OT In defense of pirates ...

On Apr 13, 4:03*pm, Dave LaCourse wrote:
On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:22:06 -0700 (PDT), DaveS
wrote:

baited breath

Baited breath? *Yuck! *That can't be good for you.

d;o)

Ya its a great ting. Dey going to serve de herring und de lutefisk in
dem school lunch program here. Did I tell you de one bout Evil
Torkelson yumping hes rototiller over 6 barrels of dat lutefisk? Two
of de barrels is going to de boys on de USS Bainbridge and de others
are saving for der Bin laudins funeral. Ya you betcha.
Dave

DaveS wrote:
On Apr 13, 2:51 pm, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:
DaveS wrote:
Ken Fortenberry wrote:
Another side of the story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann...-lied-to-abo_b...
I am not sympathetic. They grab our merchant ships, we should kill em
whenever we can.
Hell yeah, kill all those cowardly mother****ers. I mean what a bunch
of worthless girly men. The Japs come in with their trawlers and take
all their fish illegally and what do those wimps do ? Nada. Not a
goddamn thing. If they had any balls at all they'd build a long range
bomber and an atomic bomb and nuke hell out of the ****in' Japs like
real men. Hell, that's what *we* did and what's good enough for 'Murica
is good enough for those Somali *******s.

--
Ken Fortenberry


There have been lots of mistakes in Somalia. The USAs most recent
mistake was to pay the Ethiopians to invade and take down the emerging
"Islamic Courts" government (using the term loosely) because we were
backing another bunch of clowns further north who had no base of armed
support. If we would have just let things happen we could have
negotiated/bribed the Islamic Courts into taking out the pirates who
were a minor nuisance at the time, and aided them in remounting a
coast guard and fishing zone protection operation.

The "pirates" are still a minor nuisance. It's only American hubris
and American macho swaggering that elevated the targeting of an
American cargo ship to a national security issue. Most reasonable
folks agree that so long as the pirates don't harm anyone, and they
haven't, it's just good sense to pay the pittance and move along.

Unfortunately that option was not taken by the Bushies so we are where
we are, and that is what we have to work with. It's just plain
unacceptable to let the pirates stand in the way of all the food aid
operations in East Africa. ...

Give me a break. The "pirates", one of whom was all of 16 years old,
had no idea what was on the cargo ship or under what flag it was flying.

Is there more than a bit of hypocracy going
on in regards to ripping off the fish? Ya You Betcha. And its not just
the Japanese (easy with the J_p stuff please. I am a member of the
JACL, and we just dedicated the internment memorial here). It is also
the Spanish and those pirate fishing/whaling operations typically
bankrolled with Norwegian money

Yeah well, **** the Japs and the Spanish and the Norwegians and the
Italian mafia too. The point being killing all Somalis whenever we have
the chance isn't going to solve the underlying problem.

Whats new. It also bugs me that all the cell phones used on the planet
use minerals/metals mined and marketed thru warlords who have turned
the Eastern Congo into the worlds worst blood bath and slave state for
the last 10 years. Hello Nokia, Apple etc, etc etc. They all are doing
business with zip degrees of separation from some of the worst
*******s on the planet. I am waiting for the indignation, protests,
and boycotts to start in the tech community with baited breath. I
don't hear anything from Libs or Wingnuts on this outrage.

Yeah well, start a new thread about US subsidized warlords in the Congo.
This thread is about Somalia.

--
Ken Fortenberry

On Apr 13, 4:48*pm, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:
DaveS wrote:
On Apr 13, 2:51 pm, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:
DaveS wrote:
Ken Fortenberry wrote:
Another side of the story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann...-lied-to-abo_b....
I am not sympathetic. They grab our merchant ships, we should kill em
whenever we can.
Hell yeah, kill all those cowardly mother****ers. I mean what a bunch
of worthless girly men. The Japs come in with their trawlers and take
all their fish illegally and what do those wimps do ? Nada. Not a
goddamn thing. If they had any balls at all they'd build a long range
bomber and an atomic bomb and nuke hell out of the ****in' Japs like
real men. Hell, that's what *we* did and what's good enough for 'Murica
is good enough for those Somali *******s.

--
Ken Fortenberry

There have been lots of mistakes in Somalia. The USAs most recent
mistake was to pay the Ethiopians to invade and take down the emerging
"Islamic Courts" government (using the term loosely) because we were
backing another bunch of clowns further north who had no base of armed
support. If we would have just let things happen we could have
negotiated/bribed the Islamic Courts into taking out the pirates who
were a minor nuisance at the time, and aided them in remounting a
coast guard and fishing zone protection operation.

The "pirates" are still a minor nuisance. It's only American hubris
and American macho swaggering that elevated the targeting of an
American cargo ship to a national security issue. Most reasonable
folks agree that so long as the pirates don't harm anyone, and they
haven't, it's just good sense to pay the pittance and move along.

Unfortunately that option was not taken by the Bushies so we are where
we are, and that is what we have to work with. It's just plain
unacceptable to let the pirates stand in the way of all the food aid
operations in East Africa. ...

Give me a break. The "pirates", one of whom was all of 16 years old,
had no idea what was on the cargo ship or under what flag it was flying.

Is there more than a bit of hypocracy going
on in regards to ripping off the fish? Ya You Betcha. And its not just
the Japanese (easy with the J_p stuff please. I am a member of the
JACL, and we just dedicated the internment memorial here). It is also
the Spanish and those pirate fishing/whaling operations typically
bankrolled with Norwegian money

Yeah well, **** the Japs and the Spanish and the Norwegians and the
Italian mafia too. The point being killing all Somalis whenever we have
the chance isn't going to solve the underlying problem.

Whats new. It also bugs me that all the cell phones used on the planet
use minerals/metals mined and marketed thru warlords who have turned
the Eastern Congo into the worlds worst blood bath and slave state for
the last 10 years. Hello Nokia, Apple etc, etc etc. They all are doing
business with zip degrees of separation from some of the worst
*******s on the planet. I am waiting for the indignation, protests,
and boycotts to start in the tech community with baited breath. I
don't hear anything from Libs or Wingnuts on this outrage.

Yeah well, start a new thread about US subsidized warlords in the Congo.
This thread is about Somalia.

--
Ken Fortenberry- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Well first I don't think I implied we should kill all Somalis, but I
have no problem with going after those that would kill our citizens
and attack our civilian merchant marine. Our right to that reaction is
basic to our sovereignty as a nation. Obama was briefed something like
17 times on the situation, and authorized use of force to free the
American twice. The Somali "Elders" we were negotiating with were not
into releasing the Captain or turning over the kidnappers for law
enforcement type action in Kenya, and the captors had already shot at
the captain once.. You do know that the Indian, French and one other
Navy has already had armed run-ins with these folks before, right? One
hostage was killed recently.

And second, on the Congo thing, maybe you are right.

Dave
Hang in there.

Caca snipped.

Arm every merchant vessel with a 50 cal. machine gun along with a
qualified gunner. When the pirates come into the effective range of
that .50 (about 2000 yards), a short burst should easily dissuade
anyone from being a threat. You could also have another gunner with a
50 cal M107 (probably what the Seals used in rescuing our captain).
If they insist, the gunner could cut the small craft in half with such
a weapon and the M107 gunner could pick and choose the threats. Works
for me. Leave the ships alone and the pirates can live as long as
they want. Really simple when you think about it.

And, there are plenty of mercenaries world-wide that would/could do
the job.

Dave

On Apr 13, 5:43*pm, Dave LaCourse wrote:
Caca snipped.

Arm every merchant vessel with a 50 cal. machine gun along with a
qualified gunner. *When the pirates come into the effective range of
that .50 (about 2000 yards), a short burst should easily dissuade
anyone from being a threat. *You could also have another gunner with a
50 cal M107 (probably what the Seals used in rescuing our captain).
If they insist, the gunner could cut the small craft in half with such
a weapon and the M107 gunner could pick and choose the threats. *Works
for me. *Leave the ships alone and the pirates can live as long as
they want. *Really simple when you think about it.

And, there are plenty of mercenaries world-wide that would/could do
the job. *

Dave

Dave,
Given that ~ 20,000 ships annually pass through those waters and the
pirates only got 111 ships last year (70 some so far this year), the
economic costs (let alone the legal, moral, safety - if an oil
tanker- and other considerations) of providing trained armed security
and weaponry (at least 3 expensive - probably need 6 for very large
ships - trained extra crew members + night vision goggles + the
weapons themselves) for every ship plying those waters would exceed
the money paid out in ransom. The piracy needs to be stopped but
there are probably better ways to do it.

Ken,
As valid as the grievances that the Somalis have are, they cannot
justify outright theft and extortion. When they travel 200 and more
miles from their coast just to seek out their prey of merchant ships
for the lucrative returns they provide, they cannot claim that they
are protecting the integrity of their country or doing it because they
are hungry. Reports I have read say that many of the pirates are
building villas and buying luxury cars with the income from their
piracy. If true, and I have little reason to doubt the reports,
that's greed not hunger. BTW although the Somalian piracy is in the
news - the problem is almost as bad around in the Malacca straits and
other restricted waterways in SE Asia.

Bob Weinberger

Bob Weinberger

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:30:00 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Apr 13, 5:43*pm, Dave LaCourse wrote:
Caca snipped.

Arm every merchant vessel with a 50 cal. machine gun along with a
qualified gunner. *When the pirates come into the effective range of
that .50 (about 2000 yards), a short burst should easily dissuade
anyone from being a threat. *You could also have another gunner with a
50 cal M107 (probably what the Seals used in rescuing our captain).
If they insist, the gunner could cut the small craft in half with such
a weapon and the M107 gunner could pick and choose the threats. *Works
for me. *Leave the ships alone and the pirates can live as long as
they want. *Really simple when you think about it.

And, there are plenty of mercenaries world-wide that would/could do
the job. *

Dave

Dave,
Given that ~ 20,000 ships annually pass through those waters and the
pirates only got 111 ships last year

snippage

Aw, come on, Bob. I was all ready to have some good fun with the
sexual intellect, and you bud in and spoil it. Shooooooot!

Dave

Arm every merchant vessel with a 50 cal. machine gun along with a
qualified gunner. *Dave

I guess you can argue anything......but the Somali pirates are pirates
and I am sure not taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Wrong
is wrong.

Have to agree with Dave. Quite inexpensive given the alternative.

Man's a sorry lot...

Guy

wrote:
...
Ken,
As valid as the grievances that the Somalis have are, they cannot
justify outright theft and extortion. When they travel 200 and more
miles from their coast just to seek out their prey of merchant ships
for the lucrative returns they provide, they cannot claim that they
are protecting the integrity of their country or doing it because they
are hungry. Reports I have read say that many of the pirates are
building villas and buying luxury cars with the income from their
piracy. If true, and I have little reason to doubt the reports,
that's greed not hunger. BTW although the Somalian piracy is in the
news - the problem is almost as bad around in the Malacca straits and
other restricted waterways in SE Asia.

There's no doubt that what was once desperation is now calculated
piracy but everything I've read about Somali piracy leads me to
believe that the guys building villas never leave the shore. The
teenagers making the acrobatic climbs onto moving ships are not
in the market for Porsches, they're just looking to survive.

--
Ken Fortenberry

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:13:16 -0700, "asadi"
wrote:

Maybe I have lost focus here....but these people are dirt floor poor, okay?

I did have have hopes that the Navy opened up with one of those mini-guns
where their tracers look like a torch light, but my greatest kick was
hearing the news media trying to dramatize this event by saying it was long
range sniper fire at 35 meters!

****, those boys can put a knife in your eye at that distance...hell, my
greatest fear is getting belligerant drunk and ****in' off a seal.

But back to the dirt floor poor, I wonder how many people here have ever
seen dirt floor poor....seen the people sorting through the garbage from a
US base just to get food....or seen a village downstream from where Vectren
was spraying Agent Orange to eradicate a cocoa crop. I have.

Hey, Africa is a **** hole and it's going to be a **** hole for years to
come....it takes an iron fisted tyrant like Sadam to create any sense of
stability....

No food, no water, no fish...Sorry boys, but if it was me and mine or
yours.....I'd steal from you to feed mine.

....and those 'pirates' well, google it up and tell me if they ever robbed
and raped tourists....molested the crew and stole the crew's
possesioins....or was it only holding the tanker so that the 'nameless' big
corporations would pay and not the family of the little man....

Ken, damned good link but I think maybe a little too much for some of the
little people here....you have to educate them little by little...

I don't stand, I beg to be corrected...

FWIW, it reminds me of a guy who gets caught robbing a jewelry store and claims
he did it to feed his family...if he had been caught breaking into a grocery
store, it might be a little easier to consider mitigating circumstances, if for
no other reason, it's the difference between armed robbery and simply burglary,
if you will. Moreover, if their demands were for food and medicine, or the
wanted international media coverage to shine a light on the alleged problem,
that too would tend to lend credence to the whole "po' folks trying to survive"
thing.

While no one, myself included, can say what motivates every single one of these
folks, I'd offer that given what goes on in many Somali camps mesh with
seemingly objective reports from many of these "pirates" camps - at least a
large portion of these pirates are in it for monetary gain well beyond feeding
staving families and they aren't sharing with those in need. But the simple
fact is that while one might favor the aforementioned mitigation in the case of
the starving trying to survive, if society allows lawlessness, lawlessness will
prevail.

IMO, poor starving fishermen from such a background don't resort to using
automatic weapons and RPGs to hold hostages. They, well, they pick through the
garbage at a base or similar - IOW, the desperate things honest people do are
just different from the things dishonest people do, and given what you've seen,
I'd guess that you've seen that, too.

TC,
R


....and on an off topic NOTE, the spring rains are in full tilt and I've
been to the shop getting ready for the sprin run of smallmouth!

john

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:43:14 -0400, Dave LaCourse
wrote:

Caca snipped.

Arm every merchant vessel with a 50 cal. machine gun along with a
qualified gunner. When the pirates come into the effective range of
that .50 (about 2000 yards), a short burst should easily dissuade
anyone from being a threat. You could also have another gunner with a
50 cal M107 (probably what the Seals used in rescuing our captain).
If they insist, the gunner could cut the small craft in half with such
a weapon and the M107 gunner could pick and choose the threats. Works
for me. Leave the ships alone and the pirates can live as long as
they want. Really simple when you think about it.

And, there are plenty of mercenaries world-wide that would/could do
the job.

Perhaps since your stock portfolio is down and you're an old sea dog warrior
with some SuperWaders, maybe you could pick up some coin to help you through
your dotage...

Here's an old seal trick - if you run out of bull-yets...throw your ball at
them...or slap 'em with a mackerel...

HTH,
R

Dave