Those Somali pirates *UPDATED*
Bookworm on Nov 18 2008 at 10:09 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
Pardon me for being stupid, but wouldn’t it be wise, given that the Somali pirates are getting to be troublesome, to place some nasty weapons on board the big ships and then to allow them to shoot into shreds any boat that comes close without an invitation?
This article, which I admit I only skimmed rather carelessly, implies that there’s a problem having military escorts for these ships that traverse international waters. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.) I’m not proposing military escorts. I’m proposing giving the ships themselves the same rights to protect themselves that are granted homeowners. In other words, who needs the military? Just give the guys on shipboard guns.
Alternatively, one might mention to the Somalian leadership that, if they can’t get their citizens under control, their failure to act will be deemed an act of war — and, judging by the breadth of the piracy, an act of war against a whole lot of countries. It would be a nice excuse to get rid of those execrable excuses for human beings that are currently in charge of that country.
By the way, if you want a quick history of piracy in that region, including the U.S. Marine’s stellar role in defeating it in the past, here’s a nice run-down.
UPDATE: The Indian Navy did something, destroying a pirate “mother ship” and some others. Yay! I know piracy has always been a part of doing business in those waters, but it makes commodities hellishly expenses and, like the famous broken windows, if you don’t address it aggressively, it only gets worse.
UPDATE II: More information about the practical and legal limitations on fighting pirates.
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My understanding is that the insurance companies that cover these vessels don’t want weapons on board, presumably because of liability concerns. This may change after a few big losses.
The comments about “root causes” in the linked article struck me as even dumber than such comments usually are.
“My understanding is that the insurance companies that cover these vessels don’t want weapons on board, presumably because of liability concerns. This may change after a few big losses.”
They could always to put Ymarsaker on-board. What do you think, YM. It could be quite lucrative.
I find this story to be a bit concerning. Who’s to say that these pirates couldn’t take hold of a ship and use it in some sort of terrorist act?
I would think it would be difficult given that their takeover of these ships usually is not a secret so the ship could be tracked.
Still, I think it is an alarming development.
Deana
U.S. flag ships carrying military cargo to Iraq have self-protection forces as they transit from Suez.
If the Saudis lose the $100mil cargo on this tanker people may get serious about the issue. Actually, I read this morning that the ransom is expected to be about $10mil. Seems that Somali Pirates don’t have easy access to the petroleum markets.
Back in the old days, before the U.S. Marines whupped butt at Tripoli, most seafaring nations considered tribute and ransom to be just a part of doing business.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the Arabs see it the same way. If the cost of shipping $100 million worth of oil is an extra $10 million, no big deal — they’ll just tack the ransom onto the overall bill.
But if I were the Somali pirates, I’d give up messing with the Russians or any other powers that don’t play nice. Push them too far and at some point they’ll be willing to sacrifice the lives of a kidnaped crew if that’s the price of making a devastating point to the pirates.
It will take an external power to rein in the pirates. There is no real government in Somalia and anarchy prevails.
Perhaps this is a job for our powerful NATO allies. Is the Canadian war boat available?
It’s an insurance issue because they don’t really want these ships in ports anywhere with their crews having access to weaponry. (I don’t mean to be crude, here, but: who do you think makes up the crews of these ships? If you have a picture in your mind’s eye of blue-eyed Englishmen or Americans with their hair bleached blonde by the sun and salt of southern seas… think again. Line the pirates up beside the legitimate crew on a wharf somewhere and it isn’t real easy to tell which is who! Half the pirates are laid off ex-crew, which is how they know the weak spots of the ships so well.)
Kind of unusual for Somali waters, much more a routine matter in the Strait of Malacca, which is the choke point between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific for all the oil and cargo going from the Middle East to Japan and China; and all the cargo coming from Japan and China to Europe. The Strait’s narrow; dotted with islands (many of them “lawful” only in the most relative and liberal of senses); and backward in the sense that it’s easy to disappear from all but satellite surveillance.
The US Navy buzzes ships through there on a regular basis transitting from the west coast to the waters off Afghanistan and Iraq (unless they’re in a hurry, because it’s kind of a detour), which slows the little bastards down a bit – at least while the Navy’s in the area – but that’s the hotbed.
Didn’t know there were any US-flag ships left, except for military. The last US cargo line in business was the Lykes Line a few years back, but maybe there’s been a start-up since. (I doubt it, the same thing killing GM, Ford, and Chrysler killed American shipping lines: unions made it so expensive to use an American ship nobody did. Q.E.D.) There are tanker lines, but bulk cargo?
It’s already happened, Deana – and assuredly shall again.
Tiresias, I read a while back about the armed protection on ships under contract to the U.S. for carrying war supplies to Iraq. I assume they are U.S. flag.
But, while waiting in line for the the Sarah Palin event in Fredericksburg, Va in October I met some very nice people. One was a young man who is a graduate of the Merchant Marine Academy and had sailed for several years. He told me that all U.S. flag ships are manned by U.S. citizens, and most of them are Merchant Marine Academy graduates who are working their way up the union chain to officer status. That was news to me, because I though most crews now were as you describe. That is my source.
BTW, he said he petroleum carriers were preferred because they spend less time in port.
Lykes Lines is the last of the major carriers that is US-based. (American flagged.) There is another American flagged company started up in 1975, called Sealift Inc. They, it turns out, are the major supplier of shipping to the Pentagon.
These are cargo (container, therse days) boats for the most part, and they’re pretty much it for being American flagged.
Tankers are a whole different universe, and there are plenty of them that are American flagged. Exxon owns their own fleet, so does Texaco, and I watch leased tankers go back and forth in front of me all day, running between Valdez and Seattle/Tacoma. (Polar Tankers and Alaska Transport are two big lines for lease, and are American flagged.)
I knew a couple of guys who graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy, and though I may be wrong about this, they were both officers and I was under the impression that graduates of that academy were just like graduates of any of the other service academies: junior officers upon graduation.
There was a great book published in 1990 (jeez – how did that get to be 18 years ago?) called Looking For A Ship by John McPhee. It addresses the way the US Merchant Marine operates, the fact it’s all but disappeared, and the very tough situation that results in for sailors trying to get employed.
Summing it up, as an American sailor or officer you’re only allowed to make one voyage at a time, then you get lifted off the ship and replaced by someone else, so the opportunity to go to sea gets spread around among the union membership. The book begins with a description of this:
In Andy’s wallet was a National Shipping Card that had been stamped in Boston ten and a half months before, registering his name, the date, the hour, and the minute when he arrived in a union hall after leaving his last ship. The older the card, the better the prospects for a new job. If the card were to go twelve months unused, it would roll over – lose all seniority, and begin again. Meanwhile strongly competitive, it had all but reached the status of a killer card. In the evolving decline of the US Merchant Marine, qualified people seeking work so greatly outnumbered the jobs there were to fill that you almost had to hold a killer card or your chances were slim for shipping out. You went to a union hall, presented the card in person at a job call, and if someone tossed in an older card you stayed on the beach. From his home in Maine Andy had come to Charleston this time because he thought that shipping cards deadlier than his would be more numerous in Boston or New York.
He had no idea where he would be going, if anywhere, so he had gear for cool weather and gear for the tropics. Looking for a ship, Andy had once spent two months fruitlessly hanging around the union hall in Charleston. He had put in many weeks in New York with the same result. He once went as far as Puerto Rico. He spent two weeks there going to the hall. He got no ship.
He eventually got a job (he was a second mate) on the Stella Lykes.
I don’t know if it’s still that way, but in those days it wasn’t just Lykes, you still had Sea-Land, Farrell, one or two others. They’re gone, now, so I can’t imagine it’s any easier.
This act of piracy happened at the end of September and is more troubling, considering the cargo involved.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200810060958.html
http://www.cargolaw.com/2008nightmare_mv.faina.html#genocide
This site has a detailed account of the piracy.
The situation as it appears to be now.
This act is the most troubling I have seen.
Mystery Cargo – Somali Pirates Dying Aboard Hijacked Iranian Ship
http://tinyurl.com/4rvkbc
The story was also covered by Fox News.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,430681,00.html
Since the initial coverage, I have not seen a word reported anywhere. The story seems to have just faded away.
Just ran across this. Sooner or later, all will be blamed on Bush.
Hong Kong grain ship seized as Somali pirates hold world to ransom
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article5183710.ece
It’s a tempting idea, Book, but the pirates would simply seize a smaller ship or two, set up a satellite uplink and TV camera on deck, behead the most innocent looking member of the crew, and THEN announce that the well-armed mega tanker now at such and such a location had better proceed to Somalian waters, drop anchor forthwith at a specified location, or the rest of the crew will meet similar fates.
A few years ago some luxury cars came on the market with finger print scanners instead of keys, the idea being that only the owner could start the car, not just his/her key. AAAAAAAAAAAN!! Wrong. At least one car theft ring simply cut off an owners thumb, used it to start the car, and drove off with it, and the thumb. I don’t recall the fate of the owner. Now, I could well be wrong, but I don’t believe they’re selling those anymore. Even if they are, I think a ruthless car theft ring could figure out a way to convince the owner to start his car.
I don’t think our next president will have the stomach for a truly effective military response, so we will cook up some massive Save Somali Children humanitarian aid package which will actually be simply a nice, steady stream of money to the pirates like the Oil for Food scam.
Remember when Butch and Sundance were being relentlessly chased by a small army of Pinkerton men? One of the two — remarking on how much such an undertking must be costing the railroad — said “Hell, if they’d pay us that much to stop robbing them, we’d stop robbing them!”
The railroads didn’t, but the Industrial World may. Then the Western failing governments will probably start borrowing money from the pirates to stay afloat.
Ugh
This is my solution and analysis. (Make sure you are sitting down)
There are 3 types of responses to piracy: all are well known to be effective in human history.
Q-ships
Punitive expeditions on pirate strongholds and bases (including villages with little Somali children and women)
Execution of All Captured Pirates
Let us start off with Q-ships. Q-ships are military upgraded merchants with weapons, both ship to ship and onboard personal arms, complete with an armed boarding party, that will go around the sea lanes hoping to be jacked by pirates. Since pirates operate on economic principles like supply and demand, when the supply of defenseless merchants decrease and the demand for more financial risk and bodily harm increases, the business of pirating others starts to lose its popularity and rewards. You get less pirates, although those pirates may make more per ship but they also incur more losses per ship as well, eventually.
Q-ships, however, do not work if you have a catch and release policy for pirates. Most pirates will surrender if they realize they just came upon 200 Marines in a tanker armed with grenade launchers, torpedoes, missiles, gatling deck guns, 50 caliber MGs, and snipers. And now we come to the next solution to pirates.
Punitive expeditions are very effective given that once you have the intel to locate pirate bases, villages, and support centers, you can launch your conventional navy there and kill everybody. That eliminates the problem, for a time. As I said before, pirates operate on economic principles and if it is a choice between starving and pirating goods, guess which one people will chose. This will be true even if the penalty is death for them and their families (they can always hide their families, that hope sustains them). In this day and age, of course, you will almost never see punitive expeditions. THe ones you do see, from Russians, for example, are mostly terrorist activities or designed as them: whether they work or not depends on whether there is a softer target for pirates to go after (like the US). The Vietcong used punitive expeditions as part of their terrorist campaign against the South as well.
Execution of all captured pirates is really effective. How effective it is depends wholly on how soon someone dies after they are captured. There is no question of guilt for he was captured on a pirate ship operating against commercial traffick. Video taping executions, putting them on youtube (or whitehouse.gov), will serve as a barrier to pirates recruitment and the economic benefits of piracy but even though it is more effective in stopping pirates, it also provides legal methods for them to oppose you. Last option in this field is executing all of them and putting on the record that “they died trying to escape”. Nobody will know on the high seas, unless they have a ship or satellite near or on ya.
The problem with this is how to “capture pirates”. You can’t capture pirates in a destroyer because pirates won’t come near one. You have to capture them with either punitive expeditions (when you see a pirate ship dock with a village, get off, go home, sleep, and come back; this wasn’t possible back in the day, however) You can also capture them with Q-ships or by having armed merchantmen give you pirates they have successfully captured (the former is more effective than the latter).
Here is what I would do. Capture as many pirates with Q-ships as you can: Number 1 priority. Make a deal with merchantmen and insurance companies, giving them a specific route where Q-ships will operate, and then rely on the merchants to subsidize your Q-ship operations with (ships, local intel, some money, maintenance parts, etc). Preferably you want your Marines and Navy guys to be living with the merchantment, in order to soak up local behavior and not make a mistake that will turn the pirates on to you.
Once you have captured many many pirates, now is the time to put into place immediate execution of them. Hold them in Iraq, preferably. Don’t hold them anywhere the media can easily get access to. Which means don’t hold them at Gitmo, in the US, in Gulf States, or in safe places like Kurdistan. Place them amongst your strongest supporters, like Sunni Al Anbar, and also place them in the most violent sectors, historically at least. Just get the media away from them and cut down on their chances to escape. Get the military tribunals up, try the pirates, execute the pirates, then repeat until finished.
If you get some good intel on where pirates are based, get up a naval expedition, go there, destroy all the houses, burn all the crops, kill all the animals, take all the men and take out one of their eyes if they have two good ones, and then leave. Whether you do this or the executions of captured pirates first, depends.
Piracy will disappear after a few of these incidents. Either that or they will pick on weaker targets, like each other or ships that aren’t from our allies (good enough). Alternatively, if you don’t want to end piracy but to use piracy or just to protect yourself against piracy, after you have conducted a few punitive missions, make it known to the Somalis that you will offer good money for pirates that will hunt ships that the US wants to be hunted (Iran). Any pirates captured by US patrols that have agreed to this exchange of services will be released, unharmed. Those pirates will be subsidized by US money, though not weapons (traceable). Everybody benefits. We benefit by having Somalians jacking up Iran and our enemies, and we get deniability. THey get our help and subsidies in order t otake on bigge rand better prey. THey also get to not to be killed and executed: a strong motivator I believe.
As for today’s world, jacked up and weak spined as it is, well, let’s just say that if you had Q-ships today and captured a few pirates, you could trade their heads for the hostages and the ship. Execute 1 pirate a day until the pirates that are holding the Ukrainians or whatever hostage release their hostages.
If that doesn’t work, start cutting up body parts to make the bodies last longer. Instead of cutting off the head and dumping the body into the water near the captured merchantmen, cut off an arm, some fingers, maybe a leg, and dump them. Wait for the sharks to come and then throw in the rest. Make sure this is in sight of the people on the merchantmen.
If you don’t know “where” the merchant ship is…. you have problems and you need to go back to basics.
They could always to put Ymarsaker on-board. What do you think, YM. It could be quite lucrative.
A merchantship will need far more than me. This isn’t simply asocial violence, although the principles are the same. People are going to need armed boarding parties (to crew captured pirate prizes) and they are going to need to be able to shoot from the deck of a tanker or transport ship. This requires weapons training, small unit tactics, and so forth. Blackwater has this in spades but they cost more than it takes to run a tanker, so it is not very economic. Besides, Blackwater simply does not have the weapons required to blow up ships. Some of those the US Navy and gov won’t let private orgs have. And it is too expensive, anyways, for a private company to afford.
So long as the President, that compassionate conservative who people like to call a brutal thug, refuses to authorize full weapons fire on any pirate ships or pirate captured ships in international or national waters, then if you adopt Q-ships and instant pirate execution, you will still get rid of piracy. Just not as fast.
Capturing pirate ships, Danny, may be profitable but I doubt it. If pirates had naval warships and navy caliber weapons, then probably, but the Somali pirates use shit for attacks on super tanks and merchantships (who sometimes don’t even have a crew numbering more than 10). Somali pirates turn a profit this way only because people like me aren’t the ones giving orders concerning how to deal with anti-piracy and international law problems.
This has nothing to do with what I know. Anyone even half way familiar with the history of piracy can do the same job, if not better, as me. The difference is desire, ruthlessness, will, and hate of pirates.
I have the desire, the ruthlessness, the will, and the requisite hate of pirates to get the job done. I just don’t have the power. Others have the power but they don’t hate pirates, they don’t have the ruthlessness, sometimes they don’t even have the desire nor the will.
Btw, if Somalis think that they can make someone like me back off because they are cutting the fingers off the captured crew and raping the women, they do not want to know what I will come up as a form of counter. My ingenuity for pain and torture far exceeds the dirt poor fools in Somalia, I assure you.
Since pirates operate on economic principles like supply and demand, when the supply of defenseless merchants decrease and the demand for more financial risk and bodily harm increases, the business of pirating others starts to lose its popularity and rewards.
Correction: when the supply of fat targets starts to decrease and the demand for better equipped, trained, and armed pirate ships start to increase, the profit for pirates start to decrease.
Looks like the Indian Navy is taking care of business:
Indian Navy sinks pirate ship
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/19/asia/20pirate.php
Pardon me for being stupid, but wouldn’t it be wise, given that the Somali pirates are getting to be troublesome, to place some nasty weapons on board the big ships and then to allow them to shoot into shreds any boat that comes close without an invitation?
The reason why that isn’t part of the historic solutions to piracy (Q-ships are not civilian ships simply manned by US Marines, they are military ships first and foremost) is due to the fact that civilian agents simply cannot afford weapons or the training to use them and still make a profit. It is easier, oftentimes, for them to simply pay “tribute” to pirates. And that is what they have done.
In all of naval warfare history, the amount of times you see civilian traders buying weapons for their ships to fend off pirates is like almost zero. The money isn’t there, Book. Others mentioned something about insurance here, but even if it wasn’t insurance, it would be something.
The government could “subsidize” those civilian merchants but what then does a government have a Navy for then?
NEW DELHI: Days after pirates seized a Saudi-owned supertanker carrying more than $100 million worth of crude oil, the Indian Navy said on Wednesday that one of its warships fought a four-to-five-hour battle at sea with would-be hijackers in the Gulf of Aden, sinking one suspect vessel in flames and forcing the pirates to abandon a second as they fled at high speed.
The threat level of piracy here will depend on whether pirates fought that Indian warship or ran for it. If it is the former, big troubles for global economy. If the latter, there is still time to fix the problem.
When the Indian vessel tried to halt the ship, he said, “the vessel’s threatening response was that she would blow up the naval warship if it” came closer.
Guess they didn’t realize that they were dealing with somebody like me, except that somebody had the firepower at their hands to make good on trumping the pathetic threats of pirates.
The ship chased the first boat which was later found abandoned. The other boat made good its escape into darkness,” he said.
Need submarines. Blast a full spread of torpedoes into a ship and watch if those “speedboats” come out with somebody alive at the helm.
Nice experience for the sub commanders.
“It is the first attack of its kind in which such a big vessel has been hijacked so far away from the coast,” said Cyrus Mody, of the International Maritime Bureau, which monitors global piracy. “It shows that the pirates now have the capability and capacity to sustain themselves in deep sea until the vessel actually comes by.”
What it shows is that piracy has become profitable enough that people are able to increase their logistical capacities to this degree and that they are recruiting new members.
What do you think the pirates spend their profits on? Booze and women? No. They spend it on upgrades and buying bigger, faster, more well armed ships, including better small arms weapons.
THe Navy of a nation is the first and natural defense against pirates. But notice I didn’t include them as one of the Top Three. Why? Because navies can suppress pirates, but not end their operations.
The problem with subs for anti-piracy is their speed and inability to board ships very well. Both are problems which can be bypassed given today’s tech. At least, given the US’s tech.
As for Booze and women, a correction should be made that they don’t spend all their money on them.
“Despite the best efforts of the international military task force the logistical challenge of policing an area which, as this latest attack has demonstrated, is now more than a million square miles of ocean, is enormous,” said Brendan Flood, a marine underwriter for a specialist insurer Hiscox in London, in a posting on the Lloyds’ insurance website. “With the general situation having deteriorated so quickly, insurance premiums for the hull, cargo and crew for vessels taking this increasingly dangerous route will be under pressure and will need to be reassessed.”
“Best efforts”? I wouldn’t call telling the US Navy to back off a pirate ship once it entered Somalian waters “best efforts”. Half efforts, perhaps, but not best efforts.
With the general situation having deteriorated so quickly
I hope only idiots believed that by paying 30 million ransom the “problem would go away”. Cause if it wasn’t only idiots…
increasingly dangerous route will be under pressure and will need to be reassessed.
This means that eventually, if the US Navy doesn’t take care of business, the private corporations and businessmen will start paying ransom and tribute directly to pirates. Depending on how many pirate factions there are and what parts of the water they control, the increase cost in shipping will likely cause economic recession or even starvation in some parts of the globe.
This is what it means to live in a world free of the “oppressive” United States, but even then they won’t feel the full effect.
Amazingly, my old blog post I wrote 2 years ago on this subject is still viable.
Link
Be sure to click on the Title Link first, as that will give you Neo’s comment section that started my post and the context for it.
If you analyze my positions I’ve covered here and the position I wrote 2 years ago, you won’t see much difference in the generalities. You will see a huge difference in the specifics.
When I talk about Pax Americana or the American Empire, I am talking about political will and specific political structures present in the past that is not present in today’s world (like universal jurisdiction to try and execute pirates in any parts of the seas, whether it belongs to one nation or another). At the time, I had not covered international piracy much. By now, it is not news to me any more.