They have guns and the crewmen don't. Most shipping companies won't allow their crewmen to carry guns because the last thing they want is for their crews to get in a shootout with pirates who almost always have heavy weaponry such as automatic weapons and RPGs.

Thanks for answering my question PhiGam. This looks like an idea for someone like Blackwater to offer. Security for these ships going through dangerous channels.

Not a good idea, last thing you wanna do is escalate the situation into an all out blood bath everytime there is a piracy. There is a way to cut down on piracy, settle the somalia problem. Get a working government there with a strong law and order mandate. You'll see piracy cut down in no time. It work in the Malacca Strait. Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia just got tired of the pirates and started naval patrol in the area. It also helped that GAM is no longer active since they signed a peace treaty and transformed themselve into a political party.

Pirates lose.

Maybe they should go back to taking French vessels

FINALLY the Captain is free.

Too bad the fourth sniper missed his man. Four bullets, four dead pirates had such a nice ring. Three out of four is just fine with me, however.

Somali Pirates vow revenge: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,514822,00.html

They're going to kill foreign nationals because we rescued our citizen? I didn't realize how organized these scumbags are... something needs to be done. *cough*Blackwater*cough*

Obama twice OK'd rescue plan: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009...minent-danger/

Very nice... and surprising. This is one of the few things that he's done as president that don't make me feel like he's trying to turn us into a European country. Well done Mr. President.

He's only following the lead of the French.

yeah I heard about that

I guess France decided it was time to kick ass, I guess to make up for the 20th century.

But when the French tried to rescue their hostage, the hostage was killed. WE did better.

I'm hoping that one terrorist we captured will give enough information so as we'll know where to send the cruise missiles.

Every time I read this story, this is the song playing in my mind:

http://www.funfreepages.com/flash/america_fuck_yeah.php

Link NSFW.

Of course we did. They still need pratice. But the story on it I heard, they only lost one hostage out of four, I think was the number. Or they killed four pirates. I remember the number four.

I am of no use.

Somalis shot mortars at a US Congressman at the Mogadishu airport today.

Anxious to see what Obama's Teleprompter has to say about this. Could get interesting.....

This isn't exactly how it happened. The fourth pirate was with the US folks negotiating a release. When they killed the three pirates who were with the captain, they kept the fourth one for further questioning and potential charges.

-- a pretty good blog post

Somali pirates: another side of the story April 10th, 2009· posted by by Alan Bock, Register editorial writer

There’s no justification for the attempted takeover of the Maersk Alabama or for holding the captain hostage. And while I expect the current hostage situation, which has the pirates asking for a $2 million ransom, is most likely to end with the pirates getting safe passage, I wouldn’t mind seeing them blown to kingdom-come and punitive raids — I imagine some Seals could pull it off — on the shore-based sanctuaries.


However, as execrable as the current situation is, there are aspects to the whole Somali sea-raiding phenomenon that haven’t received as much attention as might be warranted. According to Johann Hari, a left-leaning but not entirely fact-averse British journalist in a piece earlier this year, the Somalis didn’t start raiding ships until after a bunch of foreign fishing ships came in and fished out their coastal waters, depriving local fishermen of their livelihood and local Somalis of a source of food. Then, it is alleged, foreign vessels started dumping waste, including nuclear waste, off the Somali coast, and the vaunted international community did nothing about it. There are reports of radiation sickness among Somalis, and a number of barrels of foul stuff washed up during the 2005 tsunami.


Thus some Somalis see the piracy as a way of getting compensation for these indignities. There are problems with this, of course. By seizing commercial vessels they are demanding “compensation” from companies that are different from those that caused the problems in the first place. And what may have been conceived as a way to “get our own back” from nasty furriners has escalated into serious criminality, drawing in ever more ruthless and greedy scum, as successful criminality almost always does.


I’m not sure if all these allegations are accurate, and even if so they don’t justify piracy. And I’m not sure how to resolve the situation. But check out the links and see what you think. The story may be more complex than we have been told to date.