Real Life Pirates of the Carribean 3 - Page 2

Probably a helicopter drop at nighttime at low altitude if it was on open seas, then swimming/diving a couple hundreds yards slowly towards the raft. Its not like those pirates can do much about it, if all they hear is distant chopper sounds.
Assaulting a real boat/ship would be far more difficult.

EDIT: No I havent done it, but I have seen a demonstration by the german navy/gsg 9 several years back during my service time. I dont think tactics differ much between 1st world country special units.

I bet the movie rights are being wrestled over as we speak.

Seals kicked ass. Good for them.

Thank God this ended well (for the Americans at least). That buzzing sound you hear in the background are GOP talking points being shredded.

I am a serious critic of Obama but let me be the first to say OBAMA KICKS ASS!! Now that is a smart, decisive president. Hot damn. It takes balls to authorize lethal force and to let your navy heads make the call. Smart moves all around, bravo.

Bush would have done the same thing, albeit probably sooner and wiping out more pirates.

Sarcastic Self-edit: While killing the captain, creating a tidal wave destroying the Somalian coast, and killing hundreds of thousands of fish.

Silly, this was all Bush's fault in the first place. Come on now, get with the program.

If this was Bush's fault, we would have seen pirates after Hurricane Katrina...

Oh wait...

Well, you do. They're just wearing Blackwater Badges. Mind you, Blackwater is a passable name for a pirate crew, anyway

very true, very true.

What The International Media Aren't Telling You About Somalia Pirates

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madr...a-isnt-telling

Got to love head shots at sea wonder what the distance was?

You conviently forgot the editorial comment on the crooks and liars website:

So the website supports taking American seamen hostage. Nice.
Sort of damages the creditbility of the site, does'n tit.?
Hint: If you want to make a case, linking to an obviously biased and slanted website is not exactly the best way to do it.
Amazing how everybody except the Pirates themselves are to blame.

The range was 25 meters, but there were elevation differences, and the boats were clearly not "rocking" in rhythm. So it must have been three great shots, since if one guy missed and two hit, it would have been a disaster. Three up, three down.

I just can't understand the fetishization of special forces.

You conveniently choose to ignore the big picture and re-state the obvious. Yes, the pirates are to blame for their hostage-taking. Yes, Obama and the military did what needed to be done to save the captain's life and react appropriately to a hostage crisis.

But there is a larger picture: Somalia has not had any kind of functioning government structure since melting down; there's a dire humanitarian crisis there; and rather than responding, the rich nations of the world have used the void to steal from the Somalis and dump radioactive waste into its waters, with no efforts to curb these practices.

Sometimes you're required to wrap your mind around multiple issues--some simple and others complex--to understand a situation.

Don't be dense and quit with the false dichotomy. No one is suggesting the pirates aren't culpable. But the situation in Somalia is extremely complex - politically, socially and culturally - volatile and, most importantly - tragic. Given these desperate circumstances it is unreasonable to demand that Somalis be paragons of sugar, spice and all things nice.

There's nothing complex about this issue, it's pretty cut and dry. Pirates practice piracy because of crappy economic conditions on the land, there's not much more to it. Everyone knows this and recognizes it, however that still does not mean we shouldn't be able to attack/kill/capture pirates if they attempt to commit a crime and threaten the lives of innocents. Historically the best way we've gotten rid of pirates has been to hunt them down and kill them.

Yes, the humanitarian relief efforts / economic development plans are long term issues that cannot be solved in a short period of time, those are issues that will take decades to fix, however in the short term there's nothing wrong in killing pirates despite the economic conditions.

What you describe above is complex. The fact that you understand it doesn't mean that people like dudalb are capable or even interested in understanding it. Then again, you appear to have the advantage of being sane.

Am I wrong in thinking yt's point was to show these pirates aren't simply blood-thirsty scalawags? Some of you act like discussing the reasons people behave like this is bad.

But in the end that is what they are regardless of the conditions that made them so. A rabid dog is a rabid dog, it not the fault of the dog it got rabies, but that is just life. It also does not change the fact that there is only one way to deal with a rabid dog.

The US and the UN tried to help the Somali's back in the 90's. But based on a PR disaster, they decided it wasn't worth the effort. And so the world left Somalia, and it actually got a lot worse. I'm sure if we wait long enough, the UN will do something about that, though.

Crime is crime. The Somali pirates committed a crime, and chose a particularly bad time to do it. I have deep sympathy for the Somali people, but not enough to condone violent acts committed for material gain (which I recognize equates to survival for many of them).

And I don't "fetishize" special forces. I noted the physical and tactile difficulty of shooting three men in the head at range at the same time. It is also why people like action movies and boys like toy guns. Because it is "cool". The few SEALs I have known (and it is a small sample size) have all been decent fellows, and none looked like a movie version of a commando.

If memory serves, you should read up on a Swiss firm called Achair Partners and an Italian waste broker called Progresso (I think).

The old "President" of Somalia allowed these companies to dump in exchange for $80 Million in cash. The 2004 tsunami waves broke the storage containers and flooded the beaches with medical waste and depleted uranium containers.

Yes it sucks, but methinks its not the corporations-are-greedy-and-want-to-kill-everybody conspiracy that some people are suggesting it is. Seems to me that the US has nothing to do with this. Its really one Swiss company + one eye-talian company.

Remind me not to buy any Progresso olive oil if I see it.

Yeah, you're right. I probably just have too much faith in humanity. Luckily people in charge understand this.

Ummm no? If there was a prize for gross oversimplification and abandoning of common sense, here is the winner, ladies and gentlemen.

Look, its pretty safe to say that more than 95% of all humans on this earth are capable of killing another, if pushed by the proper circumstances. Almost all of us, by your definition, are killers and we cant help it, its in our genetically encoded behaviour.
However, as you can see outside the window, we are still around and are, more often than not, NOT killing each other... because the circumstances that trigger such behaviour are exceedingly rare for most sane people.
A rabid dog has a disease, he isnt able to get help and get rid of it, and it affects his behaviour. Thats a crappy analogy for these pirates right there.

These pirates are normal people for whom the circumstances were met to engage in this behaviour. They werent born with an eyepatch and a wooden leg, they are a product of their society. Western exploitation of their homeland is one factor of that, as are a ton of others.
Everyone here is, at heart, a pirate, if piracy happened to be the most sensible solution to truly dire circumstances.

Now, I absolutely condone the actions taken here.. just because a poor guy is starting to play pirate, even if it isnt his fault, doesnt mean we can let that happen. Shooting them was an acceptable solution, in my opinion, to a situation impossible to solve successfully in other ways deemed acceptable.
But claiming these guys are fair game simply by virtue of considering them "born pirates" is idiotic.

Ok, it's a tough situation. Most of us agree that while in this instance killing the pirates was a legitimate course of action a policy of hunting down remaining pirates is not only myopic but is, perhaps, just plain wrong. There is a sense of self-defense in the acts of some if not many Somali pirates, a legitimate sense... so what can we do?

Sidenote: the fetishization of special forces is quite simple to understand. Great/skilled warriors have been glorified since whatever it was that first crawled out of the jungle and banged a rock over the heads of its enemies.

The Malacca Strait has always had some piracy, though it started getting crazy around 2002/2003. Neighboring countries increased security and private navies (in the form of both onboard defense and escorts) were brought in alot of instances. It has since gotten alot better.

In this case, neighboring countries aren't going to do much and this area is much bigger and more difficult to patrol than the Malacca Strait. But the lesson of preventing the boat from being taken in the first place holds true. Its only going to stop when the risk-versus-reward ratio is too shitty for a pirate. The only way that happens is if overtaking a boat and then getting paid becomes difficult. In addition to simply avoiding the major piracy shipping lanes, maybe the larger ships should consider (temporarily while in the danger zone) having an armed escort, building up on-board defense, and having a few ex-Navy SEAL types on-board.

When are shipping companies going to take action? Sadly, its probably when they see the resulting affect of a "yes" answer to question on the insurance forms that goes something like "Are you sailing anywhere within 200-300 miles of the African coastline?"

Not a good point of comparison. A rabid dog has had all semblance of choice stripped from it (if the human conception of choice is at all transferrable). Rabies is a neuroinvasive virus which destroys the brain. Most democratic nations do not treat law-breaking individuals deemed mentally dysfunctional as criminals (or they at least mitigate the degree of criminality).

You're right. There IS only one way to deal with a rabid dog. But we're not dealing with rabid dogs. These are human beings. If they break the law let the law deal with them (whichever is the most appropriate). In circumstances where lives are at immediate risk extra-judicial killing may well be the only reasonable way of saving them. But let's not make it a habit.

These are Somali pirates...shouldn't a strong gust of wind knock them over?

So is Talk Like a Pirate day being canceled this year?

I hope not. I've been working on my Somali accent for months.

I refuse to believe that either Roosevelt never killed a pirate. I mean, of all of them, Teddy had to have at some point, right?

The Navy and Marines killed lots of pirates back in the day. Hence, "...to the shores of Tripoli," in the Marine hymn.

The President did the right thing in ceding engagement authority to on-scene commanders. Bold, decisive, and showed faith in the armed forces. You can't always do that, but doing it when it is possible is certainly wise. Knowing when you can and can't is the trick. This one was easy.

The US military was of the same opinion when it flew Black Hawks over Mogadishu. The result was 21 dead, nearly 100 wounded, the loss of over fifteen million dollars worth of equipment and a multi-national rescue operation that cost a king's ransom.

The reality is these pirates are well-armed, highly-motivated (probably moreso than the majority of professional soldiers) and have the advantage of surprise (the water way in question is huge).

And well over a thousand Somali casualties, right? It was a PR blow, but not exactly a stunning military victory for the other side.

Yeah, that graph is a bunch of crap. Actions against North African pirates were the first international military action the early US took, and they put Obama's (current) body count to shame.

Notice the presidents start with McKinley, and not Washington. I see your point, I just thought it was funny.

It's still funny. I just wanted to add some historic contextual flavor. And I agree with Doc. We can't rank the presidents on badassness unless we add a bunch of shit for Teddy Roosevelt. We should exhume his corpse and make IT president. That guy was awesome.

Woah! Score 1000 for the good guys! How many of those were innocent people caught up in the crossfire?

The fact that you feel compelled to enter terms such as "victory" (and implicit "defeat") into this debate suggests that you have little fundamental grasp of the problem.

He went on a hunting trip in the Badlands to help him grieve over the deaths of his mother and his wife. On the same day.

Nope. But you seemed to be suggesting that the Black Hawk Down scenario changed the military's estimation of the effectiveness of Somali irregulars, and I don't think that's the case, except to whatever extent they were deluded enough to think 100 marines had a chance against an entire city. No winner emerged from that shitshow; it was a black eye for the US, but at such a cost in Somali lives that you can't really say it was a victory for anyone.

Piracy is a sociological and economic disease. If you do nothing it will just spread. You have to contain it, and quash out the infection before it spread farther. There is simply no good choice here, only a lesser of evils. Only time will tell which one of us is right though.

Not to derail the thread, but nobody thought those Soldiers (Rangers and Delta Force) had a chance against an entire city. The operation was supposed to be a quick insert - and - abduct. It went all to hell, and the whole operation was about trying to get those guys out in the the face of long odds and an increasingly chaotic situation.

While the operation turned out to be a tactical draw - the Soldiers did not accomplish their mission and extract their intended target, but they did manage to extract themselves from the urban warfare equivalent of quicksand - it was a strategic defeat because the "PR nightmare" had a direct impact on the American center of gravity in that conflict: American public opinion.

I heard an idea floated by a former Naval commander on the radio today: to essentially do what was done in Iraq, co-opt the pirates to become a coast guard for the region.

Might work.

Agree.