Posted on 09/27/2008 8:31:57 AM PDT by george76
Pirates have seized a Greek chemical tanker with a crew of 19 off Somalia's coast, days after hijacking a Ukrainian cargo ship loaded with tanks, an international anti-piracy group said Saturday.
The hijacking brings the number of attacks on ships off the coast of Somalia to 62 this year, or more than one every week. A total of 26 ships were hijacked, and 15 remain in the hands of the pirates along with 300 crew members.
(Excerpt) Read more at charlotteobserver.com ...
Somalia??? I didn’t know there were any people left there. I thought they were all driving cabs in San Diego.
Greece, like Panama, Liberia, and Tuvalu, is a country that provides “flags of convenience” for commercial cargo carriers. Based on my experience with the Coast Guard port control, I’d bet the crew is four Ukrainians, Russians, or Poles, and twenty Filipino deck hands.
We need to send BHO out there to meet face to face, without preconditions or preparation, to meet with the pirate leader and negotiate a settlement agreeable to both sides, without any shooting or violence.
Yeah. I thik the ‘Greek’ ship is actually Liberian, and is probably carrying Filipinos.
Then the laws need to change.
Because as it stands now only the pirates are armed to the teeth. Not a gair fight.
If other ships were armed the piracy would stop.
Seems to me like a good move to arm everyone.
Would you be comfortable with the Port of Long Beach being filled with heavily armed Chinese “cargo” ships?
Do you think they’re going to start shooting up San Pedro?
Dumb question.
That would be better than the pirates having their own way with their arms.
Nope.
Now imagine that you aren’t the United States.
Imagine that you are, say, Lebanon. One day scores of heavily armed Libyan ships are scheduled to arrive in your port.
You’ve got to be wondering if Qadafi-duck is getting frisky.
You put the army on high hair trigger alert, and now any accidental weapons discharge (and the crews are not professional military, after all) could start a war.
Better to keep the current system, and simply kill all the pirates in Somalia and Indonesia.
Yep
That’s the same argument the left uses to attempt to disarm Americans.
Better to sacrifice all kinds of citizens than to have some kind of accident somewhere.
Put yourself on a boat in the ocean with no means of self defense and a boat load of pirates show up armed to the teeth.
Will you be glad that you are not armed and lose your life as well as your boat because it’s the right thing to do? Or will you wish you had a coupls full auto M-14s and plenty of ammo.
If ships were armed pirates would not be an issue.
Besides the recent invasion of Georgia by the Russian didn’t start a war what makes you think a small accident will?
Typical lefty demoguery.
It's often the little guys scrapping that suck everyone else in. See WWI, for one example.
Me? I'd be prepared to blow anything approaching MY ship into confetti. I'm pretty sure I could find a good hiding place for a considerable amount of ordinance on even a small tramp steamer.
I'd venture that a few Hell-fire armed Predators could make a considerable dent in piracy activities. Not that we would have anything to do with the sudden disappearance of poorly maintained pirate vessels with the subsequent loss of all hands, mind you...
And you get searched in some small country and they find your stash and you get 50 years in their cement bed hotel.
There is no way to stop all political incidents by disarming everyone.
disarming everyone would leat to massive crime.
But you know that don’t you?
Yes.
It’s where reality meets politics.
I was just over at that other site to see what was up. Someone started a thread based on a South African report, that my laptop wouldn't load, that the Somali pirates on one of these ships were getting really sick. Chemical or radiation burns, losing hair, etc.
If there's any truth in this, it doesn't sound good. Particular with the Russian Navy high-tailing it to the Horn of Africa.
Again, take it for what it's worth.
I was just over at that other site to see what was up. Someone started a thread based on a South African report, that my laptop wouldn't load, that the Somali pirates on one of these ships were getting really sick. Chemical or radiation burns, losing hair, etc.
If there's any truth in this, it doesn't sound good. Particular with the Russian Navy high-tailing it to the Horn of Africa.
Again, take it for what it's worth.
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