Somali pirates... pwned.

[FiReSTaRT]

Somehow I can't picture Somali pirates being Greenpeace members.

They started as fishermen who banded together because foreign poachers were running over their boats, cutting their nets, pouring boiling water on them and shooting at them. That's why they started carrying weapons out to sea. If you wanna end piracy over there, here's an effective measure:

1) Nail all poachers and toxic waste dumpers to the cross instead of giving them armed escort - that's how you take away moral ground and motivation - why become a pirate when you can make a living fishing?

2) Patrol the waters for a limited amount of time until the pirates run a CBA and decide to switch professions

Giving armed escort to poachers and toxic waste dumpers in addition to preventing actual fishermen from plying their trade by harassing them every time they cast their nets doesn't seem like a very just solution.

[Red_Liner740]

Ya know Firestart i usually agree with you, but lets not divert the issue at hand....that was a commercial vessel, not a fishing vessel and those guys had serious intentions of boarding the vessel for piracy purposes...

what else happens in that waters is irrelevant.

[mmmnaked]

Damn those guys have the best job in the world... wish I could shoot pirates from a big ship

But I agree with the pirates' cause, **** the west for raping and pillaging their land/sea. When you have no government and barely a military, piracy is about the only way they have to defend themselves and make a stand.

[sonnythebull]

Yaaaay.. Let the Somali poor starve while the Mafia, the insurance companies and the owners of illegal fishing operations rub their hands.. Time to celebrate

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=27114

Still awesome

[outtacontrol]

ya, just a bunch of poor starving fisherman trying to protect their waters...lol

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f5f_1222584072

[FiReSTaRT]

what else happens in that waters is irrelevant.

Like providing armed escort to poachers and mafia toxic waste dumpers under the guise of fighting piracy? Sometimes you have to choose the lesser evil. The pirates are the only ones who care about what's happening there and with the clout to stop it. Just the poaching brings in more money than all the ransoms that the pirates got and I shudder at the price to be paid for the environmental damage. Now that the armed escorts are there, the poachers and the dumpers are back in business.

But ok, those ships are there. Why don't they also inspect floting fish processing plants and any ship that looks like its dumping cargo? That'll do more to combat piracy than razing the entire coast of Somalia.

[Stewart]

kill all the pirates, they're only there for personal gain, they attack private sailboats, only to capture or kidnap for ransom. they don't care about the cargo or fishing/dumpers, just the insurance company money. shoot back at these pirates, it's long over due. happy hunting and wipe them out.

[FiReSTaRT]

kill all the pirates, they're only there for personal gain, they attack private sailboats, only to capture or kidnap for ransom. they don't care about the cargo or fishing/dumpers, just the insurance company money. shoot back at these pirates, it's long over due. happy hunting and wipe them out.

Ok, and who's left to keep the poachers and mafia in check? The country doesn't have an army. The majority of the UN Security Council profits from both the poaching and the dumping, so UN won't do it. Somalia doesn't have any oil so don't expect for a "coalition of the willing" to step in and "fight for freedom and democracy."

I'll give you this much - The armada that's down there should protect the ships from the pirates, but they should stop guarding the poachers/dumpers and start bagging and tagging them instead. Win-win situation for everybody but:

1) The pirates that are only in it for the money (think about it.. if the armada puts a stop to poaching/dumping, the pirates won't be able to say "we're just poor fishermen protecting our coast - those that were will go back to fishing and the rest will either get sunk, jailed or move back to the mainland)
2) The poachers
3) Cosa Nostra
4) Politicians greased by #2 and #3
5) Mercenaries ("security consultants")
6) The insurance industry

[FullMotoJacket]

warning shots = wasted bullets.

[Stewart]

your looking at this too hard, history repetes it's self, why do these fishermen have guns? and they don't buy food instead of bullets.

[backmarkerducati]

Funny how the "pirates" rarely ever attack these illegal fishing boats and Mafia dumping ship, why... because they have been paid not to before hand.

In short, because the pirates are in the pocket's of the... fill in the blanks.

I have never understood why what happens in this video is not the norm, it should be.

[crankcall]

easy arithmetic, fish out of your wooden barge and make $1,500 a year, highjack one euro owned freighter, collect $2 million ransom. Its a business model in a part of the world with no gov't and no military outside of foreign intervention.

They have intercepted and ransomed several dozen private sailboats in the past three years and killed a few transiting sailors to the point that the last VOR, a global yacht race with stopovers on every continent moved the race out of the region because of the threat of kidnappings.
This has nothing to do with fish poaching. Its pretty naive to think otherwise.

[FiReSTaRT]

your looking at this too hard, history repetes it's self, why do these fishermen have guns? and they don't buy food instead of bullets.

And how will they make money to buy food if their waters are all fished out and polluted? And has any one of you people who posted in this thread expressed even a small shred of indignation about what the poachers and the mafia are doing?

[FiReSTaRT]

Funny how the "pirates" rarely ever attack these illegal fishing boats and Mafia dumping ship, why... because they have been paid not to before hand

They expanded their fleet with quite a few of those poaching vessels, even used the crews to operate them. That's when the mafia also saw what was up and started dumping their toxic waste in the Mediterranean. Only then did a few arrests happen

[Stewart]

why are you so pro pirate? i bet you would do it right here a home on lake ontario, if you could get away with it.

[klr_guy]

warning shots = wasted bullets.

They certainly didn't waste many. "fire a warning shot" = shred the ****ers

[FiReSTaRT]

why are you so pro pirate? i bet you would do it right here a home on lake ontario, if you could get away with it.

I'm not generally pro-pirate and believe in earning what's mine, but in this case they're the only thing preventing a much greater evil that nobody else has an interest in preventing. With them out there, a few people die, a few billionaires lose a few bucks. Without them out there, thousands starve, more thousands get poisoned. Unlike the rest of the posters in this thread, I don't value African lives any less than European lives. There are two sides to this story but everybody's being fed the same crap by the mass media and only focusing on one. If the participating nations dedicated only one tenth of their current armada to fighting poachers and polluters, there wouldn't have been any pirates over there in the first place.

[RetroGrouch]

The world tried helping Somalia. The world got bitchslapped for the effort. Let'em eat themselves alive.

[rmemedic]

I think that was awesome... Just sayin'.
Not gonna get in the debate you guys have going on 'cause I'm sure my stance on it would be obvious.

BTW, a few years ago when they had kidnapped a bunch of people off of a boat, it was Canadian soldiers that went in and got them out. First shot was from one of our snipers, dead on target from one moving boat to another... Pretty sweet!

[RockerGuy]

I must say its really hard for me to give the pirates any sympathy when they threaten me at gun point.