil. Of course, he blames “the superpowers” for leaving young Somalis no choice but to become pirates, but later he offers a view into their real motives. No surprise here:

Luxury yachts are what we are looking for, because what we need is money, and if we get a luxury yacht, we make a fortune.

“Why do you rob banks?” – “Because that’s where the money is.”

The pirates couldn’t get to the crew to take them hostage, because the sailors had barricaded themselves inside their living quarters. That’s why navy helicopters were able to fire on the pirates and force them to flee the ship. Usually, though, boarding a vessel is enough for pirates to hijack it even if it’s surrounded by navy ships and helicopters, because the defenseless crew become hostages.

And, of course, the “international anti-piracy force” stopped shooting when the pirates abandoned the ship and let them sale off in their boats. This is the 21st century, after all. We can’t just shoot pirates caught in the act of hijacking a ship. They have rights, you know.

Cruise ship operators have found a golden middle between sending their ships around the southern tip of Africa to avoid the Gulf of Aden, and having to protect the ships from pirates: evacuating the passengers before entering pirate waters.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of trust in NATO’s “anti-piracy patrols” off the Somali coast on the part of ship owners. Maybe they should start asking why they are paying taxes to governments that don’t want to perform their duty to ensure safe seas.

Only in the New Yourk Times: Let’s install in Somalia an Islamist government consisting of al-Qaeda allies, because they are the only guys brutal enough to stop the piracy!

If the Islamists were permitted to form a viable, functioning and effective government, this shattered land might be able to return to the community of nations – and supertankers will be able to deliver oil to the United States without fear of getting hijacked. 

Sure – lets give al-Qaeda an entire country to play with AND control over the most important shipping route in the world! These guys can’t be worse than the pirates, can they?

The mega-brain behind this intellectual jewel also blames America for the Somali piracy. You just can’t make this stuff up.

(Via The American Thinker.)

But only because their boats were not fast enough.

What happens when the pirates get speedier boats? They are flush with ransom money, and as soon as they realize the speed of their boats is holding them back, they’ll buy faster ones – it’s business investment for them.

How much worse will the situation have to become before the world does something to root out Somali piracy? When you’re diagnosed with cancer, you don’t wait for it to become worse before you start dealing with it.

HS Daily Wire has a list of piracy countermeasures available to the shipping industry, and the industry is bending over backwards not to hurt the pirates. There’s no mention of guns or killing the pirates. Instead, here are some of the solutions being offered:

• An “acoustic barrier” created by powerful loudspeakers that emit a disorienting, high-frequency blast.
• Pepper sprays, slippery foam dispensers, or glue guns that shoot a giant glob of sticky goo at intruders (all these are ideas suggested by Dutch military research organization TNO).
• Infrasound — low-frequency noise that is claimed to induce involuntary bowel movements.

Fighting pirates by trying to induce involuntary bowel movements – you can’t make this stuff up. And, sadly, you don’t have to.

(Via Link Collection.)

RedState:

Until the countries targeted by these pirates decide to respond decisively and stop the analysis paralysis, the problem will continue. How long will it take for these nations to figure out that terrorists do not understand diplomacy and do not care about laws? They understand but one thing – violence and force. And this is what needs to be applied. Deadly force. Send in air power. Sink every one of these Captain Jack Sparrow pretenders. No mercy. There should be no concern about what Somalia thinks. This is not a time to be worried about the sensitivities of the country who has permitted this to occur.

Like I wrote last week, killing the scum and destroying their bases is the only sensible thing to do, regardless of Somalia’s sovereignty.

The Times reports:

Pirates caught redhanded by one of Her Majesty’s warships after trying to hijack a cargo ship off Somalia made the grave mistake of opening fire on two Royal Navy assault craft packed with commandos armed with machineguns and SA80 rifles.

In the ensuing gunfight, two Somali pirates in a Yemeni-registered fishing dhow were killed, and a third pirate, believed to be a Yemeni, suffered injuries and subsequently died.

The Associated Press tells us that Russian forces took part in the action, but the Times says the Royal Navy knows nothing about it. The AP also has no idea that shots were fired and pirates were killed, nor does it know where exactly the “Russian-British” action took place. The whole AP story reads like it was sponsored by the Kremlin’s PR department.

Killing the pirates seems to be the only sensible thing to do about them. You do it a few times, and the rest of them will start looking for a safer line of work. 

If, however, the countries whose ships are being hijacked want to end Somali piracy once and for all, they have to destroy the pirates’ bases, regardless of the Somali Democratic Republic’s sovereignty. Towns like Eyl cannot be allowed to exist.

UPDATE: “They wed the most beautiful girls; they are building big houses; they have new cars; new guns”.