Wednesday 8 April 2009

Are The Pirates Going To Get It Now?

After all, they have now captured an American ship with an American crew.

That this could happen at all illustrates why the pirates need not worry: the forces that would have prevented it, never mind needed to do anything about it after the fact, are, like ours, otherwise engaged, fighting and dying for nothing in Afghanistan and Iraq.

6 comments:

  1. Ah but as you said......an "American ship with an American crew".
    As the British dont actually have a merchant fleet and they are registered in mighty Panama and mighty disfunctional Liberia and crewed by Filipinos and Poles, its not an emotional issue.
    Nobody is going to send a gunboat, even if one was available.
    Yet one more downside to Globalisation.
    You should rejoice that there IS a British involvement.
    The firms who advise these ship owners on "security" are British and if it all goes wrong these firms will happily negotiate with Somali pirates to find an acceptable figure. Of course these firms will take a percentage of the saving.

    So everybody (except me it seems) is happy with the whole shoddy affair.

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  2. Apparently the Americans have taken it back.

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  3. The point is that they have had to.

    This won't be the last time.

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  4. Glad that youre not happy about it. And glad that I made your picture more complete :)

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  5. I don't think it is shortage of military power it is shortage of the willingness to use traditional rules against them.

    We have seen our Navy told not to take pirates aboard because then they could claim political asylum under our current laws. A little aggressive patroling & sinking everything in their home harbours would end it.

    Militarily these guys are a couple of brothers & their cousins in a small boat with a oouple of AK47s. To paraphrase Douglas Adams - do you know how much damage they could do to the smallest British destroyer as it ran over them - absolutely none.

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