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More on Pirates at Sea

Posted by JOE WINDISH, Technology Editor in At TMV.
Nov 20th, 2008 | Comments

Following up on Joe’s post yesterday about the return of the pirates, Jonathan Stevenson says it’s time for an anti-piracy coalition of the willing. Somali pirates have been responsible for 84 attacks in 2008 alone–a 75% increase on the 2007 pace:

Given their range of targets, one might think that they are suicidally determined to antagonize as many major powers as possible, perhaps obscurely motivated by jihadism or nationalistic pride. But that would be wrong. Although 97% of Somalis are Sunni Muslim, they are traditionally secular and socially oriented more toward their extended family networks–their clans–than their state, which is in any case dysfunctional.

Prevailing ransom payments range from $500,000 to $2 million, up from only tens of thousands of dollars five years ago. While they may deal for profit with some Islamist militias, they’re probably into piracy mainly for the money.

RELATED: The Indian Navy claims it sank a pirate ship. Gerald Posner in The Daily Beast says the ransom money trail leads to Dubai.

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RememberNovember

Queen Elizabeth had a solution for that- she gave them letters of marque and pointed them at the Spanish Armada.
But then again, a lot of them were hung for treason when the didn't get the memo the war was over, or they liked it too much to quit.

DLS

I thought a day or two ago not only that this feat by the pirates was impressive, given that it was more than 450 miles offshore, and featured a "mother ship" and worker-warrior vessels; I also suspected that al Qaeda and other such parties may be aiding or equipping or training some of the pirates. Also, when I heard the good news that India bagged a mother ship it had me thinking of a few things in addition: First of all, where we went wrong with terrorists, with the Guantanano nonsense, we can at least do better with the pirates we catch, namely to execute them promptly after interrogation and confirmation of their criminal status (as we should have been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan). But second, not only is this nice good, live-fire fun for ships and submarines of our Navy, it's an excuse for the Navy to defend its funding or even ask for more. Right when we hit a brick wall about big-ticket defense projects and procurement nonsense at a time of an economic crunch, now piracy can be "re-discovered" by those protecting funds for the Navy. Yo, ho, ho!

On a wilder note, there's always the following: Money trail leads back to Dubai? Halliburton? Or the Saudis? Hijacking oil tankers and threatening others perhaps to try to raise the price of oil? What a movie script that would make (complete with money heading into the pockets of Cheney).

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