FACT: Somali pirates are kicking ass

[Cain]

They even have legal advisors now, so when they get captured by various navies they can demand the rights they are afforded by the law, such as phone calls to relatives.  According to the Brits, they also make sterling prisoners when captured, and are really very nice chaps, chosen profession aside.

[Payne]

Michael Howard on the Daily Politics on Wednesday said that the only solution to the Somali piracy problem was to fill the entire area with navies from around the world.

Forgetting, presumably, that a blockade wouldn't actually harm them, because they aren't trying to keep trade going (lol) or escape anywhere. And no matter how many ships you have patrolling there, they'll still be able to move pretty much completely freely.

[Cain]

Michael Howard is an asswipe.

We should be offering to aid the Somali pirates, for a cut of the profits and immunity for our own vessels or those intended for our ports.

[Cramulus]

Yo, the way the job market is around here, I'm seriously considering tying on a bandanna and setting sail for adventure!

[Messier Undertree]

Michael Howard is an asswipe.

We should be offering to aid the Somali pirates, for a cut of the profits and immunity for our own vessels or those intended for our ports.

Just like the good old days.

[Cain]

Michael Howard is an asswipe.

We should be offering to aid the Somali pirates, for a cut of the profits and immunity for our own vessels or those intended for our ports.

Just like the good old days.

Exactly.  And Howard, being a Conservative, should be in favour of the old way of doing things.  All the time.  Even if they don't make sense.

[Shadowdaemon]

Yo, the way the job market is around here, I'm seriously considering tying on a bandanna and setting sail for adventure!

If you get in good call me up. I'm in the market for a job too.

[Bruno]

We should bring back train robbery.

[Rumckle]

According to the Brits, they also make sterling prisoners when captured, and are really very nice chaps, chosen profession aside.

I originally read this as: they also are sterilising prisoners when captured,

Also, I read today that some members of the Shabaab militia are heading towards Somalia, though the article wasn't sure if it was to help or hinder the Somalians. Anyone know more?

[Cain]

Probably not help.  They're remnants of the Islamic Courts who, funnily enough, are the only guys in Somalia right now that are crazy enough to want to rebuild the state.  I suspect they're wanting to kick ass, take names and reappropriate ships for their newly captured port (Marka).

Of course, the wonderful thing about Somali politics, insomuch as such a thing exists, is that its not 100% sure.  Islam has rules about raiding, dating back to Mohammed's time, but its not totally against the activity, so long as it is carried out within those rules.  Plus, those pirates really are making a nusciance of themselves, whether its to the hypocrites in the House of Saud or the Americans and British.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

The interview with NPR was interesting, both a pirate and the ship's captain from the Sirius Star (OMGZ23PINEALFNORDLOL). The pirate basically said that they have no choice because their government is a complete waste and that if the developed nations would do something about the situation in Somila, they wouldn't need to be pirates.

It reminds me of the Buccaneers of the US. Originally, they weren't pirates. They were people trying to survive in the Caribbean. In fact the term Buccaneer referenced the making of jerky which these guys did to survive on the islands. It was only once the European nations started squeezing their means of survival that they resorted to Piracy.

[Cain]

That doesn't surprise me.  Crime is a growth market in the third world.  Invest now!

[Telarus]

JohnnyBrainwash usually has very good coverage of the pirate situations, Somali and elsewhere, over @ http://www.dysnomia.us.

...
Mix tapes aside, there's not much to tie piracy and terrorism. Sure, terrorists could turn pirate and seize tankers full of liquefied natural gas. But they could also plant dirty bombs, poison water supplies, gas subways, whatever. We can imagine an endless stream of potential terrorist tactics, but just imagining it doesn't make it a real threat.

The other angle people play up is that Somali pirates could be supporting Islamist militants who are on the verge of re-taking power in Somalia. The militants themselves are said to provide shelter for Al Qaeda, and maybe they do- I'd consider Somalia a good place to hole up if I were an AQ operative on the run. The militants themselves don't practice terrorism for the most part, being more concerned with traditional military objectives like seizing territory. But in American policy debate, they all tend to get lumped in together.

There's not much to indicate that the pirates support the Islamic militants with their booty. In fact, most of the stories we see about the pirate's life make it look like they're sinking their money into houses, cars, GPS units and cell phones. What's more, evidence on the ground indicates otherwise as well.

I've talked about this before, and the Danger Room hits the topic again: when those Islamist militants were in power, they were the only force to effectively suppress piracy in the region. The brief period of law and order imposed by Somalia's short-lived Islamic government was the only time that the Somali coast came under the rule of law. As soon as Ethiopian troops drove that government from Mogadishu (with US backing, of course), piracy didn't just return- it redoubled.

For what it's worth, Somali pirates don't have their roots in madrassas or terror camps- they come from fishing communities that were swamped by foreign ships as soon as there was no authority to defend Somalia's economic sphere. With overfishing allegedly came illegal dumping as well. The excellent video embedded in the Danger Room post above and this article in the Christian Science Monitor lay it all out.

I started posting stories about pirates because it was a fun little thing that played into my theme of lawlessness, but I quickly realized that it fit into my particular niche of nerdom very nicely. It carries a deeper level of lawlessness that reflects the breakdown of the international order and the failure of the nation-state.

Somalia has had no effective government since 1991 or so, except for a brief period of rule by the Islamic Courts. During that period, Somalis had some semblance of peace. Piracy was largely halted. The price, of course, was to live under strict Sharia law.

If you've ever smugly quoted Ben Franklin to the effect that those who give up essential liberty to achieve temporary security deserve neither, I hope you'll give some thought to Somalia. I intend to post on this question at greater length in the future, but it represents perfectly the conflict embedded in that famous quote. Somalis stare into the darkest aspect of this question every day, and if the international system wants to end piracy and restore order in Somalia, it's going to have to face the same tough conflict as well.
...

And here's an article detailing the use of direct-targeted sonic weapons to repulse Somali pirates:
http://www.physorg.com/news146486516.html

[Cain]

He's right.  Piracy only really comes under the rubric of terrorism because its non-state actors with significant geopolitical implications.  In actuality, its more like organized crime, if you have to pigeon hole it into something.  Of course, there is a lot of operational crossover between terrorism, organized crime and insurgency (my dissertation dealt in part with this topic), and many of the same sort of actor move through all three at some point in their career, but its not a simple case that piracy = Islamofascist lunatics who are gonna impose Shariah Law on YOUR ASS.

I think the other reason lots of people conflate piracy with terrorism is because of the Barbary Pirates, and their role both in history and national mythology.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

So I'd say that we could consider the Somalian coast a Temporary Autonomous Zone now.