U.S. destroyer joins pursuit of pirates off Somalia

I believe I heard this morning that Kenya (?) told the US Navy if they needed to sink it... go for it.

My suggestion as to what would actually work is on it's way to being officially possible. In a real world scenario pragmatism is the route to go. Beats the hell outta warm fuzzy bullshit. Singing kumbaya with pirates is unlikely, explaining that we're gonna send them to the bottom of the freakin' ocean catches their attention.

Like I said, it's a military problem and should be addressed in terms of what will work, not what's gonna win you a "Miss Congeniality" prize. Fuck 'em. Tell em they're fixing to get a better look at the sea bottom than Jacques Cousteu ever had. They'll kill each other other get the hell outta dodge.

 

A 'Surrender of die' ultimatum will definitely make the pirates pay notice.

 

Armed Somali pirates attacked four ships, including an Italian crude-oil tanker, in what a maritime piracy watchdog said Friday was a "critical level" of attacks in the Gulf of Aden.

"It is one of the highest number of attacks in a single day in the same area," said Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur.



The final incident occurred when pirates armed with machine guns forced a Taiwanese container ship with 20 crew members to halt. The ship's captain deployed fire hoses to retaliate and the vessel managed to escape.

 

somehow that piece of junk managed to push a NATO standard troops in 3 days back to Georgia

P.S: The only reason why Russia is involved in this is because half of the crew are russians, imho.

 

Why is the US involved in this? It is an honest question. We have no people on the ship, its not our ship, and doesn't contain our weaponry. Is this one of those cases where we were asked to come help?

 

Blast the pirates to kingdom come. Sounds like a good idea to me. Better yet strafe the ships to kill anyone that breathes. If you can find some pirates on shore do the same to them.

A lot of ships, people, nations and supplies would be a lot better off w/out these pirates.

 

Georgia is not up to NATO standards and the few tanks they have are also Russian junk.

 

The Russian missile frigate Neustrashimy will arrive to the Somalia coast in on day to diffuse the pirate hijacking.

 

The Russians sent the whole baltic fleet

The Neustrashimy has one Kamov Ka-27 helicopter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamov_Ka-27

 

Pirates threaten to blow up ship

Somali pirates holding a Ukrainian ship with a cargo of military tanks off the Somali coast have threatened to blow it up if they are not paid a ransom.

A pirate spokesman told news agencies by satellite telephone that the ransom of $20m (£12m) must be paid by Monday night or the ship would be destroyed.

He said the pirates were ready to die along with the crew.

US warships have surrounded the MV Faina and a Russian frigate is on its way to help in the operation.

The Kenya-bound ship, together with its mainly Ukrainian crew of 21 and cargo of 33 tanks, was seized on 25 September.

One member of the crew, believed to be Russian, died of a stroke shortly afterwards.

'Three days'

"We held a consultative meeting for more than three hours today and decided to blow up the ship and its cargo - us included - if the ship owners did not meet our ransom demand," Sugule Ali told the Associated Press from aboard the vessel.

"After three days, starting from tomorrow, the news of the ship will be closed. Either we achieve our goal and get the ransom or perish along with the ship, its crew and cargo."

The pirate spokesman repeated the ultimatum in a conversation with the Spanish news agency Efe.

Piracy is rife in the busy shipping lanes near to Somalia's coast and along the Gulf of Aden, where dozens of boats have been hijacked this year.

Somalia has lacked a functioning central government since 1991 and has been afflicted by continual civil strife.

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7664767.stm

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Okay, I guess that is some kind of threat. At least it will save the US and Russia some armaments.

 

Hasn't the Russian frigate Neustrashimy arrived?

 

The ransom is down to 8 million dollars.

 

How about a case of Vodka?

 

This reminds me of when someone sets a fire in some trashed out building in a trashed out neighborhood simply for the purpose of shooting at firemen that try to put out the blaze.

We shouldnt have ships from multiple nations converging on this spot and holding in place while civilians somewhere half a world away try to figure out how to remove the contents of an egg without breaking the shell. Tactical error, and I'd say potentially suicidal except I doubt the commanders of our vessels are the ones that decided to anchor out in harm's way and sit for a while. Having an international flotilla gather for weeks is going to eventually result in someone with a Harpoon missile or some low tech alternative using the crowd and confusion to take down one of our own vessels.

In this case... rather than sitting around while people debate this, they shouldve nonchalantly fired a torpedo into center mass... sunk the pirates and the contraband weapons, and drove off after picking up survivors. The shock of the act would have the appropriate effect and we wouldnt have our vessels sitting there like ducks on a pond off the coast of a country half full of people that'd sink our ships the same day they acquire the means.

The way they'd acquire those means would be this type of pirating operation or a ship of contraband weapons like this... so putting both out of business is in our interest. Whether it's in anyone else's interest is their problem.

 

At this point if they let the pirates go, it will embolden the rest and no one will be safe.

 

I have not of the ships as sitting ducks but you are correct.

We keep encountering pirates and they seem to be escaping. We should step up our efforts fighting these terrorist.

 

Pirates have agreed to accept $10 million ransom but backed out of the deal

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g2gnANr7LcoUfJqp8780GwLlTEkQ

Armed pirates in speedboats hijacked a Greek chemical tanker with 20 crew members in the Gulf of Aden near Somalia

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,436409,00.html

 

Those pirates are good. I thought the warships in the area would be a deterrent. I guess not. Rob's way of dealing with pirates would yield the best results.

 

I read stories about them firing RPG at curies liners. So this is a real issue that we have to deal with.

 

Torpedoes are sounding like a good idea.

Mark Caltar, a piracy expert and operations director of Olton Solutions, told Al Jazeera that the payment of any ransom would be a win for the pirates and a loss for the United Nations.

"What we have here is an epidemic, a plague of piracy," he said. "If people ... see that the pirates around Somalia can get away with this now, and six US warships are hanging around doing absolutely nothing, then you are encouraging piracy on a global status."

Late on Wednesday, the 19 crew members, including 15 Filipinos, from another vessel were freed unharmed by another group of pirates after a $1.6m ransom was reportedly paid.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2008/10/2008109173022242657.html