Navy SEALs 3; pirates 0

[unixronin]

Captain Phillips is coming home.  The pirates who attacked his ship ... not so much.

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) -- An American ship captain was freed unharmed Sunday in a swift firefight that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, the ship’s owner said.

[...]

“The negotiations between the elders and American officials have broken down.  The reason is American officials wanted to arrest the pirates in Puntland and elders refused the arrest of the pirates,” said the commissioner, Abdi Aziz Aw Yusuf.  He said he organized initial contacts between the elders and the Americans.

Two other Somalis, one involved in the negotiations and another in contact with the pirates, also said the talks collapsed because of the U.S. insistence that the pirates be arrested and brought to justice.

We get that you didn’t want your pirates arrested.  OK, we didn’t arrest them.  Let us know how “dead” is working out for you instead.

Comments

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

details! i want details! of how the pirates actually surrendered because they ran out of food and water and were starving...

or the brave captain slit their throats and commandeered the boat to safety.

or the seal slipped aboard like NEENJAS, and shot the place up...

was the captain hurt too? details! :)

and from now on, yah, they should probably just arm all the crews.

#

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

Here's slight details (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/12/national/w104415D24.DTL&feed=rss.news) of what happened.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

"Dead" works for me.

[luke-jaywalker.livejournal.com]

Shovels are cheaper than lawyers. Dead is just fine by me.

[montieth.livejournal.com]

Perdicarus alive or the Rizuli dead.

I'll take Dead pirates and a live Captain however.

Theodore would approve I think.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure he would, but I'd think he'd want to know what our next move was.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

I found some remarks of mostly–innocent civilians on the Horn of Africa to be the most instructive. People are terrified that if the pirates take vengeance on civilians, that Western nations will come and pound the living shit out of their homes.

It’s a reasonable fear, and has the potential to be a constructive fear. Piracy has thrived in the Horn because it’s seen as such a low–risk enterprise, and the money which comes in can be highly lucrative. Sure, a $250,000 ransom may have to be split 250 ways once all the tribal allegiances and corruption is taken into account, but that’s still the easiest way to make ten years of pay all at once.

But if a sizable fraction of the 249 people who aren’t taking hostages and committing piracy tell the one who is, “stop this or you’re going to bring hell on us,” the rate of piracy might decline.

In the latest Jim Butcher novel, one person characterizes American diplomacy as “bringing a ham sandwich and a gun, and asking which the other guy would like.” That style of diplomacy can be quite crude, yes — but it can also be very effective.

My favorite line from the Iron Man movie comes to mind, too:

They say that the best weapon is the one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That's how Dad did it, that’s how America does it… and it’s worked out pretty well so far.

It may be the case — and I very much hope it is the case — that we will not have to deploy more commandos to forcefully end piracy in the Gulf.

But if not…

The Navy has a saying: “Don’t give up the ship!” And I don’t imagine they’re planning to.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I found some remarks of mostly–innocent civilians on the Horn of Africa to be the most instructive. People are terrified that if the pirates take vengeance on civilians, that Western nations will come and pound the living shit out of their homes.

I know at least one person who has already espoused simply arclighting every Somali port. I have to wonder myself what the psychological effect would be of picking an empty, unused patch of land ten miles outside of some pirate-frequented port and thoroughly ploughing it from fifty thousand feet, just as a demonstration of what could have been done.

My favorite line from the Iron Man movie comes to mind, too:

They say that the best weapon is the one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That's how Dad did it, that’s how America does it… and it’s worked out pretty well so far.

I think there's a lot to be said for that viewpoint. Both because it means it's a weapon you actually dare use, and because it lets everyone know that you are prepared to use it if necessary. There's limited point in carrying Teddy Roosevelt's big stick if you're not prepared to smack somebody in the head with it when the need arises.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

I know at least one person who has already espoused simply arclighting every Somali port.

I'm really opposed to the "God will know his own" approach. As, you'd think, so would be everyone who was offended by the downing of the WTC on 11 September.

*shrug*

What can I say. I'm just a big ol' softie for innocents.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't think it's a tenable approach myself. Just sayin'.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Americans have always been particularly willing to apply a cranial persuader. We are also pretty picky about making sure it is only applied to those who deserve it.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine argues that this is why we were morally obligated to nuke the Japanese twice and not just once. If our goal was to force the Japanese surrender by the use of atomic weapons — if we stipulate that goal is moral — then a double bombing is, in ghodamus’s mind, a moral imperative.

Because if we only did it once, they might not have thought we’d have the balls to do it again. The instant we nuked Nagasaki, though, we made it clear: we know precisely how barbaric this is and we will continue until you surrender.

To nuke them only once… if our goal was to force the Japanese surrender by use of nuclear weapons, we would have failed in our goal, and all the dead of Hiroshima would have died for precisely nothing.

I can’t say as how I entirely agree with ghodamus. But I do find it to be a disquietingly insightful view.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I understand the Japanese High Command was much in two minds after Hiroshima. There was debate as to whether they should actually surrender. "Perhaps they had only one," was one school of thought. "We might consider a peace settlement on favorable terms." Then we dropped a second one on Nagasaki ... and they sued for unconditional surrender.

I don't underestimate the human cost of those two bombs, but they did their job, and saved by some estimates as many as a million lives. We will never know how many offensives by the Soviet Union were deterred by the knowledge not only that the US had nuclear weapons, but that we were demonstrably prepared to use them at need.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

When you are running out of ammo, the last thing you want to do is act like you are running out of ammo.

I find it silly to attempt to debate what would have happened if only we had done it differently. We dropped an atomic weapon, twice. It ended the war. Period. I respect the decision making process enough to endorse the action. I find your friend's reasoning to be sound and valid. Just because we do not like the solution, does not mean it is not a solution.

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

So, they did have SEALs on station, and they did have clearance from the whitehouse. I sort of wondered if the FBI negotiation ploy was to give the SEALs time to get all of their ducks in a row.

It also seems like this _might_ be a good sign from the administration: give the carrot a chance to work, but be immediately ready with the sharp-pointy stick in case the carrot fails. Assuming this is what the administration intended, that's a good thing, IMO (ie. "give peace and diplomacy a chance, but don't be spineless about it").

On the other hand, the article I posted above could also be read as "the administration tied our hands a little bit, and we followed the letter of the orders, but managed to find a way to do what needed to be done despite the spirit of those orders".

Right now, I'm of the opinion to give the administration the benefit of the doubt ... but we'll see how the rest of the piracy situation plays out, what fallout comes from the Navy's actions, and how Obama handles his next pointy-stick diplomacy situation.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

My wife is saddened that there was a loss of life in the incident. I am not overjoyed, but the risk of attacking an American ship just went up considerably. When the risk entails not coming home, and the population of their ports being justifiably frightened for their safety, the cost of piracy will start to get daunting.

The major problem remains that we don't have any way of dealing with the pirates that we do capture. When all you can do is kill them, it is a sad world indeed.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Actually, being a bit of a bloody-minded sort about such things, I don't have any particular problem with it. I say sink'em upon identification.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I can certainly identify with that attitude. There is a part of me that wishes it were different. Either way, our goals are identical; Stop the current pirates, and make sure new pirates do not take their place. The world economy can no longer afford the tax they place upon transportation of goods.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Either way, our goals are identical; Stop the current pirates, and make sure new pirates do not take their place.

Precisely.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

The root problem, however, is that piracy looks like a good career choice in that neighborhood. Not too many options for employment, and most of them worse . . .

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

At risk of sounding like a barbarian—

Terry Pratchett once said humanity is the point where the falling angel meets the rising ape. There’s a lot of truth to that, to be sure. Whenever someone who is at that intersection dies, we all suffer the loss.

But: as bad as humanity is today, humanity is a hell of a lot better than we ever were when we were swinging in trees. We are fundamentally primates, small and relatively hairless members of the great ape family, and we do not inherently possess any more natural rights than any other primate.

At some point, we choose to assert our additional rights, and we agree to shoulder additional responsibilities. This is where we stop being primates and become that most special creature in the known cosmos: humans. Humans have human rights.

Piracy is, in my mind, one of the — if not the — worst crimes against the social order. It is a refutation of everything that a human being is expected to be.

I have tremendous compassion for human life. I regret whenever it is ended, for whatever reason it is ended.

Violent primates can all eat lead and die, as far as I’m concerned. Doesn’t matter if it’s a crazy chimp in suburbia or a Somali pirate on the high seas.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I prefer to allow people to learn from other's mistakes. In the final analysis, that is indeed what is possible here. We will see what the pirates learn.

Any taking, by local might, rather than the creative use of resources and effort, deserves your categorization of piracy. Trying to live by preying on your society is counter productive from an evolutionary standpoint. The behavior needs to be eliminated.

I would prefer that the pirates be given the chance to evolve and join the human race. Humans are special. I regret the loss of life. I do not regret the enforcement of law against criminal behavior. I would prefer a different endpoint, but I do not begrudge the one we have. This has the virtue of working. As Sgt. Dan "One Drop" Trooper commented, "I never see someone up here twice."

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

So far, the lesson of other people's mistakes has not fully sunk in, it appears. Several known pirates are now blustering and boasting that they'll make France and the USA regret using force, so it seems at least a few more salutary lessons will be required.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Willful ignorance, or stupidity, is a capital crime. Without the intervention of others, the world will exact it's price. I hear the bluster. Let's see what they really do. They do have a single data point to draw from, it may take reinforcement to show that it is a trend. As I said, I wish it was different, but I accept that it is needed.

[hrrunka]

Piracy is, in my mind, one of the — if not the — worst crimes against the social order.

Oh, I'd put terrorism a way further over on that scale, myself...

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

So would I. That comment had been bothering me, but I couldn't put my thumb on it enough to put it into words.


Pirates are at least relatively honest: They're in it for the money. Terrorists spout a lot of ideology, that sounds noble at least to them, but the truth is that most of the nastiest bastards among them aren't in it for any grand ideals; they just like to hurt and kill people.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

I side with Elie Wiesel on this one: willful apathy is a greater sin than hate. Hizbollah might be driven to violence by frothing–at–the–mouth hate, but pirates just don’t care about your life one way or another. In my mind, that makes their crimes of violence more heinous.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I suppose that one can go either way. I tend to rank malice above disinterest. The person governed by disinterest is unlikely to go out of his way to kill you unless you represent a threat; the one governed by hatred will kill you merely because you exist.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

Again going back to Wiesel — this time, as an eyewitness to the Holocaust, not as a moral commentator — the really virulent anti–Semitism of the Third Reich was focused in the higher ranks, and among those flunkies who were actively aspiring to those ranks. Most of the rest of the Germans who participated in the Holocaust thought of themselves as doing a distasteful job. They felt no real animus for the people they were exterminating; they instead complained about how much their jobs sucked and how backbreaking the work was. In the midst of murder, they had persuaded themselves that they were the ones who were truly put–upon.

In my book, it isn’t quite so much indifference that’s worse than malice, but deadly narcissism. The two tend to go hand in hand. Someone who is scraping the bottommost depths of narcissism is not one who will avoid killing you unless you make a threat; they seem rather to be people who would do so just because they think they can get away with it.

I’ve known a couple of deadly narcissists. I’ll tell you about the sagas sometime, if you like. Between them and common goblins, I’d rather deal with the goblins. But this is quickly leaving the realm of moral argument and entering the purely subjective.

That said, please don’t interpret what I’m saying here as “narcissism/indifference is clearly worse than murderous hate.” At some point it’s a judgment call on the individual’s part. I’m just sharing my reasoning. :)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

And you have a point. As always.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

I’m surprised you don’t consider acts of piracy to be acts of terror. They may not be as political as some terrorists — but then again, some terrorists aren’t motivated by politics, either.

[hrrunka]

There aren't clear lines between those categories. An act of piracy may also be an act of terrorism but is not necessarily one.