And lets not forget, on the subject of money, that it takes a lot of money to feed, clothe, etc., an army. There's really no effective government in that country. It's essentially run by various warlords protecting their fiefdom. And that takes money. Ergo Sum, pirates.... which is also, except for the leaders, most of those pirates are young kids, barely into their teens. They owe their entire life to the warlords 'cause without them they'd probably starve.
This in no way is meant to apologize for them. Under anybody's definition of civilization their behavior is abhorrent and evil. But I really don't think there's any religious undertone to their seizing ships for ransom. It's strictly a for-profit operation. They could probably care less why those folks were out there, delivering bibles or otherwise. All they would have seen was a large "yacht" with two Caucasian couples and made the assumption that there was money to be made. Isn't that something we all fight against (with BOAT/US leading the lobbying effort) when the Government or others assume we've got money 'cause we own a boat? The only problem, of course, is that by definition of owning a boat, us "yachties" are probably poorer than a lot of folks since what money we have seems to be absorbed, on almost an 'osmosis' basis, by our "yachts"! Every time I'm hanging upside down in the bilge with a flashlight in my teeth, and working blind with skinned knuckles I always take solace in the fact that I'm a Yachtie. Who knew! S Steve Weinstein S/V CAPTIVA 1997 Hunter 376, Hull #376 Sailing out of Oyster Bay, NY All outgoing mail protected by VIPRE A/V ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ben Okopnik" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 5:33 PM Subject: Re: [Liveaboard] [Bulk] Re: Pirates get another one > On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 11:53:54PM -0500, [email protected] wrote: >> At 01:26 PM 2/22/2011, Walter Knopf wrote: >> >My advice would be to establish a naval blockade with ships from all >> >countries involved, checking every outgoing vessel >> >for weapons on board. >> >> The problem with that is the Somalian coastline being about 3300 km >> long similar to entire US eastern seaboard. > > Actually, at this point, they appear to be operating almost exclusively > from just one main town, Harardhere. > > Even if that wasn't the case, the interdict could be applied > selectively, to the parts of the coast where the pirates are active at > any one time. Covering, say, a hundred mile stretch of the coast - > especially when you spread the word that after a 3-day grace period, any > vessel leaving harbor will be sunk - isn't that big of a challenge. > > When the locals' options come down to a) report the pirates and collect > a reward or b) starve, there will shortly be no pirates. The locals have > no incentive, other than fear, for hiding the pirates' identities - and > that threat gets removed when the pirates are arrested or killed. > > Looked at from the money perspective - which is always useful in this > kind of situation - it takes quite a bit to run that kind of an > operation: you have to have a sea-going ship, you have to be able to buy > a significant amount of fuel, you have to have money for weapons, etc. > That's a rather rare and unusual concentration of wealth for that part > of the world, most likely indicating either external support (extremely > doubtful) or local investors who see a chance of a good return on their > money. Arrest their families, burn their villages, and sink/destroy the > ships and the weapons - and suddenly, piracy will look like a very > unhealthy option instead of a great money-making opportunity. > > > Ben > -- > OKOPNIK CONSULTING > Custom Computing Solutions For Your Business > Expert-led Training | Dynamic, vital websites | Custom programming > 443-250-7895 http://okopnik.com http://twitter.com/okopnik > _______________________________________________ > Liveaboard mailing list > [email protected] > To adjust your membership settings over the web > http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard > To subscribe send an email to [email protected] > > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ > > To search the archives > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > > The Mailman Users Guide can be found here > http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
