French warship captures pirates

[TheCoxwain]

Source: BBC

A French warship has captured 11 pirates off the coast of Kenya, amid calls for the international community to deal with the problem of piracy.
The pirates were captured by a warship from an EU piracy patrol, hours after a failed attack on a US ship.
News of the incidents came as the UN special envoy for Somalia said the attacks threatened international peace.
He urged financial backers of the "bandits", as he called them, to be identified and held accountable.
The latest attack involved pirates firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at a US-flagged cargo ship, the Liberty Sun, which was carrying food aid for Africa.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8000447.stm

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Interrogate but do not torture these guys ..

[loyalkydem]

1. Viva

the french

[CJCRANE]

2. Freeze their assets.

The financiers'.

[TheCoxwain]

6. What if they are being financed by Hedge funds here in New York?

I have a lot of friends in Wall street ... Ive heard rumors about Hedge funds being involved with African Militias .. Hedge funds do not have to disclose their activity. and can make a profit any way they can..


I cannot see how poor African with no food suddenly armed with expensive weapons

[rcrush]

10. .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5446400

[ShareTheWoods]

20. more likely financed by a blind mullah taking charitable donations

It would not be a first for some groups and American cities like NYC.

[onehandle]

3. But of course...

[saltpoint]

4. The Pirates are 0 for 2 in public relations episodes this week.

Maybe they should real quick schedule a teabagging event with the Republicans.

[Lex]

5. The French captured them? Well, add more misery to the freepers' day.

nt

[Lucky Luciano]

9. Haha...yep...will make the Freeptards crazy! nt

[YDogg]

12. today, we are all french.

:hide:

[14thColony]

17. If the freepers bothered to pay attention to non-US news

they'd know that the French Navy has been aggressively pursuing the pirates for over a year now. They've stormed and freed a couple of captured vessels, chased off lots of pirate attacks, and even pursued pirates well inland with special forces and helos from warships off shore. Given that they only keep one or two frigates/destroyers in the area, they've been very active.

[Posteritatis]

22. Checking, they're deeply confused and a little offended

A bunch of them are pissed off that the pirates were merely captured, and half of the rest of the comments are about Sarkozy's wife.

[Lex]

24. sounds about right

bless their little tiny hearts

[No Elephants]

34. A LITTLE offended? What accounts for the improvement in disposition?

[Renew Deal]

7. Have them walk the plank.

:D

[xchrom]

8. it would be fun to leaflet teabagger parties

with this news item.

[panzerfaust]

11. Historically pirates needed merchant contacts in order to sell the stolen goods

'cause mostly pirates did not end up with chests of gold, but with cargoes of lumber, slaves, rum, cotton and tea - all of which needed to be sold (along with the ship) to realize a profit.

Carlyle Group anyone? It is their sort of gig.

[14thColony]

15. Somali pirates have a different business model.

They don't care about the cargo. They set a ransom for the return of the entire vessel, cargo included. Except in cases of food cargo, which might get pilfered for domestic consumption, it's generally left alone.

[one-eyed fat man]

27. Back to the days of Denham and Decatur.........

"Taking a wasps’ nest... is more effective than catching the wasps one by one."

It was good advice in 1841 and it's good advice now. Failing that, anything that leaves the Somali coast should be quietly sunk without fanfare once beyond the horizon. No announcements about Predator drones, attack subs or actions by warships. If it's Somali and out of sight of land; it simply never returns to shore except as flotsam.

A seagoing version of "Shoot, shovel and shut up!"

[14thColony]

28. It sounds good, but....

1. Hundreds of Somali boats leave the coast every morning and sail far over the horizon. They're fishermen. Without them many Somali coastal communities will slowly starve to death. Those World Food Programme ships aren't hauling food to Somalia because they're living large and just needed side dishes.

2. The 'pirate' boats are fishing boats. In fact they will sometimes pirate one day and fish the next. Or even fish on the way back from pirating if it didn't go well.

3. We would need a task force bigger than we can currently muster to sink that many fishing boats, and we would kill thousands of Somalis in order to get at the few hundred pirates.

4. As for getting the whole "wasps' nest," see motion picture 'Blackhawk Down.' Please wait til I leave the military next year before we set up for the blockbuster sequel to that one.

And, from a colleague of mine just back from an 'anti-piracy' conference hosted by a major NATO navy, and attended by execs from several of the big shippers that have been preyed upon:

5. The shipping companies and the maritime insurers DO NOT WANT A MILITARY ESCALATION OF THE SITUATION. As strange as it may sound, the shippers are comfortable with the current level of piracy. If they weren't, they'd be avoiding the Suez Canal/Red Sea route and going via the Cape route. THEY'RE NOT. In the shippers' view, the chance of getting ship-jacked is microscopic given the number of ships out there, the pirates try very very hard (up til now at least) the avoid hurting anyone, and after pro forma negotiations, the pirates get their ransom and release ship, crew, and cargo with no further ado. Pirates bring money into their communities, shippers aren't bothered because insurers pay the ransom, and insurers have only barely raised their rates because the ransoms are still petty change compared to the payouts they make for shipwrecks and such.

The shippers are worried that public outcry will prompt ham-fisted military action, upping the ante and causing the pirates to get nasty, which they are not at all right now. Two people have been killed by or around the pirates in 3 years of piracy. Compare that to Malaccan and China Sea pirates who are known to murder the entire crew as a matter of course, then keep the ship and sell the cargo. But funny enough no one cares about those much more vicious pirates enough to endorse Global Thermonuclear War against them.

If the shippers don't want the military to get involved, then why are we so eager to 'save' a bunch of people who don't want to be saved?

As in most things, this situation is far more complicated than it appears at first, second, or even third glance.

[one-eyed fat man]

31. Somalia, 1993

Defense Secretary Les Aspin rejected sending needed tanks and armored vehicles to Somalia. The armor, as well as AC-130 gunships that also were withheld, was sought by commanders to protect U.S. troops.

If you are going to take on a wasps' nest, you had better use sufficient resources and tasking to do the job. If you take half-measures, worried about being stung, you ensure that you will be, and badly!

I had retired from the Army by then but I still knew folks in the 160th. Somalia is still run by thugs who would steal food from their own mother, just a different batch. And we are still sending them shiploads of food to pillage.

I will concede the pirates in the South China Sea are more murderous, but they also appear to prey on smaller and more "local" vessels. Pirates have not disappeared from the Carribean either. More than one fisherman has packed it in after having to give up his catch to pirates yet again. Personally, even a part-time pirate deserves a full time stay in Davy Jones'locker.

[14thColony]

33. I pretty much agree with you across the board

And piracy is bad, and I make no excuses for it. But at the same time I merely point out that as a percent of ships in that area, piracy is a microscopic problem, and the shippers themselves don't want anyone rushing in to 'save' them from what they see as a negligible threat.

As you point out, piracy is a land problem, not a sea problem. The Romans in the Med, the British in India and the Carribean, and the US on the Barbary Coast all dealt with those pirate situations by landing Roman, British, and US troops ashore and fighting land campaigns to destroy the pirate bases. Had Mogadishu 92-93 not happened maybe somebody today would contemplate that. But not after that, and not over an area many times bigger than one city (hundreds of miles of coastline alone).

I would be concerned that an incursion to eliminate the pirates would simply lead to the involvement of al-Shabbab, a real terrorist group that really does want to kill people, and really is heavily-armed. All we'd probably manage would be killing a few dozen pirates while setting the conditions for the return to power of the United Islamic Courts government, which we helped Ethiopia depose -- irony being the bitch it is, the pirates only returned to their old ways AFTER we helped depose the UIC government, which had managed to stamp out piracy along the entire Somali coast. So maybe our failure to stamp out the pirates would inadvertently lead to the stamping out of the pirates...wouldn't that be something.

[iandhr]

13. The French

won a battle against someone. that a first


just a joke

[Flagg]

21. sigh

Quite a long list of French victories

http://frenchvictories.hautetfort.com/
http://www.peachmountain.com/5star/French_military_victories.aspx
http://www.militaryfactory.com/battles/french_military_victories.asp
http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=7061&IBLOCK_ID=35

[Posteritatis]

23. A rather stupid joke at that (nt)

[Egnever]

26. Welcome to DU

You will go far here!

[14thColony]

29. Be glad they won Yorktown for us

or we'd be a cluster of small Commonwealth countries just south of Canada right now.

[Vidar]

14. Vive la France!

[tocqueville]

16. here are guys that did it

after some cheering



congrats the frigate Nivôse

http://jdb.marine.defense.gouv.fr/batiment/nvs/page/3#

http://jdb.marine.defense.gouv.fr/batiment/nvs/page/3#

[SoxFan]

18. "Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time"

"you silly Somali pie-uh-rats!"

[ShareTheWoods]

19. Turn them loose in their boat and return the RPG favor...

Since the wannabe terrorists fired their RPGs at an aid ship of all things, let them see how an RPG into their port side
changes their attitudes.

Viva la France!

[14thColony]

30. ...

1. If Somali pirates are terrorists then so are LA car-jackers. They don't give a shit if anyone is terrorized, they just want money. In fact, the real terrorists in Somalia (al-Shabbab) hate the pirates with a passion and shut them down in areas they gain control over.

2. The pirates generally have no clue what the target's cargo is, and don't much care; they ransom the ship as a whole.

3. The pirates fire off some shots from their AKs and RPGs to scare the crew into surrendering. They actually try to avoid hitting anyone. In all the scores and scores of Somali pirate attacks in the current 3-yr resurrgence, two people have been killed by pirates, and one of them was probably caught in some crossfire and not an intended target.

As pirates go, I'd MUCH rather be taken by Somali pirates than Asian pirates, who are known to rob and then murder crews and passengers as a matter of course. The Somali pirate lords usually don't even allow stealing from the crew or the ship.

Yes piracy is bad. Yes stealing is bad. No there are no excuses no matter what an untenable shithole Somali has become. But let's keep a bit of perspective on how 'bad' the bad guys are. As bad guys go these guys are practically old-world gentlemen.

[davsand]

25. French laws being what they are, those pirates may not be going home anytime soon.

If at all, in fact...


The French have a whole different take on this stuff than the US does.



Laura

[ohio2007]

32. If certain laws are followed, the pirates will going to England as they give haven to pirates

but those laws go back to when the English and French were going at it for high sea supremacy.

strange days indeed