Behind the rise of the Somali pirates
2nd February 2011
The multinational Task Force 150, to which some 30 navies contribute on a rota basis, has done little to stop the pirates. At any one time there could be a dozen ships on patrol, but this is a vast area, their surveillance is random and even on those few occasions when they could intercept, they do little or nothing.
Our own Royal Navy has shown its muscle only once: in November 2008, a frigate returned fired on pirates who had fired at it, and two of the attackers were killed. But a Ministry of Defence directive since has forbidden RN captains to confront or arrest pirates “for fear of breaching their human rights”.
Perhaps Kenya’s navy has the answer. Its patrol craft covertly operate a shoot-to-kill, take-no-prisoners policy. The Tanzanians almost certainly do the same. The safest ships of all are flying the Russian flag: armed guards aboard them simply blow pirate boats out of the water and leave any survivors to drown. Attacks on Russian vessels have abruptly ceased.
February 2nd, 2011 at 12:34
Same reason the Russians (then “Soviets”) didn’t have the same hostage problem in Iran as Jimmy Carter; they simply let the “students” know that they had no problem executing anyone who messed with their people and, in case that wasn’t enough, executing anyone remotely related to those Iranians.
As Tim of Angle is fond of saying, “Sometimes the old ways are best.”