Yeah, and once the ICC gets word of what the military ships(esp. the US Navy) has done, there will be tons of Indictments against the military crews for warcrimes.
I agree with Lind 100% on this. Hunt down the pirates and kill them. It is too bad we mothballed the Iowa class battleships. We should have one of them sail the Somali coast and pound every port into rubble.
On no question is international law more clear or more ancient than on piracy. Law has recognized pirates as "enemies of all mankind" since the Roman Empire. They are outlaws whom anyone may kill on sight. Common law, which used to count for something in Britain, makes hunting down and killing pirates the duty of all maritime powers. The Royal Navy used to be pretty good at it. Has it perhaps run out of rope?
Doh! We don't have yardarms to hang 'em from anymore. So much for modern ship design...
That said, Somalia is a gawd-awful mess that I read is fast becoming a haven for Al Queda. So eventually the rest of the planet is going to have to come together to clean up, or else.
But to rid the world of pirates will mean making the profession (such as it is) far too dangerous to be worthwhile, and, summarily killing them all (when found & captured) isn't likely to go down all that well with the press (this is just a reality).
The British, for example, could alter their laws to in effect void (or ignore) requests for asylum for those commiting acts of piracy.
Originally posted by MichaelJKeenan: I agree with Lind 100% on this. Hunt down the pirates and kill them. It is too bad we mothballed the Iowa class battleships. We should have one of them sail the Somali coast and pound every port into rubble.
I love them old battlewagons, and they are in effect new ships (they have only used a fraction of the hours at sea they were originally designed for) that pack a serious punch and have more armor than anything else afloat.
But they are incredibly expensive to maintain and crew. If the costs for the LCS weren't so out of control, anti piracy missions would be an excellent way to shake 'em down and work out the bugs.
Why in the blue blazes to we have to listen to civilian whining on Military.com? Has this idiot ever served anything but his own self interest? Look, the main problem is that absolutely no one is in charge of the Pirate problem, period! There is no place to hold or try these folks, they hide amidst the local fishing folks- so you nuts just cant sink every small boat at sea. The ports you fools want to level also house legal shipping. Do it your way of blasting everything that moves and most of our ship captains will be busted out of the service! There is zero Somailia gov't to turn these thugs over to for trial either. Easiest thing to do would be to shadow every commerical ship and when it appears that an attack is immenient move forces closer and when the pirates attack, eEliminate them!! No prisoners, no trials, no problems. When their buddies wake up & see that pirates go to sea and don't return, it might ease the problem!
Ten days to two weeks. What a joke. Or should I say "tens days to two weeks" This guy has been sniffing toner too long. I'm all for an eye for an eye and all but you can't go around blasting everything as tempting as it might be. This guy would be the first one on the court martial band wagon to here himself talk. Ancient maritime laws are all well and good but more current case law makes them just that, ancient. There is no easy fix for these problems. The blasting must be selective and accurate and that takes the patience of a sniper on a huge scale at sea. In time they will learn that thier buddies are disappearing at sea and find other occupations. Albeit no more legal than what they are doing now. Move to the next problem ...
Lind fails to realise that, at one time in the fairly recent past piracy on the horn of Africa was of little consequence no matter what color of flag they weren't flying.
Fact of life: deprive a population of stability,order and the necessities of a decent existence and they'll stealwhat they need. Arm them and they'll use the weapons to steal.
More destabilization and war won't change a damn thing. As long as there's a man with a gun who needs something he's going to try to get it. Be glad it hasn't happened in America.
I wish I could agree with Lind for once, but can't. The left-winged human rights activists would never let this die if we did what Lind wanted. (I wonder why they aren't up in arms about piracy anyways...). These legal elitists seem to think the US Constitution is afforded to all of the world. Just look at GITMO and wonder how Somali pirates might get their cases dropped or whatever.
I just wish we could "influence" one pirate group to kill another pirate group like we do with drug lords. Let them kill themselves off and then move in to eliminate the last group, albeit when we have a legal reason to do so.
