Modern Piracy on the High Seas

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pla101prc

Senior Member
Re: How do you solve a problem like Somalia?

Scratch said:
The US?? They tried, the pirates could have helped, but refused by not laying down their weapons, releasing the hostage and allow themeselves to be taken into custody. What do you exspect? Make a decission over the value of the hostages life and then pay a price for that life?

Of course currently noone is really interested of solving the route of the problem. The navys are just trying to protect their merchent shipping lines. Maybe with a more efficient way of protection and some ISR the deterrance will become bigger, but the problem is being handled slow because there are other more important once right now.
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i wouldnt believe all of what the media says if i were you. look at this whole situation, everything you have been hearing came from the anti-pirate side. there are very lil from the pirate side. so there is a severe imbalance of information. somali's have always avoided confronting with american ships in the past, anyone who is willing to look into things more carefully should notice that there are a lot more to that hostage crisis than what we were told by media propaganda (that's what it is, totally one-sided)
 
bd popeye

bd popeye

The Last Jedi
VIP Professional
Ok pla101prc ..If you do not trust the Western media on this issue of the US hostage situation..Just what news source would you trust? And since you seem to doubt the western media version just what do you think really occurred?
 
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pla101prc

Senior Member
you are not supposed to just reject the news if you think that its not entirely true. for example i read plenty of news from Chinese media, and frankly i learn more about China's politics from those than i do from BBC or CNN or whatever. its because i read enoughabout the history of China and the CCP to understand how it works and subsequently what kind of messages they want to send under what circumstances. same thing with American stuff, when you hear stuff like "Jones wants to expand the power of NSC" you know that its going to undermine hillary clinton because kissinger have done the same thing when he was the security advisor for nixon. the thing is to understand history, understand politics, and have multiple sources.
i am not saying what really occured, i am just asking ppl to look at the facts. American ships rarely gets attacked by pirates, somehow they do this time, and pirates are just there to make a livin, if you pay them ransom they'll free the hostages. i think the very first time this issue was brought up in this forum i have been saying that they are creating the similar media effects about these pirates as they do to terrorists. its a process of demonization or at least dehumanization, that is we dont know anything about them cept that "they are bad and we are against them". look who's benefitted from that incident. obama needed that "military victory" for better support and prestige, the US now have a new point of focus when the pirate leader says that they are gonna be hunting down US ships and kill the captives. what they are doing is to corner the pirates to a point where they will simply lose it and fight back, and then the media will say "see we knew they were evil all along". voila the US has a new enemy, exactly what the government needed: no security threats, easy to beat, yet they will always be there for the government to "show off its might". this is not just for the US government, i have said that everyone who is involved had their own lil plans
 
bd popeye

bd popeye

The Last Jedi
VIP Professional
Thanks for your somewhat twisted point of view pla101prc.

..pirates are just there to make a living, if you pay them ransom they'll free the hostages.
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Stealing what does not belong to you is a crime. Ant where on this Earth. They are criminals and need to be dealt with harshly. Period. Last I checked kidnapping and piracy is a crime.
 
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SampanViking

SampanViking

The Capitalist
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
That Big Daddy is the Somalia problem.

What laws have they actually broken and within who's jurisdiction?

If you and I went off and tried something similar, we would be guilty because we are citizens of countries that have enacted both domestic and International law on these matters and we would be returned to our countries of origin to stand trial and face the full legal penalty.

Without a Government, the Somalis are not committed to any law on these matters.
 
Jeff Head

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
pla101prc said:
pirates are just there to make a livin, if you pay them ransom they'll free the hostages. i think the very first time this issue was brought up in this forum i have been saying that they are creating the similar media effects about these pirates as they do to terrorists. its a process of demonization
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Yep, they just are out there working hard, making an honest living. </sarcasm>

They are not being demonized, they are just being called the criminals, hijackers, thiefs and kidnappers that they are. None of those things are good, they are all bad acts...so yes, we are saying that they are doing bad things.

Irrespective of the circumsatnces in their country, that does not justify piracy.

They threaten people's lives. They attack ships, take them over, and then hold the ship and the crew at the point of a gun until they get paid. That is criminal and puts those people's life in abject danger.

That's like saying a bank robber is just an honest Joe who is having some hard times and is just trying to even life out by taking the money from the people who have more than they need because they can keep some extra in a bank.

BAnk robbery will not fly in any civilized society...and piracy will not fly with any civilized society.

The sea lanes must remain open and unthreatened, and people who do threaten them and the lives of the sailors (who are actually the ones making an honest living) need to be stopped.

Not negotiated with, not paid off (because both of those will only legitimize the criminal acts in the minds of the criminals and lead to more of it).

They need to be told up front that they will not be negotiated with and that the only way they can get out of it alive is to give up and accept trial for the wrong they have done.

Stop threatening people's lives and stop hijacking ships...otherwise, you take them out as a message to others...and you do it consistantly so they know that their life of crime and threatning will not "pay".

Clearly you do not agree with this...but I hope that the explanation helps you understand why it is that the US reacts the way it does. Criminal acts on the high seas that threaten sea lanes and free commerce, and that threaten lives cannot be tolerated. That's the US position.

SampanViking said:
What laws have they actually broken and within who's jurisdiction?

Without a Government, the Somalis are not committed to any law on these matters.
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As soon as they set foot on the vessel of another nation in international waters on the open sea, they can come under the jurisdiction of that country.

Trying to say that because the nation of Somalia has drifted into anarchy somehow absolves the people of that nation of any law or rules of behavior is not going to fly on the open sea.

Sooner or later, all nations will rise to the challenge and will demand that the pirates cease, give up, or they will put the pirates down.

We already see the US and France doing so...my guess is that if these pirates attacked a Chinese flagged vessel within range of one of the Chinese warships, we would see something very similar occur.
 
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Scratch

Captain
Re: How do you solve a problem like Somalia?

pla101prc said:
i wouldnt believe all of what the media says if i were you. look at this whole situation, everything you have been hearing came from the anti-pirate side. there are very lil from the pirate side. so there is a severe imbalance of information. somali's have always avoided confronting with american ships in the past, anyone who is willing to look into things more carefully should notice that there are a lot more to that hostage crisis than what we were told by media propaganda (that's what it is, totally one-sided)
Click to expand...

So, what truth do you think the western media hides? That the captain actually fell over board, the pirates picked him up and wanted to return him to another ship, but the US killed them instead?
Btw, you yourself called them pirate. A pirate is by definition a criminal person as I understand it.
 
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pla101prc

Senior Member
bd popeye said:
Thanks for your somewhat twisted point of view pla101prc.



Stealing what does not belong to you is a crime. Ant whaere on this Earth. They are criminals and need to be dealt with harshly. Period. Last I checked kidnapping and piracy is a crime.
Click to expand...

twisted in terms of perspective
you oversimplified the issue. no one ever said that they should be left to do whatever they want, but if you wanna deal with them you gotta do more than just dealing with them "harshly". personally if i were the president of the US or whatever country, i will definitely send ships over to fight pirates because it is in the interest of my country and prolly myself. i'll prolly tell my citizens that those are bad ppl out there and i am gonna kill them, but i am not even going to try to convince myself that i am doing the "right thing". afterall, this is real world politics, it aint about who's right, its about who's left.
like i said, if those pirates cant make a livin in the seas they'll be making a livin killin and looting on land along many others. maybe that fits your definition of being a good lawful world citizen. lets be honest with ourselves here, obama doesnt give a crap about the pirates, Hu Jintao doesnt give a crap about the pirates, Harper doesnt give a crap about the pirates, killing them is just good business.
 
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pla101prc

Senior Member
Re: How do you solve a problem like Somalia?

Scratch said:
So, what truth do you think the western media hides? That the captain actually fell over board, the pirates picked him up and wanted to return him to another ship, but the US killed them instead?
Btw, you yourself called them pirate. A pirate is by definition a criminal person as I understand it.
Click to expand...

first of all, like i said above, if i were the president i'd be killin these guys because it is in the interest of my country not because they are "criminals". if i really wanna fight criminals i'd be purging the congress and have the pelosi mob hanged alongside with the bernanke gang.
the story is not made up, no doubt the pirates held the captain hostage. its the way it was handled, and the way it was reported. once again complex issues are being simplified. ppl love simple things because they dont want to think critically. why do you think the young kids in America voted for obama?they have no clue about what that guy wants or how good he really is. the media oversimplifies every issue from the president to iraq to tibet to the economy. because no one is gonna watch the news if you have a bunch of professionals sit there and talk about for hours, they want it quick and concise, so you do it by tellin them that we are the good guys and those ppl that we dont know are bad guys.
 
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pla101prc

Senior Member
Jeff Head said:
Yep, they just are out there working hard, making an honest living. </sarcasm>

They are not being demonized, they are just being called the criminals, hijackers, thiefs and kidnappers that they are. None of those things are good, they are all bad acts...so yes, we are saying that they are doing bad things.

Irrespective of the circumsatnces in their country, that does not justify piracy.

They threaten people's lives. They attack ships, take them over, and then hold the ship and the crew at the point of a gun until they get paid. That is criminal and puts those people's life in abject danger.

That's like saying a bank robber is just an honest Joe who is having some hard times and is just trying to even life out by taking the money from the people who have more than they need because they can keep some extra in a bank.

BAnk robbery will not fly in any civilized society...and piracy will not fly with any civilized society.

The sea lanes must remain open and unthreatened, and people who do threaten them and the lives of the sailors (who are actually the ones making an honest living) need to be stopped.

Not negotiated with, not paid off (because both of those will only legitimize the criminal acts in the minds of the criminals and lead to more of it).

They need to be told up front that they will not be negotiated with and that the only way they can get out of it alive is to give up and accept trial for the wrong they have done.

Stop threatening people's lives and stop hijacking ships...otherwise, you take them out as a message to others...and you do it consistantly so they know that their life of crime and threatning will not "pay".

Clearly you do not agree with this...but I hope that the explanation helps you understand why it is that the US reacts the way it does. Criminal acts on the high seas that threaten sea lanes and free commerce, and that threaten lives cannot be tolerated. That's the US position.


As soon as they set foot on the vessel of another nation in international waters on the open sea, they can come under the jurisdiction of that country.

Trying to say that because the nation of Somalia has drifted into anarchy somehow absolves the people of that nation of any law or rules of behavior is not going to fly on the open sea.

Sooner or later, all nations will rise to the challenge and will demand that the pirates cease, give up, or they will put the pirates down.

We already see the US and France doing so...my guess is that if these pirates attacked a Chinese flagged vessel within range of one of the Chinese warships, we would see something very similar occur.
Click to expand...

yes they are being demonized, have you ever asked one of the pirates why he became a pirate?maybe his father was killed and mother raped, and her sisters were sent off to be sex slaves of some warlord, maybe he starved for days and drank nothing but contaminated water, maybe some guerilla force threatened him to join or they'll kill him, he cant find a job, what the heck do you want him to do? be a good citizen? get real buddy, if i were in that situation i'd do worse things than looting a ship. when we look at those pirates the first thing that come to our mind is how "evil" they are, and how heroic we are to fight them, they become "objects of knowledge", or "things we can study". we dont know their stories and we prolly dont care. i guarantee that if you get to know the pirates you'll see them as more than just criminals. (not that i got to know them) just give youself sometime to think about it, pirates have been a threat for more than just the recent months, howcome it became such a big deal now?

the difference between you and i is not in our stances on this issue, both of us think that it is necessary to send ships over there to fight them; the real differences is that i know the ships were sent there not for some righteous intentions but political interests. you may wish that the pirates are eliminated as soon as possible, but the politicians that had your support in sending the ships to somalia want this campaign to last as long as possible, otherwise they'll have nothing to gloat about.
 
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