Great comment made by an American @ Daily News

[NASSIR]

"Blow them up? Use an A-bomb? Invade their country? Yet again, aggressive war-like Americans want to use force and kill thousands. Instead of letting each company be responsible for its own security, Americans call for more taxpayer money to be spent murdering more around the globe. The pirates violate the property rights of other, for sure, and this is immoral, but they don't kill people. So the proper response to a violation of property rights is killing? Let each company provide its own security." link

[Cara.]

Nonsense. Letting each company regulate itself is what led to this mess in the first place. Toxic waste dumping and overfishing off the Somali coast wasn't any government's mandate. If companies decide to "provide their own security", it will make the US's actions last week seem like a Valentine's day gift. The last thing we want is some multinational deciding the best solution is to bomb any "suspicious" vessel, threatening peninsula, or aggressive island off our coasts. Or perhaps they will happily pay ransom money to the pirates and flood Somalia with young men flush with ill-gotten gains.

 

Anyway, some of the ships being taken hostage include humanitarian aid ships paid for by taxpayer money.

 

And there's a distinct difference between "violation of property rights" vs. taking people hostage and demanding ransom for their safe return. Imagine waiting for your neighbor to leave for work, breaking into their house and stealing their flat-screen TV. Sounds bad? Compare that to waiting for your neighbor's kindergartner to get off the school bus, kidnapping her, and demanding money in return for her safety. I can chalk up the first to common criminality but the second is miles beyond "a violation of property rights".

 

Let's not confuse sympathy with justice or good sense.

[Cara.]

Actually, I find the "Chinese are coming!" comments a bit more interesting. Have the right-wing nutjobs latched onto China as the new Big Bad? Whatever happened to Iran?

[N.O.R.F]

Anyway, some of the ships being taken hostage include humanitarian aid ships paid for by taxpayer money.

 

And there's a distinct difference between "violation of property rights" vs. taking people hostage and demanding ransom for their safe return. Imagine waiting for your neighbor to leave for work, breaking into their house and stealing their flat-screen TV. Sounds bad? Compare that to waiting for your neighbor's kindergartner to get off the school bus, kidnapping her, and demanding money in return for her safety. I can chalk up the first to common criminality but the second is miles beyond "a violation of property rights".

 

Let's not confuse sympathy with justice or good sense.

^Very well put.

[NASSIR]

Cara, my position has always been a comprehensive and peaceful solution and attending to the root cause of Somalia's sea piracy, not military solution.

 

The pirates(former fishermen) do not act as if the end justifies the means. They claim to levy tax on ships that illegally fish on Somali waters for the last 18 years and to deter private and leased ships contracted to dump toxic waste. They hold both the crew and cargo, betting on the cargo more than the crew, and the more valuable the cargo is, the more money they demand. That is how they measure their demand in exchange for the crews and cargo. For instance, their monetary demand for the release of the Ukrainian ship laden with Russian-made tanks bound for Southern Sudan via Mombasa was priced by the pirates based on the market value of the tanks. Same as the Suadi supertanker.

 

Yet the pirates do not mistreat or kill their hostages despite the illegality of the acts of piracy on the high seas. However, I don't see the legal justification for killing them and dumping their bodies on the sea. Or signing bilateral deal to set up secret prisons in poor countries with terrible record of human rights violations.

I don't also see the justification for locating the solution of this problem outside its root cause. The UN resolution clearly violates Somalia's Sovereignty by allowing Nato and the Navy of other powerful countries to invade Somalia while in pursuit of sea pirates in safe havens, whereas the Council hardly addresses the big trawlers that scrape the bottom of our coast clean, drastically endangering the marine ecosystem of Somalia.

 

The drug industry flourishes in Mexico with daily killings of innocent civilians, but no country ever suggests to bombard towns and villages where this activity is rampant.

Endorsing the attacking of villages and towns for stopping piracy and ending safe havens is not the solution and it leads to more anti-americanism.