Question for all
By now, everyone has heard the story about the pirates that attacked a cruise ship off the east African coast:
Pirates armed with grenade launchers and machine guns tried to hijack a luxury cruise liner off the east African coast Saturday, but the ship outran them, officials said.
Two boats full of pirates approached the Seabourn Spirit about 100 miles off the Somali coast and opened fire while the heavily armed bandits tried to get onboard, said Bruce Good, spokesman for the Miami-based Seabourn Cruise Line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp.
The ship escaped by shifting to high speed and changing course.
The cruise ship outran them and also fired some sort of sonic weapon at them. So, given that they had rocket propelled grenades and machine guns which they supposedly fired at the ship, here’s my question: Why are we so sure they’re pirates and not, I don’t know, say terrorists?
Sure, we don’t know because they didn’t catch the ship but I don’t think I’d rule out the possibility.
Side note: saw on Mail Call one night a special about the Coast Guard. They had a pretty cool gun set up. It was a Barrett 50 semi-auto fitted with an EOTech holographic scope. It’s purpose was to disable engines. Interesting application, I thought.
November 8th, 2005 at 9:50 am
“Why are we so sure they’re pirates and not, I don’t know, say terrorists?”
Is there a difference?
November 8th, 2005 at 9:53 am
I dunno how effective it was. 150 db is loud; about as loud as a shotgun. If these guys were firing small arms (presumably Ak’s) & RPG’s I’m not sure it would have caused them much more additional discomfort.
& the attack lasted 90 minutes.
I’m thinking the pirates just couldn’t catch the cruise ship when it started hauling ass. They probably left when they ran low on fuel or ammo for the RPG’s.
& how much does this sonic weapon cost? Odds are a helluva lot more than a couple of surplus SMLE’s or Garands & 100 rounds for each – either of which could have taken care of the pirate attack decisively & permanently & most likely without having to reload.
November 8th, 2005 at 11:06 am
A pirate is someone who trys to commandeer a vessel while in transit – usually a boat but I believe the term also applies to people hijacking airplanes. For what its worth – most pirates are muslim or connected to the Chinese underground (who usually use muslims from Indonesia). Now, whether the pirates intedned to take the boat (and kill all the passengers) as a political statement or to use in a future terrorist related attack, we don’t know. My semi educated guess is its pretty likely that if the pirates were conencted to al queda they were plkanning on doing just that – or they may have simply been looking for slaves (yes, folks, the slave trade is alive and well – lots of “ghost” ships prowling the seas that have been pirated, hijacked, and the crew turned into slaves, but there is also lots of slavery going on in africa – true story, I had a secretary a few years ago – she now works for a famous hollywood liberal – who’s father was nigerian (mother was from Alabama) and their family business in Nigeria was managing the slave trade for their tribe – she was smart enough to see how foolish most American civil rights leaders were)
Otherwise, they COULD have just been looking to take everyone’s wallets – but I doubt it. Not there.
Read Dangerous Waters if you want to open your eyes to a problem few people were aware of until this week.
November 8th, 2005 at 11:11 am
Top: is that a good book? I’ve got it on my Amazon wish list but haven’t pulled the trigger yet.
<linkwhoring>Here’s some info about using guns on boats></linkwhoring>
November 8th, 2005 at 11:11 am
priates = sea
terrorists = land
hijackers = air
November 8th, 2005 at 11:32 am
I thought pirates were just, you know, thieves.
November 8th, 2005 at 12:12 pm
Thieves of the see, landlover….arrrggh.
Remember, mate, pilliage before you burn…arrgggh.
November 8th, 2005 at 12:46 pm
Les,
Read it in about 2 days. Its great. A real page turner and eye opener.
November 8th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
From my all trusting and immensly valuable Black’s Law Dictionary (6th Edition)
Pirate – one guilty of the crime of piracy.
Piracy – THose acts of robbery and depredation upon the high seas which, if committeed on land, would have amounted to a felony. Brigandage committed on the sea or from the sea. Whoever, onthe hgih seas, commits the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations, and is afterward brought into or found in the United States, shall be imprisoned for life. 18 U.S.C.A. Sec 1651 See also Air Piracy
Air Piracy – Any sezure or exercise by cotrol, by force or violence or threat of force or violence ad with the wrongful intent, and any aircraft in flight in air commerce. 49 U.S.C.A. Sec 1472(i)
Interestingly enough – the same page that defines Air Piracy also defines “Aim a weapon.” The definition of Pistol appears on the page that has Piracy.
Not that it means anything or is surprising, but I thought it was interesting.
November 8th, 2005 at 2:04 pm
I remember seeing a story a while ago about how terrorists and pirates are very similar and use similar tactics; it posited that the way you fight terrorists is not like you fight a war (as the US has done) and not like you fight crime (as Europe has done) but like how you’d fight pirates (as 18th-century England did).
November 8th, 2005 at 2:19 pm
IIRC, the first war declared by the US was against pirates.
November 8th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
I think that the fact that the ship captian laid on the throttles (anyone know the max speed of a cruise liner?) and headed for open ocean, coupled with the fact that these guys were pretty far out (100 nm) in small boats to begin with, was probably more effective than the sonic weapon.
November 9th, 2005 at 3:21 am
And another interesting fact, the first (I think) undeclared U.S. war was the 1798 French Naval War. Those jerks were messing with our shipping.
November 9th, 2005 at 1:08 pm
Pirates operating small boats from the more backwards parts of Indonesia often attack freighters and yachts. This is just for profit. It gets a lot less attention than it should have – especially considering the role of Indonesian authorities in ensuring ships plying their waters are disarmed and vulnerable.
Attacking a cruise ship with thousands of passengers and crew is a whole different thing from attacking a freighter with a crew of around 20 or less. If they were regular out-for-profit pirates, they were getting way too ambitious; it’s not just the extra problems they take on by trying to control such a crowd once they are aboard, but that hijacking a passenger ship is the best way I can imagine to get the US Navy involved in force – and our destroyers and carriers in the Gulf were less than a day away, I think. If they’re just pirates, they are remarkably stupid, so I think it was terrorists.
In fact, I wonder why US forces didn’t scramble aircraft to the area long before the 90 minutes were up. Maybe it’s too long range?
Anyway, best responses to pirates:
1) Clean out their bases. Once again, I think it’s time to make it clear that if a country near shipping lanes is unable or unwilling to prevent pirates from using their coasts, the US Navy and Marine Corps will come in and establish order. The section of north Africa once known as the Barbary Coast eventually learned that it was less painful to do the job themselves. The British Navy used to handle much of the rest of the uncivilized world, but they’re not up to the job anymore, while it wouldn’t be much more than a live-fire training exercise for us to clean out the worst spots.
2) Mount a few .50 BMG’s on the potential targets, if they’ve got the capability of keeping a good enough watch to call sailors to the guns before the pirates can sneak aboard. A half-mile long supertanker with a small crew might have trouble keeping watch for small boats, but cruise ships should have no problem.. Of course, ensure the law allows proper self-defense – that is, if a shot across the bow doesn’t discourage them, allow the defending ship to sink the attacking boat at a distance. The only good pirate is a dead pirate.
November 9th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
I think a lot of the modern cruise ships at ‘all ahead full’ can run about 30 knots