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Posted on 02/11/2013 3:14:39 PM PST by shove_it
~snip~PIRATE BUSINESS MODEL FAILING?
Exactly what is behind the fall in Somali piracy is a matter of debate.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the navies patrolling the Indian Ocean say the numbers show they are finally having an impact. Since piracy first grabbed global attention in 2008, a number of nations have sent ships to the region. Sailing through the Internationally Registered Transit Corridor, a protected route between Somalia and Yemen, the QM2 passed warships from the United States, France, India and Australia.
As well as the EU force, there are separate flotillas from NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces that often include Asian vessels. Several other nations including China and Russia also keep ships there, running convoys through the "high-risk zone". In May last year, EU NAVFOR launched its first onshore raid, targeting a suspected pirate group on the beach as it prepared to head to sea with helicopter and small arms fire. Not everyone, however, believes that explains the fall. For many in the shipping industry, the fall in attacks is a vindication of the decision to massively ramp up the use of armed guards. So far, not a single ship with armed guards has been taken by pirates - although naval officers and other piracy specialists say hired guards can be excessively trigger-happy and have fired on innocent fishermen from India, Oman and Yemen.
The situation is also changing in Somalia, which has been without a functioning government for two decades. The transitional administration is becoming more successful, as is a Kenyan-dominated African military force sent in to tackle Islamist rebels...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Probably a little bit of everything. A more orderly Somalian government and the fact that, if a pirtate messes with a Chinese or Russian ship, they’re dead.
In truth, the Queen Mary 2 - carrying 2,500 passengers and 1,300 crew from Southampton to Dubai on the first leg of a world cruise - is not particularly at risk.
Like many merchant vessels, the QM2 now carries armed private contractors when passing through areas of pirate risk.
Cunard will not discuss precise security arrangements. But contractors on other vessels routinely carry M-16-type assault rifles and sometimes belt-fed machine guns, often picked up from ships acting as floating offshore armouries near Djibouti and Sri Lanka.
Headlines that end with a question mark sound like something other than news to me.
What?
You mean that people DEFENDING themselves has a positive effect on reducing crime?
I'm shocked! Simply shocked, I tell you.
This must be someplace other than in the good old U S of A, because we ALL know that it doesn't work here. (/sarc)
The only really effective means of dealing with pirates is to kill them and scuttle their boats and ships. All this takes in this case is somebody willing to do the killing and scuttling, and everybody else agreeing to not see it.
Bump.
The marvel of all of this is that this is a marvel.
A friend of a friend was riding shotgun. They’d shoot them and not make any sort of report, not to the captain, not to anyone. “Just shooting seagulls”.
I’m OK with the reduction, but I suspect it would have come sooner if some ship came in with a few hanging from the yardarm, wrapped in pigskins.
What about the Kenyan Pirate of Pennsylvania Ave.?
I’m pretty sure they weren’t talking about butt pirates.
Whether that's true or not, that's what you want the pirates to think.
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