17 November 2008
Pirates have seized a Saudi-owned supertanker and its 25 crew members off the Kenyan coast, the United States Navy announced Monday.
"Increasingly daring attacks are being conducted by Somali pirates on a variety of merchant vessels," said a statement from the U.S. Fifth Fleet, issued from Manama, Bahrain.
The statement said that pirates attacked the very large crude tanker, Sirius Star, more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa. The ship was sailing under a Liberian flag and was owned by the Saudi-based company, Saudi Aramco. The crew comprised citizens of Croatia, Britain, The Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia.
Last week a British military team from the frigate HMS Cumberland killed two suspected pirates in a shoot-out with the occupants of a dhow which the Royal Navy said had been identified as having earlier been involved in an attempt to seize a Danish vessel.
The U.S. Navy statement said that although the stepped-up naval presence off the coast of Somalia had reduced successful attacks on shipping, naval forces could not be everywhere.
"Our presence in the region is helping deter and disrupt criminal attacks off the Somali coast," said Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, commander of Combined Maritime Forces, "but the situation with the Sirius Star clearly indicates the pirates' ability to adapt their tactics and methods of attack."
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That isn't going to happen. Liberian and Panama aren't going to do a darn thing about these pirates. One, because they don't care, and number two, because they don't have the navy to do it. There are only three, maybe four countries on this earth that have the ability to stop the pirates (China, Russia, Great Britain and the USA). Russia and China have unproven navy's. Russia’s navy went down the tubes after the cold war, and has only recently shown some signs of coming back to life. China hasn’t fought any sort of… [Read Full Text]
That is not the issue. The issue is the moribund doctrine of rivalist Islam nurtured by one famous Saudi and his number two, an obscure heap of theoretical nonesense in Egypt.
Now, this fellow, a bonehead, in my opinion, wants to engage Obama in a 'dialogue' of the deaf, calling Obama " a house negro," renting the moribund ideology of the equally clueless Malcolm X, who later converted to Sunni Islam.
Point number one: the terrorist in Egypt should know that he is not preaching on behalf of "Allah" tout court, but on behalf of HIS "Allah", … [Read Full Text]
I suppose the chickens have come home to roost. The House of Saud, what a house? It bred the so-called radical Islamist BL and his Egyptian epigoni, the Egyptian Doctor of Death, who thinks he can sucker Barack into a dialogue with the heap doctrinal trash called AQ.
AQ, I heard the other day, is "radical." Radical, my toe; these are a bunch of ignoramuses who have hijacked elite Islam (for once Bush is right), the Islam sans mediators, which is the only medicine against RIVIVALIST ISLAM, the epigoni of protestant clap trap doctrinal theorizing, which is… [Read Full Text]
They should put a strike force on a number of vessels and sail them up and down this coast until the prates make their move. Once the pirates attack,.......kill them and sink the boats they were in. If it's far from the coast, do a radar sweep of the area and board any support vessels in the area. Kill them and sink that boat too. Keep on doing this until problem goes away.
I am always amused when someone continents away from a problem has the perfect, simplistic solution that career experts on the scene have clearly overlooked. Go after the pirates and sink their ships!!!! Why didn't I think of that?
I wonder why BlackWater is hiring retired SEALS, SAS and French Foreighn Legion troopers as ride alongs..
Where was the world when the Somali coast was the dumping place of all hazardous waste from the nuclear and chemical factories of the west? Where was the west when the Somali coast was the no-man's-land where Spanish,French,Taiwanese,Singaporean,Italian, and all others were fishing illegally and the poor Somali fishermen were left for nothing? Where was the world when every country was arming a warlord for their own intrest and every major power was working against the stability of Somalia? No matter how many warships are deployed,the piracy will continue unless the world faces the facts and works the stabilization of… [Read Full Text]
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All these countries who have made money by permitting tankers to fly their flag for a small fee now need to stand up and defend these ships who fly their flag.