The Pirates

[Kramer]

Explain how President Obama is responsible for piracy.

No one in any US government can be blamed for this. Those who say that it is are dunces, dimwits, hicks and morons.

are you saying that the most powerful military in the world, under Obama's command, can't take out a few pirates? How about more like WON"T take them out -- and for what the reason? The only reason I can think of is Obama is afraid to do it, so it's his fault.

[Kramer]

Explain how President Obama is responsible for piracy.

No one in any US government can be blamed for this. Those who say that it is are dunces, dimwits, hicks and morons.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100077875/do-tyrants-fear-america-anymore-president-obama%E2%80%99s-timid-foreign-policy-is-an-embarrassment-for-a-global-superpower/

[Xavier_Onassis]

I always knew that the hicks, dunces, dolts and morons had a newspaper.

Most would rather just listen to Fox and Rush, though.

I observe that the pirates the US have caught have not fared well. Nor have those captured by anyone else.

But as I said, they are driven by desperation. The rewards are high and the odds are they might not get caught.

Consider the dolts who buy lottery tickets every week, or those who go to Vegas to play slots. The odds are a lot better and the stakes are higher for a Somali pirate, but the penalty is worse, since one might lose more than just money. The ransom on a ship might be several hundred thousand: divide that up six or seven ways with one's fellow pirates, and it is easily more than a lifetime of catching fish.

 

[Kramer]

I always knew that the hicks, dunces, dolts and morons had a newspaper.

Most would rather just listen to Fox and Rush, though.

I observe that the pirates the US have caught have not fared well. Nor have those captured by anyone else.

But as I said, they are driven by desperation. The rewards are high and the odds are they might not get caught.

Consider the dolts who buy lottery tickets every week, or those who go to Vegas to play slots. The odds are a lot better and the stakes are higher for a Somali pirate, but the penalty is worse, since one might lose more than just money. The ransom on a ship might be several hundred thousand: divide that up six or seven ways with one's fellow pirates, and it is easily more than a lifetime of catching fish.

Speaking of morons & dolts the article came from the Telegraph which is located in the UK not Fox or Rush.

[Plane]

I think it costs less to mount a 20mm rifle on a swivel on the rear of the ship, than it costs to pay ransom for the ship and crew. There ought to be enough of these laying around to put at least one on every cargo carrier .

The 20 mm. gun uses fixed ammunition which is designed to give an I.V. of 2,725 f.s., and a maximum horizontal range of about 5,000 yards. The following projectiles are used: (1) high-explosive bursting charge with tracer, (2) high-explosive bursting charge without tracer, (3) blind loaded with tracer, (4) blind loaded and plugged, and (5) incendiary. The high-explosive bursting charge is either tetryl or a high explosive known as pentolite. The tracer charge is effective for about 3¾ seconds duration. It occupies about one-half of the projectile cavity, and hence projectiles with tracers carry approximately one-half as much bursting charge as those without tracers.

http://www.lonesentry.com/blog/navy-20-mm-gun-and-mounts.html

[Xavier_Onassis]

According to John McPhee in his book on merchant seamen, "Looking for a Ship", the tradition is that there are no firearms on cargo ships other than perhaps a pistol that the captain keeps locked in a safe.

This was a requirement of insurance companies. Apparently in the past, mutiny and attempted mutiny were considered a danger.
I agree that mounting such a weapon on the ship would prove useful if there were always someone manning it, so that the gun itself would not be used against the crew. It would add three men to the crew. Since I do not run a shipping company, I think I will leave it up to those who have more experience to decide whether to arm merchant ships.

There is NO EVIDENCE that pirates prefer to board American ships, rather than those flying other flags. US flagged cargo ships are pretty rare, as US shipping companies prefer to use "monkey flag" registration (Panama, Liberia, Honduras). They do not seem to be particular, and base their choices on the prospects of getting paid and getting away with the money.

Kramer just likes to dump on President Obama.

[Plane]

Who is john McPhee, and why is he saying such terrible things about the Merchant Marine?

AA guns of exactly this design were placed on many cargo ships during WWII and manned mostly by the ships own crew. Heavyer guns were sometimes installed sometimes manned by regular Navy.

  A ship never sleeps, part of the crew is always on watch , haveing a man or even a gun crew awake all night is not a problem.

It is possible to fix a mounted gun so that it cannot fire when pointed in the wrong direction, this is usually the case with large Navy guns , they have a cam that presses a cut off switch when the gun is pointed at a part of the superstructure. This is good for preventing accidents.

[Xavier_Onassis]

John McPhee is a writer of a lot of very interesting nonfiction articles and books. Google him on Amazon, he has a lot of really good books. He was writing about merchant ships now, not during the war. There is a difference. He was writing about a period prior to the presence of pirates in Somalia, of course. I believe that his books are both factual and fascinating. I recommend La Place de la Concorde Suisse (in English, the title is French) and Coming into the Country. The latter is about Alaska, c. 1980, the former is about Switzerland's Army.

As I said, I will leave it up to ship owners to arm their cargo ships however they please. Arms on board are affected by insurance company regulations and port authorities.

[Kramer]

John McPhee is a writer of a lot of very interesting nonfiction articles and books. Google him on Amazon, he has a lot of really good books. He was writing about merchant ships now, not during the war. There is a difference. He was writing about a period prior to the presence of pirates in Somalia, of course. I believe that his books are both factual and fascinating. I recommend La Place de la Concorde Suisse (in English, the title is French) and Coming into the Country. The latter is about Alaska, c. 1980, the former is about Switzerland's Army.

As I said, I will leave it up to ship owners to arm their cargo ships however they please. Arms on board are affected by insurance company regulations and port authorities.

Your entire life is all about fiction. Isn't that why you are a Liberal and registered Democrat?

[Plane]

http://www.johnmcphee.com/uncommoncarriers.htm

OK he does look like someone whoj might be current on the situation.

But there is a long tradition of merchantmen being armed, the situation during WWII was that attack by aircraft and submarine was likely , might as well have a little stinger so that being killed is not dead easy on the enemy.

  What is happening now is that unarmed ships are being taken over by small groups of pirates operateing from small skiffs, better armed just because they have RPGs and rifles.

  This would be easy to reverse , shipping companys could mount fairly cheap guns two or four on each ship and the pirates would never be successfull again. Cost? Risk? Both less than haveing one ship ransomed.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Cost? Risk? Both less than haveing one ship ransomed.

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I agree that this seems entirely logical.

Of course assuming that some sailors do not decide that he might take over and ransom the ship themselves.

There is a problem with armored car drivers as well. You have two or three guys carrying several million dollars in cash. They will never in their lives earn that much, and it would be foolish to believe that the idea of simply running off with the entire truck would never occur to them. It is not the sort of job anyone does out of love, after all. Money is the only incentive that can be used to reward them for hauling money. And there they are, hauling more money than all of them will ever make in their entire lives, and probably enough time in which to get really lost with all that money. Obviously, there is a way in which the company assures that this will not happen.

Once I worked in an amusement park near Richmond. All the drivers on the Brinks trucks were gay Cubans. Gay Cubans are pretty rare in Virginia, I suppose that there was some clever motive in only hiring gay Cubans to haul money.

 
Again. I will leave all this up to the ship owners and their insurance companies to decide. I am not familiar enough with the subject to say what is the wisest course one way or another.

[Kramer]

This is what I'm talking about.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/piracy/8380805/61-pirates-seized-in-Arabian-Sea.html

The operation is one of the most successful since Somalian pirates escalated their campaign of extortion and kidnap on the Indian Ocean two years ago.

The Indian authorities have yet to disclose the nationality of the suspects but they are believed to be from either Somalia or Yemen.

They were arrested after an Indian naval ship closed in on a hijacked fishing vessel just under 700 miles off the Kerala coastal port of Cochin.

The boat was carrying 61 suspected pirates and 13 of the boat's crew who had been held captive.

The suspected pirates had hijacked the boat, the Mozambique-flagged Vega 5 in December last year and had since used it as a base for attacks on other ships.

They were finally caught on Sunday after they opened fire on the approaching Indian naval ship. They were forced to jump overboard when their own vessel was set ablaze caught fire in fierce retaliatory fire from the Indian ship. The 13 original crew members were freed in the raid. Indian officials said they found 80 to 90 small arms or rifles and some heavy weapons on the fishing vessel.

The number of pirate attacks and the scale of their demands has increased singnificantly in recent months. More than 660 people are currently believed to be held hostage in pirates from raids on 30 ships.

India has intensified its operations against pirates in the Indian Ocean. It arrested 28 pirates last month and 15 in January.