I'm not condoning it, but after years of violence and starvation, I do understand there are few options left to them. The only way (okay, maybe not the only way, but probably the best way) to stop it is to make more legitimate pursuits available and sustainable.

I agree, as long at the US is not involved in that.

What makes you think these pirates have children?

From some of the pictures I've seen, some of the pirates ARE children.

I agree Merc, that they should consider hiring private security and having machine guns on board. It is not up to the US Navy to act here. Those are private companies, it should be their expense.

This is going to get uglier. The pirates will begin killing hostages...not only those they now have, but in all likelihood the crews of ships they board.

The pirates themselves have opened the door for any and all retaliation by the nature of their acts of piracy. Sad though it will be when they do start indiscriminately killing their hostages and the ship crews, it will then make it possible for the military forces of the world to simply blast these fuckers off the face of the planet, no questions asked.

Once those who take vessels end up dead *and* empty handed, piracy will no longer be quite so attractive.

Like I said, it is sad, but violent people only understand superior force. Sanity, rationality and anything other than violence is taken as a weakness to be exploited. When we talk about how underprivileged they are, we are being humane, but those who are engaged in wanton antisocial and lawless behaviors such as piracy would gladly take our money and our lives if we gave them a sliver of a chance.

I hold my sympathies back for those who aren't trying to steal and kill their ways out of their plights. If some underprivileged thug comes and steals my shit and threatens my family, my response is *not* going to be to go donate to the Save the Thugs fund.

Hmmm, are the shippers, or more accurately their insurance companies, paying ransom to get back their crews or their ships. It's easy to say both, but I wonder if they would still pay with the crew dead?

I think so... business is business. :(

That changes nothing.

I didn't say it did. And I agreed with you.

There was a captain of a ship that had been attacked before on (I believe it was) CNN. He said (I'm paraphrasing) they didn't want to have armed guards on board because they felt it would escalate the situation (and also it is illegal in some countries), and it was more beneficial to just pay the money. So I guess in a sense he was saying paying the money was thought of as a cost of doing business in that part of the world.

Why would they pay if the crew/hostages are dead? If they start killing hostages, then I would think most countries would fight back.

The problem, apparently, is Somalia is ungovernable. In addition, a lot of this money is going to al qaeda. It is an international problem, and there needs to be an international solution.

It's seen that way by the pirates as well, which can lead to a weird sense of entitlement, like with corrupt officials and bribery.And vice versa. I don't think we did anything wrong in this case, but there is good reason to avoid escalation when possible.

U.S. Military Considers Attacks on Somali Pirates’ Land Bases

GREAT. So we are going to have to pay for THIS now too? jezzus. How many countries are we going to spend money on in order to train security forces for them? Does anyone else have the sense that this will eventually come back and bite us on the ass?

We are now a nation of apologists. I fully expect this situation which IS NOT OUR FAULT to be our fault is some effed up convoluted way. THEY chose to hijack our ship, we defended ourselves. Eff them and the dingy they came in on.

BOHICAG

"...Here It Comes Again -- George?"

Actually, America is the one country best situated to do anything at all about making legitimate activities sustainable once again, Merc, and what's more, we're well situated to make piracy nonsurvivable and harrow all the pirate base towns.

Which is what's needed. Eliminate the troublemakers, hire any survivors to fix things back up. In the Somalis' situation, which is very bad, the one tool that will answer is a two-by-four, both applied to the troublemakers' skulls, and used to frame windows in new houses to replace what's been blown flat.

The recent coup by the SEAL shooters is a great success of the "big dick" approach that tw can't bring himself to properly spell, and which is such an improvement over the emasculated counsel he usually proffers. Billions for cleanout, not another .01 Euro for ransoms. A pirate suddenly deprived of his head is a pirate suddenly improved. A good pirate is a pirate messily split in two, horizontal or vertical dealer's choice, and his boat left in a sinking condition.