Pirate stuff

A couple of must-read posts from Information Dissemination.

First, CBS News reports on a Somali pirates/Al Queda link. ID gives evidence of the spike in piracy activity from the time that CBS is reporting the two groups as having initiated formal contact with one another.

Also, an email from one of the crew members of the MAERSK ALABAMA giving an account of what went down the day the ship was attacked. The email ends with some things ships/ship carriers can do to combat the piracy threat that does not entail arming the crew.

Please note we are not inherently opposed to arming the crews. Arming the crew costs money - a lot of money in training and outfitting and current international regulations make any actions one would take even with arming, extremely prohibitive.

Anyone else wanna take a crack at it?

"You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way!"

Maybe some of that Windy City rough and tumble will pay off for us, afterall.

President Barack Obama issued a standing order to use force against pirates holding an American captain hostage — including giving a Navy commander the authority to act if he believed the captain’s life was in danger, two senior defense officials said Sunday night.

Navy snipers aboard the USS Bainbridge on Sunday shot and killed three of the pirates after the Bainbridge’s commander gave the order, when a pirate was spotted aboard the lifeboat pointing an AK-47 rifle at Capt. Richard Phillips, one defense official said.

“The clear belief by the captain of the ship was that he was in imminent danger,” this official said.

Three shots, three bullets, three dead pirates.

Good on the CinC, the Navy, the SEALS and especially Capt. Richard Phillips and the crew of the MAERSK ALABAMA.

As far as a positive outcome and sending a message, we don’t see how this could have turned out any better.

Aaaarrrrrgh!

We’ll refrain from mentioning any names, but we were ridiculed by a friend a number of years ago when we said that piracy remained a significant threat to worldwide commercial maritime trade. Pirates!!!

Traditionally, one of the hot spots has been the Straights of Malacca, a narrow shipping lane in Indonesia that is the primary trade route between India and China. Now, however, attention has shifted to the waters off the horn of Africa as Somali pirates have been extracting sizeable ransoms from shipping companies.

And, indeed, the first line of the Marine Hymn contains a nod to our young nation’s engagement with the Barbary pirates of North Africa.

Well, what’s to be done? They haven’t hijacked any U.S.-flagged ships… The hijacking of an oil tanker here and there has not had any significant impact on the overall oil supply so it really has had no bearing on the price at the pump. And what of the pirates, themselves? Should they be confronted or is there actually some collateral benefit to what they are doing?

B-Daddy digs into it and explores the options, here.