I agree with that theory, but it will take an awful lot for desperately poor people with that bent to not try it. I long for a world where there's no need to think that THAT is a good idea.
Pirates? Just pay the ransom!
- Thread starter geezer
- Start date
I agree with that theory, but it will take an awful lot for desperately poor people with that bent to not try it. I long for a world where there's no need to think that THAT is a good idea.
shihansmurf
Black Belt
So, you will always go with A, because anything else is macho, internet tough guy talk, blah, blah, blah. Sorry Bill, but yes, they are acting like cowards if they bend over every time the pirates get what they want. Military protection, armed guards, whatever it takes, but the next time the pirates try to board a ship, they should be looking down the barrel of a few guns.
Props to the crew for fighting back during this recent hijacking though. Of course, if you were on the ship, I suppose you'd suggest to fully cooperate, bend over and give the pirates everything they want, right?
Anything but pure capitulation seems to be just internet tough guy talk.
At some point we (and yes I said we, I include myself in that we, given that as a soldier I am likely to be on the actual doing end of this plan) must make a choice to allow evil men to continue to prey upon the weak or to take action to eradicate the danger they pose. Negotiation with these sorts of men will not work. Exterminating them like the predatory filth that they are is the only plan that has any feasible chance of success.
I'm up for giving it a go.
Just my view
Mark
P.S. Besides, once you've shot a pirate the only thing cooler than that is to hunt Ninja. I've got to get one of each of them.
Not a bad idea if that were our area of control... it's not though.
Now if that were going on say in the Carribean or the Gulf of Mexico... Atlantic or Pacific in our sphere of influence, absolutely.
This is another action item on the other side of the world that we don't need to get dragged into if it can be avoided, but the rest of the world is prepared to lube up & accept Naval Pirate love for like a good little *****. It's up to the other countries if they want to keep paying the pimp... We decided we weren't and we didn't.
We can't be the sole police force on the planet. We shouldn't be the sole police force on the planet. We have our own problems that are being over looked because we're too busy taking care of everybody else's problems.
Sure it is. Put US Marines on the US-flagged cargo ships in the area. Shoulder-mounted rockets, mortars, and squad automatic weapons. About a platoon per ship. End of problem.
We don't have to put US Navy ships behind every cargo ship, nor do we have to police the cargo ships of other nations.
We've done this before. When the trains were being robbed of US Mail, we put Marines on them. When pirates were striking US vessels off the Barbary Coast, we put Marines on them.
Put Marines on the cargo vessels, charge back the owners of the cargo vessels for the cost to the DoD, and stop worrying about arming crews or wasting the capability of the US Navy or being the police force for other nations. Just a platoon of Marines per ship and that's that.
Nope... still doesn't address the basic idea of it's not our area of control/influence. Sure it would curtail the problem, but we are playing police force again by proxy.
See that's the whole thing... we took care of ours when if the rest of countries of the world would grow a pair & use them in an appropriate manner, we never would have needed to in the first place. If the countries that do control the area would step up, we wouldn't have to. We shouldn't now as it is.
When were trains being robbed of US mail?
Barbary Coast Pirates... those two "wars" were after years of plunder, kidnapping, selling into slavery by the "pirates" the captured US & Euro citizens. Again, the US lead the way with sailing ships all the way from our shores to deal with something the Euros preferred to pay away. Even then after the end of the 2nd war, Euros still paid them.
Police force by proxy... uncalled for if the nations of the area would take their collective thumbs out of their collective asses & stomp the problem once & for all.
Our area of influence is wherever there are US citizens. Period. If that's "playing police force by proxy" (whatever that means) then fine with me.
There are no countries in that part of the world. Somalia is a failed country, there is no actual 'government' except on paper. The rest of the nations in that area are paper tigers, they got nothing.
http://maps.google.com/maps?source=...152149,46.199616&spn=58.716981,114.169922&z=4
1921, and again in 1926.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E0CE4D8103EEE3ABC4153DFB767838A639EDE
Let others do as they wish. When a pirate sees a US flag on a vessel, they should crap their pants and scurry away, lest their body parts be flung to sharks.
Police force only for our own. I can't control what other nations do with their thumbs, and I don't care what they do. We protect our own, let them look to their own interests. The US national ensign on a vessel should be enough to tell all and sundry that you screw with that vessel at risk of your health, your family's health, hell, everybody who looks like you's health.
That's because there is no one there. Look at a map of Somalia. The coastline extends clear around the corner from Djibouti almost all the way to Mombassa. And that's an area of no government control of any kind, Somalia has no functioning government at all. Nearest neighbors are Kenya and Djibouti, both not known to have big navies, I think.
This is the third world. Poorest of the poor. They still fight wars with machetes, for God's sake. They cannot stop the pirates - even if they wanted to.
I don't propose that we step in and fix things for others. But I do propose we protect our own interests in the area.
We put shotguns on stage coaches when going through Indian Country, we didn't demand that the Cherokee and the Souix step up and protect our convoys passing through. This is no different.
That mentality will end up costing us. We have our own issues to deal with at home. If a US citizen isn't bright enough to heed the State Dept's warnings on foreign travel, well...
Thanks for the map Bill. I'm pretty ok with geography, but considering this is occurring in the Indian ocean & one of the premier players in the area & maintains a large sphere of influence is India, let them step up. They already have once, give them a larger part of the pie of responsibility. Japan has sent ships, turn the loose a little more. They may need the batting practice shortly to ramp up for NK.
Unless we're planning on making the Horn of Africa area a US protectorate, we've got really no dog in that hunt IMHO.
From your link...
This was on US soil... not a foreign country... The Marines were protecting US mail shipments in the US...
They should anyway...
Agreed.
Commercial shipping is hardly the same as gallivanting tourists. However, to the extent that we can do so, it should also be made clear that messing with even one US citizen is a very bad idea. Cost us? Screw that noise. Not responding has already cost us - more.
I don't care if India comes, stays, lays, or prays. We protect US interests wherever they happen to be.
No plans to police the area - just protect US-flagged vessels. Pretty limited role.
Yep. We also sent in the Marines to protect US citizens and interests in places like Panama, Grenada, Haiti, and lots of other places. It's what we do. Let us do our job, which is to break things and kill people, and civilians do their job, which is to carp about how the Marines do their jobs, from the sidelines.
celtic_crippler
Senior Master
Just park an Air Craft Carrier in the area for a while. Naval jets will have little problem reaching ships in need in a short time and can devastate pirate "ships" without much effort.
Commercial shipping is aware of & under the same advisories put out by the State Dept. If their logistics people can't figure it out...
You missed the whole meaning...
We protect our ship... before long our ship will become a small group of a couple of multinational flags... then caravans...
*sigh* Bill... for Christ sake... I'm one of the biggest military supporters out there. You're not getting what I'm saying. So with that done, I'm done with this conversation.
Nope.
The key to the pirate's ability to gain control of these ships is that they appear out of nowhere, they overhaul the cargo vessel, and they use or threaten to use RPGs and machine guns while boarding. US jets cannot detect or engage pirates in small skiffs prior to their being too close to get to in time to stop.
This is pure boarding party repulsion. Classic, and exactly what US Marines were trained for. Close in, short range weapons, and the occasional need for hand-to-hand combat. This is a human problem, not a technology problem.
I've read a couple of pieces recently suggesting WWII-style convoys...I don't know how realistic that is.
A friend of my son is on a Semester at Sea cruise that was re-routed to avoid pirate-infested waters. It's affecting routes already.
Fixing Somalia is the most effective response, but there are no easy ones. These are dirt-poor people in a war-torn land. Doing nothing is risky for some of them too--scaring them isn't as easy as putting a few men with guns on a boat.
A friend of my son is on a Semester at Sea cruise that was re-routed to avoid pirate-infested waters. It's affecting routes already.
Fixing Somalia is the most effective response, but there are no easy ones. These are dirt-poor people in a war-torn land. Doing nothing is risky for some of them too--scaring them isn't as easy as putting a few men with guns on a boat.
I think people are failing to understand the nature of the problem.
WWII convoys were an effective response to attacks on civilian shipping by enemy nations, which could approach and sink ships with impunity if not guarded by ships capable of taking them on face-to-face.
Likewise, those who see this as an impossible-to-guard territory are correct - it is impossible to protect - but there is no need to. The waters off the coast of Somalias are not our concern - only our US-flagged vessels and US citizens are.
Even then, we cannot afford, nor do we have the resources, to put a US Navy ship near enough to every US-flagged cargo vessel to protect them from pirates.
But the pirates have one major advantage which is also their disadvantage. They use tiny craft that are fast. Thus, nearly impossible to detect until they are on their prey. However, their small size limits their ability to do damage. They have RPG's and machine guns. They can damage cargo vessels, but they cannot penetrate a hull or sink same. They can only come up alongside and use firepower to hold the crew back while they board.
Thus, the solution is both inexpensive and high-quality. A contingent of US Marines on every US-flagged vessel, armed with mortars, shoulder-fired rockets, and medium-to-heavy machine guns. They do not have to detect pirates at a distance, nor does a ship in distress have to wait hours for help to arrive. The ship is approached by pirates, and once detected, within minutes the US Marines on board begin targeting them with the goal to sink their vessel. If they fail to do that, then it goes to anti-boarding engagement.
All of these techniques are known well to the US Marines. That is one of their primary missions, and what they were created for in the first place - a Naval infantry to protect ships. Not sailors, but there to protect sailors.
This is not an international incident-making problem. No projecting our authority ashore in foreign lands, no patrolling of waters not our own, no gunboat diplomacy, just protecting our own interests, which every nation in the world recognizes as a sovereign right of nations. Don't approach our boats with bad intent, you don't get engaged and sunk. Simple as that.
There is no need to make this difficult. It's easy, we have the tools, and they're already trained and ready to go. Marines kill pirates. They've been doing it for over 230 years.
We tried to fix Somalia. UN resolutions out the wazoo, it got a bunch of US servicemen killed and their bodies dragged through the streets. No more. Somalia can kiss my smelly crease, it's not happening. I pity the people of Somalia who did not ask to be born into the lawless society they have, but it is 100% their own problem now.
I agree putting marines on the vessels is the best option. It's cheap and seems effective. I don't think you need a whole platoon per ship - maybe a squad at most. Unless pirates start attacking in platoon sized groups instead of 4 or so.
I disagree with the suggestion of invasion, like Rome. We already have 2 land wars to deal with - I can't imagine Somalia would be any easier. I also don't think the cost of a war in lives and treasure are justified against the relatively light costs of piracy.
There was a suggestion by the Somali "government" - "Let us handle it." At first I found that pretty funny, but they point out when they had a functioning government for 6 months (before being ousted by Ethiopian insurgents), piracy was down. Probably because they executed pirates. At least that way, there aren't US/UN lives directly at stake, along with the inevitable backlash against invaders.
So basically aid to the government. They're only revenue is about $2 million from port fees. Compare that to $60 million piracy brings in annually. Think about that - the cost of 1 B-2 bomber is one thousand times more than Somalia's revenue. Less than a penny per year per American would more than double the government's income. That could be spread that through the U.N.
Anyway, just an alternative to invasion.
I disagree with the suggestion of invasion, like Rome. We already have 2 land wars to deal with - I can't imagine Somalia would be any easier. I also don't think the cost of a war in lives and treasure are justified against the relatively light costs of piracy.
There was a suggestion by the Somali "government" - "Let us handle it." At first I found that pretty funny, but they point out when they had a functioning government for 6 months (before being ousted by Ethiopian insurgents), piracy was down. Probably because they executed pirates. At least that way, there aren't US/UN lives directly at stake, along with the inevitable backlash against invaders.
So basically aid to the government. They're only revenue is about $2 million from port fees. Compare that to $60 million piracy brings in annually. Think about that - the cost of 1 B-2 bomber is one thousand times more than Somalia's revenue. Less than a penny per year per American would more than double the government's income. That could be spread that through the U.N.
Anyway, just an alternative to invasion.
You have to understand what Somalia is. There is no government, despite the 'president' saying this or that. There are a hodge-podge collection of warlords and coalitions of warlords, along with an islamic insurgency.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/so.html#Govt
There's no 'there' there.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/so.html#Military
This is the reality of Somalia. They have no military. They have no functioning government, although from time to time a warlord will declare himself president.
Heck, they even had a US Marine who was a warlord there for awhile - might have become president eventually...
http://www.netnomad.com/aydiidyounger.nyt.html
There is no 'Somalia'. It is just a name on a map. People need to stop thinking that there is one that can 'do' anything at all.
A platoon is a lot of troops! But, isn't this a job for a Blackwater-type outfit (or whatever their new name is)? Let private industry pay for it. Give me eight or so ex-Marines, a decent sonar system, and some .50 caliber MGs mounted on each side, and you've got yourself a welcoming party.
The real impediment is that foreign ports don't want armed vessels in their ports any more than we want them in ours. A new agreement is desperately needed--and it may need to allow for a Saudi-flagged ship to pull into the port of NY with RPGs. Is that OK?
Not in the Marine Corps. Four men to a Fire Team, three Fire Teams to a Squad, three Squads to a Platoon. 36 Marines. Each squad gets a Sergeant, and a platoon gets a First Sergeant and a Commanding Officer, so that's 40 men and one officer. You have to have shifts, so three shifts, one squad each shift.
First, there is no such thing as an 'ex-Marine'. We're Marines until they throw dirt on our faces.
Second, private security forces lack the freedom from prosecution / civil liability that the US military does, unless they operate under the aegis of the US military. I would foresee a lawsuit-happy boondoggle.
Third, SONAR? You going after whales? These pirate's boats are not even as tall as the chop in the area. You're not going to pick them up short of visual observation and not at all at night, until they try to drop an RPG onto your deck. They get so close to the cargo vessels because there are not people typically watching out for them - the sailors have work to do.
I'm sure it can be worked out. I have no problem with known Saudi RPG's on ships docked in US ports. I'm sure there are lots of undeclared ones there already - the ones they declare won't cause us any problems.
