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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Feb 23, 2011 - 10:45pm PT
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"If he runs, he is a VC. If he stands still, he is a well disciplined VC."
Fred Ward, M60 doorgunner in the HUEY in Full Metal Jacket.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Feb 24, 2011 - 12:02am PT
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What about women and children?
Fred Ward: "Don't have to lead them as much..."
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Feb 24, 2011 - 11:40am PT
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under the ancient laws of parlay,
Oh.
I was always wondering what value system would be involved in negotiations.
Silly me!
There are ancient laws.
I must be the only person not entirely familiar with them.
Perhaps our dingus will reveal where these ancient laws are encoded,...
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Moof
Big Wall climber
Orygun
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Feb 24, 2011 - 01:16pm PT
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Ron,
I think the point is that once the trust was blown, things were doomed to get worse not better.
Consider that you have 20 or so scared heavily armed Somalis surrounded by 4 warships. Then take that their leader tries to negotiate face to face, and is instead thrown in the brig. Now what did we expect to have happen in that scenario? Negotiation is out, escape is out, might as well send a message not to screw with the Somali's in the future.
All the remaining ones should have been put in front of the firing squad as soon as the dust settled, but the negotiating tactic of arresting the leader of the other side just sounds like a dumbass tactic.
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jstan
climber
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Feb 24, 2011 - 01:59pm PT
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110222/ap_on_re_af/piracy
Difficult problem. The Navy's plan may have been to have an inactive period during which negotiations were underway. During which seals could attach mines to the yacht in locations hopefully well separated from the locations of the hostages. The pirates apparently countered this by carrying out their backup plan after a very short time.
The pirates' model seems to assume they and any hostages will die if they do not reach shore.
Reportedly there are nearly 700 prior hostages on shore and which is a major consideration.
The business model fails as soon as cash flow becomes too small. A fleet of drones with attack capability might patrol offshore while tracking sea traffic and destroy any suspicious vessels well before they can do any damage. That would drive the cash flow negative. This would make the hostages on shore an even more important asset and they would need to be ransomed.
Routinely destroying the flow of new hostages makes the ones onshore too valuable to kill. They will have to be ransomed. This makes our bargaining position fairly good.
Money now is the object of all business enterprises.
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Morgan
Trad climber
East Coast
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Feb 24, 2011 - 02:02pm PT
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Didn't the pirates re-neg on their deal and continue to hold Captain Phillips (Maresk Alabama)hostage? Why should anyone trust a desperate pirate? Also, is it true that one of the pirates engaged a Navy SEAL in a knife fight? If so, those pirates are pretty stupid-ass.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Feb 24, 2011 - 02:05pm PT
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Perhaps pitonron will address dingus directly
Thought I did.
Guess you were out hunting for a sense of humor.
Bag anything?
Ever see that scene with Jerry Reed shooting at Robin Williams, and Williams calls for a "time out"?
(I guess the sammies didn't either,...)
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Robb
Social climber
The other "Magic City on the Plains"
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Feb 24, 2011 - 02:08pm PT
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Time for a few Q Boats.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Feb 24, 2011 - 02:17pm PT
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Silly me!
There are ancient laws.
I must be the only person not entirely familiar with them.
Perhaps our dingus will reveal where these ancient laws are encoded,...
Yes there are ancient laws on the rules of war. Surrendering by raising a white flag is the best known.
Not attacking during a truce negotiation is certainly another. That these rules are not respected completely 100% of the time, does not mean they are invalid or unuseful.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Feb 24, 2011 - 02:47pm PT
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It isn't "war" since piracy is uniformly regarded as a criminal activity.
It's the dumba$$ yachtsmen or international do-gooders who are responsible for their own predicaments.
Hang 'em from the yardarm, as the British navy always did. Piracy on the high seas was always treated with swift justice, and without benefit of any hand wringing.
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Josh Nash
Social climber
riverbank ca
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Feb 24, 2011 - 03:48pm PT
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DMT,
I don't agree as well but there are the navies of other countries patroling those waters as well. The United States Fifth fleet just happens to operate out of Bahrain so the United States has the most sizable force in the region. It's a small price to pay to be the world's finest...
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 24, 2011 - 05:04pm PT
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Josh, aside from a fairly ridiculously sanitized portrayal of the very messy reality of what go down in in such a situation, that video perfectly displays the asymmetric economics involved - a very expensive, large scale use of naval and air power to deal with a handful of Somali teenagers - and that only after-the-fact.
It isn't a war, it isn't terrorism, it's opportunistic / parasitic small business by family clans. Dealing with it militarily on the open ocean is simply too expensive and offers nothing in the way of prevention or deterrence.
This incident is a perfect example of the challenges involved. They started out in outboard skiffs, commandeered a fishing boat, and then took the sailboat. You going to satellite / UAV acquire and monitor every outboard and fishing boat launch from the Horn of Africa and Yemeni coast? Can't be done.
The only truly cost-effective answer on water is armed ride-along mercs and escort vessels for the targets. The only answer on the ground is uber-ugly and won't solve the problem given Somali demographics / economics now that these kidnappings are a culturally ingrained habit.
Funny this pushes folks buttons as in comparison I don't hear any outrage about kidnappings in Mexico City or across Latin / South America whose numbers there on a daily basis are absolutely staggering.
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Gene
climber
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Feb 24, 2011 - 05:15pm PT
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Dropping a few very large bombs, from the sky (no ground troops), on their villages would convince them to find another profession.
That's been tried before.
Get real, Jeff!
g
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Josh Nash
Social climber
riverbank ca
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Feb 24, 2011 - 05:22pm PT
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healyje,
You make a good point. It's like fighting an ant hill with an automatic weapon. You keep shooting but they keep coming. Sometimes all you have is an automatic weapon. The somali pirates operate from a failed nation state. No one has stepped up to clean up that mess. We tried in the 90's but failed because really how do you build a stable nation without any natural resources. Until there is a fundemantal change in the way africa handles itself and the way the world handles these situations, force and the use of force to protect our interests is all we have.....
It is an unsestainable cycle of expenditure versus problem correction...
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Feb 24, 2011 - 05:25pm PT
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Other empires used the "butcher and bolt" strategy long before the US, with mixed results. In an age of modern communications and at least lip service to democratic ideals, it might not work very well. Especially from a country that claims to support democracy, human rights, and so on. Hasn't stopped the US from using the strategy in the past, but may now.
I suppose it would might slake some of FatTrad's bloodthirsty fantasies, but that's hardly a reason to engage in grotesque violence.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Feb 24, 2011 - 05:28pm PT
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Funny this pushes folks buttons as in comparison I don't hear any outrage about kidnappings in Mexico City or across Latin / South America whose numbers there on a daily basis are absolutely staggering.
I have a different thread for that, dude. Even has maps!
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1260099/Mexico-Drug-Wars-ot
I haven't really updated it lately though...
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 24, 2011 - 05:49pm PT
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Fattrad, bombing wouldn't even put a dent in it with the demographics and the economics (or lack thereof) on the Horn. There are 9 million Somalis with a median age of 17.6 years old, organized in competitive clans - each aware of the potential gain to be had through kidnapping. It's now endemic to their culture and nothing else holds even a remote glimmer of similar reward. And in a country known for children soldiers we can expect that they don't mind throwing children at the problem.
Hell, one of the biggest problems with the kid they just sentenced was that they couldn't determine if he was 18. Certainly dragging children off to the US and EU and incarcerating them at a huge expense won't solve the problem because they aren't really missed and there's a thousand to take their place the next day.
You want to make a dent in the problem you protect the targets and any hostages they have now or take later you sacrifice in a pay-no-ransom, take-no-prisoners approach to the matter. And in that scenario anyone who forsakes the protection of an escorted flotilla like these latest folks are on their own.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Feb 24, 2011 - 05:59pm PT
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There are legitimate problems to onboard mercs.
Armed ships are prohibited in many ports.
A number of shipping companies are arming surreptitiously, but that can open up a whole other can of worms.
I still think, especially in light of the twitter revolution fad, that video of a submarine surfacing and dealing with them would have an effective deterrent effect.
The pirates would start imagining submarines under every US flagged yacht.
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