Don't Mess With U.S. Ship!!!

[Adam West]

It sounds like it really wouldn't be too difficult to protect this area from piracy.

I know the U.S. could handle the situation if we wanted to but really this should be a situation where NATO or the U.N. steps in and either blockades the ports where this is occurring or go into the country and take them by force (at least from the news reports, this wouldn't be too difficult either).

I don't know whether or not this is true but one of the major news networks reported that there are a lot of other hostages from other countries being held captive and want to know why the U.S. won't save them too. That's why I think someone other than our country needs to be involved.

[SUP-Ronin]

I am glad it turned out ok for the captn. Now he can tell his story, and write a best seller about it. I smell another pirate movie.

[megocrazy]

One of my kids friends goes to the Mass Maritime and knows the second in command and his dad who is a teacher there. He has met the captain once or twice as well. Says he's an incredibly nice guy and was not surprised at all by his act of giving himself up for the safety of his crew. The problem they're having is the number of ships that they have to cover an incredible span of ocean. There is really no acting government in Somalia and there are more supporters for the piracy than against. It's brought between 130 and 150 million into the country in the last year which is way more than anything the people "in charge" have been able to do. I think the French raid and the US incident will escalate things to a point where they will make this a military conflict eventually. I don't believe it will last more than a couple of days. It would basically be Hiroschima all over again. Once the towns are located ( they have been moving these make shift "boomtowns" around so they can optimize the locations to the shipping lanes), a few well placed missles and air strikes would level them. Be more like playing space invaders than a war. As long as they don't have to single out the innocents like over in Iraq, there's no need to even leave a ship and go ashore. All these towns are located on 1800 miles of shore line. Level it and let Trump put up hotels. It's supposed to be an extremely beautiful place except for the actual conditions they're living under.

[Mikey]

What get's me is this is nothing new with Somalia.

They're one of the most corrupt countries in the world and have basically no human rights.

Why the US would go in and invade Iraq, but leave Somalia alone is beyond me.

Oh yea, I forgot ... Somalia don't have oil.

Never mind

[txteach]

It looks to me that this is starting to become a political thread which is to bad.

[Riffster]

now the pirates are threatening revenge, they're still holding 200+ hostages from other ships. and any hostages from any country that shoots on them will be harmed..

[livnxxxl]

Somalia needs to do something to stop these guys. They are super poor but can afford rocket launchers, AK47's, boats to attack, and radios to coorinate their attacks? I have no sympathy for these low lifes. I say we should heavily arm our ships that go into that area. The one thing that gets me is they have the nerve to threaten us more for getting our guy back? Maybe the rest of the world can tolerate this behavior but we never should.

BTW there was a cruiser there for two days watching the pirates from a safe distance. I'm not sure why you guys think we just got ships in the area.

Don't be fooled. Just because these guys are low life pirates doesn't mean that they do not have a cash flow coming in. After all they have already had a couple of high dollar (millions) of ransoms paid by other countries. That and other countries aiding them as well. They just FU big time when they picked a US vessel to mess with this time. What were they thinking/drinking/smoking? I am not saying that there would be a US ship right there waiting for this kind of thing. Obviously there was not. Or at least not one capable of handling the situation. Our nearest ship was 300 miles away, but it did get there PDQ which is great in this instance. I am saying that this was the problem to begin with. I am saying that there should have been at least one capable ship there to begin with. Or at least have the cargo vessels armed with some guards at the very minimal. Not being armed carrying lots of $$$ in cargo is just plain stupidity to begin with. It would kind of be like driving an armored car around without armor or the guards being unarmed. I do not know why it always takes a tragedy to get something done. ??? What ever happened to being proactive instead of reactive all the time? I agree that other countries should be involved as well and not just the USA picking up the slack all of the time just because we can. After all it is their (other countries) problem to or at least should be.

[Joe90]

It's a different World over there: Human life is cheap and slavery is still practiced despite being banned for almost 100 years. And when the West goes in to calm things down it generally turns out bad. We had some student refugees from Somalia at my school in 2001; when 9/11 went down these kids were overjoyed. Bizarre.

[Bill]

What get's me is this is nothing new with Somalia.

They're one of the most corrupt countries in the world and have basically no human rights.

Why the US would go in and invade Iraq, but leave Somalia alone is beyond me.

Oh yea, I forgot ... Somalia don't have oil.

Never mind

We did try and help Somalia over a decade ago. They were, less than receptive...

[wvanightcrawler]

semper fi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!