04-13-2009, 11:40 PM | #121 | |
Franklin Pierce
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The reality of humanitarian aid actually working and whether it should be used is another story.
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04-14-2009, 12:36 AM | #122 |
The future is unwritten
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Mine the path.
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04-14-2009, 07:36 AM | #123 |
Slattern of the Swail
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gah! I can't find today's article from (/coughdouchecough/) Gwynne Dyer, but he feels it is the US's responsibility (perhaps along with France and India or other similar nations who "show some backbone") to keep the Somali waters free of pirates. He feels, after all, the US is the nation that spawned them in the first place (ah, yes...this is starting to feel familiar...)
I wish I could find the article - it's not on his site yet and my daily paper site isn't co-operating...but the gist is, the US should do it. This attitude is simply toooo rich coming from Dr. Dyer. He is the very definition of the Ugly European: He wants the US to leave everything alone and take it on the chin until the pirates start coming home to roost and bother the international community...then we're supposed to take on the world and be Police...but not one second before Gwynne Dyer tells us to.
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In Barrie's play and novel, the roles of fairies are brief: they are allies to the Lost Boys, the source of fairy dust and ...They are portrayed as dangerous, whimsical and extremely clever but quite hedonistic. "Shall I give you a kiss?" Peter asked and, jerking an acorn button off his coat, solemnly presented it to her. —James Barrie Wimminfolk they be tricksy. - ZenGum |
04-14-2009, 07:49 AM | #124 | |
barely disguised asshole, keeper of all that is holy.
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I agree - Other Nations seem to want the U.S. out of their business till the proverbial "shit hits the fan" then they want us to come and clean up the mess.
Unfortunately .... Quote:
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04-14-2009, 07:52 AM | #125 | ||
barely disguised asshole, keeper of all that is holy.
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Quote:
Quote:
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04-14-2009, 09:00 AM | #126 | |
still says videotape
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Did you know that other nations try to work in their own best interest as well? Did you know that our best interest sometimes works against theirs? Did you know that sometimes we screw up and work against our own best interests? Something you should know. The bottom line is still the same, the shippers should arm themselves.
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04-14-2009, 09:06 AM | #127 |
barely disguised asshole, keeper of all that is holy.
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Yes Griff, thanks for that. The shippers cannot arm themselves because if they do they cannot dock in ports. Therefore, an alternative still needs to be formulated. Any ideas on that? I do not think we should bear the main burden of policing this area.
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04-14-2009, 09:46 AM | #128 |
still says videotape
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Private security can be off-loaded before docking or encroaching on territorial waters. Like you, I think the actual customers should pay for security. If a country won't adjust its laws for armed ships then it should pay a premium for shipping.
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If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you. - Louis D. Brandeis |
04-14-2009, 10:23 AM | #129 |
barely disguised asshole, keeper of all that is holy.
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That would work for me too. It was discounted though. The other option would be to have a smaller "security support" ship available. That too was rejected.
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04-14-2009, 10:34 AM | #130 |
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I think it's one of those things where nobody is going to do anything about the problem until they have to. The percentage of ships who make it through unscathed is still high enough that the shipping and insurance companies consider the few who get seized to be the cost of doing business. With this recent US military intervention (which I support) I predict things will escalate and that will force the issue to be resolved. Either by the military or by the private sector. I think I'd prefer to see a private sector solution to this.
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04-16-2009, 12:41 AM | #131 | |
Professor
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04-16-2009, 02:02 AM | #132 |
The future is unwritten
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Because Somalia is the armpit of the world and that, like everything else that's wrong in the world, is definitely our fault.
Now sit... stay... look ashamed.
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04-16-2009, 04:55 AM | #133 |
Slattern of the Swail
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@ sugarpop, according to Dyer, we destabilized the country by encouraging Ethiopia to invade (? I am recalling the article here) (and as you know, countries do NOT invade other countries unless the US tells them to) so, voila, the destabliziation is our fault, the pirates are our fault and we probably made your quiche fall in the oven. And your cows give bad milk. And the moon turn to blood. You know the drill.
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In Barrie's play and novel, the roles of fairies are brief: they are allies to the Lost Boys, the source of fairy dust and ...They are portrayed as dangerous, whimsical and extremely clever but quite hedonistic. "Shall I give you a kiss?" Peter asked and, jerking an acorn button off his coat, solemnly presented it to her. —James Barrie Wimminfolk they be tricksy. - ZenGum |
04-16-2009, 05:01 AM | #134 |
Slattern of the Swail
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Here's the part of the article I was referring to:
"The world has consistently failed Somalia for almost two decades while it has languished in violent anarchy. The United States bears a special responsibility, because it was behind the 2007 Ethiopian invasion that destroyed the country’s best chance of stabilizing itself since the collapse in 1991. But letting the piracy continue doesn’t help Somalia in any way, so the U.S. Navy might as well get on with the job of suppressing it. Is this actually going to happen? It could, and it should, but it remains to be seen if it will." Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist. E-mail address: 76312.1476@compuserve.com.
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In Barrie's play and novel, the roles of fairies are brief: they are allies to the Lost Boys, the source of fairy dust and ...They are portrayed as dangerous, whimsical and extremely clever but quite hedonistic. "Shall I give you a kiss?" Peter asked and, jerking an acorn button off his coat, solemnly presented it to her. —James Barrie Wimminfolk they be tricksy. - ZenGum |
04-16-2009, 05:06 AM | #135 |
Slattern of the Swail
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Entire article here:
The U.S. Navy has more than half the major warships in the world, and there is a pirate threat off the Somali coast. Now that the Navy has killed three of those pirates in order to free Richard Phillips, the kidnapped captain of an American ship, these two facts are coming together in a promising way. Just to utter that phrase — “a pirate threat off the Somali coast” — is to plumb the depths of absurdity. What combination of incompetence and cowardice could have allowed piracy to become a threat to a major shipping route in the early 21st century? What are all those warships with their guns and missiles and radars and helicopters actually for? So the abortive Somali attack on the U.S.-registered ship Maersk Alabama last week may have a silver lining. It may get the U.S. Navy to take over the job of fighting the pirates. The biggest problem other navies have faced in dealing with the pirates is the pitiful state of current international law. The old rules on piracy were simple: pirates were the “enemies of all mankind,” and there was a right of “universal jurisdiction” against them. Any country could arrest pirates from anywhere, regardless of nationality, and try them for their crimes. If they were captured in battle, they were even liable to summary execution. The new rules, as defined by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, require a warship to send a boarding party led by an officer onto any suspected pirate vessel to confirm its criminal intent. Until that has been done, the warship may not open fire. It is unlikely that the lawyers consulted with practical seamen before they wrote this clause. But the United States has not ratified the Law of the Sea convention. This was not foresight, just the Senate’s customary reluctance to ratify any treaty that limits U.S. freedom of action in any way, but it is useful in this case. Normally, the U.S. government acts as if it were bound by international treaties that it has signed even when the Senate is being obstinate, but it doesn’t actually have to. So the U.S. Navy, perhaps acting in cooperation with the French and Indian navies and anybody else who has a bit of backbone, could be deployed to deal with the pirates. For a start, they could declare an exclusion zone beginning 12 nautical miles off the Somali coast that can only be traversed by vessels that have been cleared by U.S. naval authorities. All legitimate commercial ships and pleasure-craft would be waved through automatically; all other vessels in the zone would be sunk without warning. There would still be a need for warships scattered throughout the zone to deal with pirates that slipped across the 12-mile line, but this sort of exclusion zone would allow most of the naval forces to concentrate on containing them within Somalia’s territorial waters. Would enforcing the exclusion zone mean that some of the pirates get killed? Yes, of course, but there was a reason why pirates were defined as “enemies of all mankind.” The sea is an alien environment, a place where people die very quickly if things go wrong. Those who prey on other people in this environment have very little call on our sympathy. Would the dead also include a few Somali fishermen who enter the exclusion zone by accident or in desperation? Probably. You try to avoid it, but some innocent people almost always die when you use military force. So let the fishermen put pressure on the local warlords to end their collusion with the pirates. It is not everybody else’s duty to put up with piracy so that Somalis can go on fishing. The world has consistently failed Somalia for almost two decades while it has languished in violent anarchy. The United States bears a special responsibility, because it was behind the 2007 Ethiopian invasion that destroyed the country’s best chance of stabilizing itself since the collapse in 1991. But letting the piracy continue doesn’t help Somalia in any way, so the U.S. Navy might as well get on with the job of suppressing it. Is this actually going to happen? It could, and it should, but it remains to be seen if it will. IMHO, Dr. Dyer would be the first to decry any loss of innocent life in the practice of the US patrolling the pirate-sea. He is so obvious I don't know why I even read his drivel. Old habits die hard, I guess. He states that it is "not everybody else's duty to put up with piracy" but infers that it is the US's duty to put it down. Then we pay, in blood and money, and the world benefits. Nothing really new there.
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In Barrie's play and novel, the roles of fairies are brief: they are allies to the Lost Boys, the source of fairy dust and ...They are portrayed as dangerous, whimsical and extremely clever but quite hedonistic. "Shall I give you a kiss?" Peter asked and, jerking an acorn button off his coat, solemnly presented it to her. —James Barrie Wimminfolk they be tricksy. - ZenGum |
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