Why aren't we talking about the pirates yet?

Piracy caused European fishing fleets to go home with 1/3 to 1/2 less in 2008 than 2007. Regardless of whether that was their intent or just a convenient excuse, they are scaring off the Big Fish industry that's taking advantage of their wretched state.

Thousands of dolphins block Somali pirates

Best pirate-related headline ever. This article also contains my current favorite pirate-related quote:

Oh god, don't you see what this means? China has recruited a dolphin army! We're doomed!

Another U.S. merchant vessel was recently attacked off the coast of Somalia. According to the BBC News, the Houston based cargo carrier Liberty Sun was en route to Mombasa, Kenya when it came under pirate attack in a daring mid-day assault. The crew sheltered in the engine room while the pirates peppered the hull with automatic weapons fire and rockets but were unable to board or subdue the craft. Though Somali pirates have vowed revenge against French and U.S. ships over the deaths of fellow pirates in recent rescue operations, none of the crew aboard the Liberty Sun were injured in the attack.

i love this so much.

man, pirates may not be nearly as cool as previously reported. we all know ninjas > pirates, but now snipers > pirates, and even dolphins > pirates. before these developments, i'd assumed that pirates > unicorns, but now i'm not so sure.

Ron Paul to solve the pirate problem!

Yep. What could go wrong?

Well, uh... math?

100 guys? "Patrolling the seas?"

And his supporters have a problem with it when his disconnect from reality is pointed out by others?

Pirates verses Obama, a graphic representation:

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Although:

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i doubt we'll be issuing letters of marque to american wannabe privateers, but we'll probably end up funding one or more of the factions to raid Puntland. which is unfortunate, because aside from (or maybe partly because of) the piracy, Puntland's one of the more stable regions.

God Damn Ron Paul stole my idea! Well, mine was to bring Steven Seagal out of retirement to kick pirate ass. But clearly, his plan of hiring mercenaries is derivative of my idea!

It's worth mentioning that this ship was en route to Somalia to deliver US food aid. Kind of puts a wrench in that ad hoc coast guard argument, doesn't it?

I know someone who doesn't want to be a pirate.

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Actually, I don't think the ship was Somalia bound at all. Part of the cargo was slated for redistribution by the U.N. World Food program to Somalia once the ship had reached it's destination. Sort of ironic that aid vessels that are directly supporting humanitarian assistance to Somalia are being attacked though. Of course, these pirate attacks aren't directed towards disrupting such shipments, though some looting is expected, their interests aren't in the ship or it's cargo, rather they are intent on taking the crew for ransom money only.

In a fashion though, some of the Somali pirates might consider themselves a form of ad hoc Coast Guard. Sugule Ali, a pirate leader, has charged that international vessels traveling through Somali waters often dump toxic waste while others freely poach fishing grounds along the coastline. Purportedly this is one of the reasons why the pirates say they are engaged in disrupting ships and detain the crews. However, it seems that the pirates are being less selective of the ships they target (granted they never know what's aboard) and are making greater demands for the one's they've hijacked. At this point though, what may have initially been a valid concern and reason for their actions has become an empty excuse to continue engaging in piracy.

Only if you continue insisting that these decentralized autonomous groups are monolithically indistinct from one another. I mean, I know they all DO look the same and all...

well, two things. regarding this specific incident, there are lots and lots of factions in Somalia who will be fighting over those aid supplies once they arrive in the country. if Puntland pirates can get the aid supplies (or some value from the aid supplies, via ransom) before the other factions, that's a boost for Puntland. it hurts them in the long term, of course, because it will discourage other countries from sending aid supplies--but even that doesn't hurt Puntland as much as it will hurt the other factions, so it's still a net gain for Puntland.

more broadly, i think trying to classify Somali pirates as either an ad hoc coast guard or a bunch of greedy bastards is inaccurate. Somalia has genuine reasons to be angry at pretty much any ship that's anywhere near their territorial waters, since just about all of them are either directly engaging in, or supporting via trade and inaction, illegal fishing and waste dumping. and as has been pointed out, Somali piracy actually has impacted the fishing industry--legal as well as, one assumes, illegal.

but the legitimacy of Somali complaints, and the efficacy of their actions, doesn't mean that many of them--probably most of them--aren't in it for themselves. you can be greedy and want to strike back at those who have wronged you and want to help your kin and countryfolk, all at the same time.

Sure, but my ability to sympathize with poor, starving Afghans cuts off quickly the minute they start targeting and killing my countrymen in and out of uniform. Puntland might benefit greatly from cutting off aid shipments to their enemies, and further benefit them if such aid shipments stop entirely (I imagine to some extent because they can still use piracy to gain access to similar supplies and food), but we both agree, its bad for Somali as a whole, and only serves to undercut the realistic and long-term solution required: a strong, stable, central, and moderate government that has control over the whole of the country.

Its easy to understand the place these people are coming from and sympathize with and for them, but ultimately their actions are going to hurt their entire country first, and themselves eventually. They have to realize that their actions might effect the issues that bother them, but that most of the civilized world sees them as, basically, somewhat well-organized thugs, regardless of distinctions between organizations or secondary motives that are more noble than pillage & loot. I don't know that there's anything else Puntland has to offer them than this, but I do know that the rest of the civilized world won't offer them much more than the business end of a weapon (and we discussed earlier some that might or might not work) until they stop disrupting international trade in an important corridor for trade.

but here's the thing--the last time Somalia tried to get itself organized and peaceful, we stomped the crap out of them for their troubles. we--we, ourselves--removed any possible incentive for Somalis to begin working towards overall peace and prosperity by kicking the legs out of their first real attempt to do so in over a decade. what's really funny is, the Islamic Courts Union--the group of rabble-rousers and terrorists we sent Ethiopia in to crush--reduced Somali piracy to its lowest level in years.

there is no reason for any Somali to worry about the international response to the trade interruption caused by Somali piracy, because the international response to the trade interruption is likely to be the same as the international response to anything else Somalia does, be it peaceful or harmful.

And to be fair, I'm aware of in total agreement with you about the Islamic Courts Union, it was another retarded example of US foreign policy gone awry, similar to the Iranian coup leading to the revolt, or arming the Afghans against the Russians, but not sticking around to help with the rebuilding, or looking into exactly who it was we were arming in the first place.

And of course, scant months before 9/11 we were praising the Taliban for their efforts to stamp out opium fields and heroin production. Now they're funding their entire war effort with it, and opium growth worldwide shot up something like 2000% in the wake of the invasion. (Usually I don't make bold assertions like this, I'll find links later and post them, as well as correct myself it I'm inflating numbers.)

Regardless, my point stands, that once you start engaging in this kind of action sympathy dries up very quick and you get labeled a criminal. Now, their actions may be understandable, but that doesn't make them forgivable. The reaction, hopefully, would've been different under a different administration, but even had it been the same, like I said, sympathy dries up when you go from being the victim to the victimizer (a real word?). If Somali is ever going to have a strong central government its citizen need to stop the fifteen plus civil war they've been involved in, or the international community needs to pick and back (the right) winner and begin the long process of clean-up and national building. I don't see either happening anytime soon.

i'm just not sure that if the Somalis played nice, it would have any beneficial effect for them. maybe if they started playing nice now, it would help, because they've managed to capture the world's attention with their wacky piratical antics. now, some people are actually talking about helping set up a stable government in Somalia; now, people are talking about the fact that Somalia's coastal livelihood is being stolen from them. who was talking about those things twelve months ago? i know i hadn't hear about their fishing troubles until the piracy thing hit the news, and i've actually been making an effort to keep an eye on Somalia.

i'm not claiming that this was on purpose, of course. but given that kidnapping people and holding them for ransom has actually generated more positive press for Somalia than spontaneously forming a peaceful system of law did, i have a hard time seeing how Somalia owes the international community any amount of effort to police themselves. after all, Somalis have no reason to expect anything other than another invasion if they do start policing themselves.

fuck dolphins, dude. it's all about those seals.

those seals will just cold fucking kill your ass.

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I'm not saying you don't have a fair point, and I'm not arguing that Somali people have been getting a fair shake. I'm saying their claims of doing this for noble reason ring false, and while it might capture positive PR, any person who looks at it for more than a second can see through it. Further, I wonder how much resistance to a stable government is coming to those warlords bankrolling and profiting from piracy, and what they'll do to stop anything that threatens their revenues. If a stable government did form- through outside intervention or not- how many of the people behind the pirates would opt into the system. I'm not trying to shift goalposts to win an argument, I'm actually asking what you think the future would be for these pirates and the guys bankrolling their operations, whether Somali stabilizes or not.

i wouldn't call them noble, but i do think that many of the pirates view their activities as--among other things--striking back at their enemies. i keep going back to the example of ye olde privateers. it's fair and accurate to say that many privateers were patriots--patriots who had no problem at all exploiting national conflicts to make personal profit.

forming a stable government would necessarily involve ousting foreign elements which support such activities as piracy, because on a national level, those activities are destabilizing. without the starter money provided by foreign investors, and assuming the formation of an actual, organized coast guard that protected Somali waters from foreign overfishing and waste dumping? i think most of the pirates would go back to being fishermen.

but that may be putting the cart before the horse. to get a stable government, you need the support of the people (given either willingly or through coercion--and Somalia's fucked up enough that coercion may actually be harder to achieve, since loyalties have been fractured to the point that you'd probably have to go around coercing every village individually). what might work is tracing and seizing the assets of foreign investors and dumping them into the Somali economy, probably by organizing the pirates into the actual coast guard i mentioned in the previous paragraph. there are a lot of Somali pirates proclaiming patriotism, whether one agrees that the patriotism is real or not. paying them to perform actually-patriotic activities might go a long way towards gaining their support, and the support of the people who their activities are supporting.

This I can agree with. Pragmatically speaking, criminals or not, co-opting is always a lot easier than destroying an enemy or undermining the root causes of their behavior.

I do wonder, how many exactly would go back to fishing, given better circumstances. Not that I don't think the majority wouldn't, I just wonder what those who've gotten a taste for easier money and taking whatever they like would do, particularly during, say, an interim period while the government, civil order, and stability are established. Which, as you point out, might be a pipe-dream anyway. I worry less about convincing every village than I do every villager at this point.

You know it's time to "retire" when you find yourself getting pwned by fucking Aquaman....