Posted on 11/17/2008 4:30:59 PM PST by SandRat
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2008 – Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said he was shocked by the piracy of a Saudi Arabian supertanker 450 nautical miles off the coast of Kenya in the Arabian Sea.
Mullen, speaking during a Pentagon news conference today, said the Sirius Star was attacked more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya. News reports indicate the pirates have hijacked the ship and are heading for the Somali port of Eyl.
The ship is owned by a Saudi Arabian oil company and flagged in Liberia. Its crew of 25 includes citizens of Croatia, Great Britain, The Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia.
“I'm stunned by the range of it, less so than I am of the size,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The pirates have proven in the past that they are capable of planning and launching attacks on large supply vessels.
“Once the (pirates) have access, they seem to be able to get on and take over, which they've done in this case,” he said.
There are a number of military ships in the area, and American ships and crews have the rules of engagement and the necessary force needed to take on pirates, the chairman said.
The attack comes amid a decrease in the rate of successful pirate attacks on merchant vessels off the coast of Somalia, said officials at the Navy’s 5th Fleet based in Manama, Bahrain. Military and civilian efforts in the region has reduced the percentage of successful piracy attacks from 53 percent in August, to 31 percent in October.
“Our presence in the region is helping deter and disrupt criminal attacks off the Somali coast, but the situation with the Sirius Star clearly indicates the pirates’ ability to adapt their tactics and methods of attack” Navy Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, commander of Combined Maritime Forces, said in a release today.
“One of the challenges that … you have in piracy clearly is, if you are intervening and you capture pirates, is there a path to prosecute them?” Mullen said. “That's something I think the international community has got to answer for the long run.”
While the percentage of successful attacks has dropped the overall number of incidents still causes the chairman concern. “We're going to continue to have bring pressures on these pirates,” he said.
They already have tried...it failed but the ship was shot up with RPGs......
And the future is going to be much more of the same.
Didn’t President Thomas Jefferson send Steven Decatur (youngest man to achieve the rank of Captian in U.S. Naval history) recover the flag of the USS Philadelphia that Barbary Pirates had siezed? From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli.
The men on the deck of the USS Cole had no weapons either.
Nothing learned at all. Constant piracy and still no precautions.
Wonder if the seizure was agreed upon.
Dont worry. Øbama will speak to these Africans and peace will resume. /s
It is also embarrassing to have a Navy Admiral express "shock" that long held enemies of freedom of the seas, african pirates, acted with impunity.
It is his job to never be "shocked"!!
And then this....
"“One of the challenges that … you have in piracy clearly is, if you are intervening and you capture pirates, is there a path to prosecute them?” Mullen said".
Shaking my head....that's what Clinton worried about instead of killing bin Laden!!
I asked the same question of a friend of mine. He sails as Chief Engineer on U.S.flagged merchant vessels and just returned from a four month trip to the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean.
He says that being armed is a violation of all kinds of laws,both US and inrenational. It makes no sense to me,but that's the way it is evidently.
Oil tankers are a big NO-NO.
They have fire-hoses and that's usually about it, except maybe a handgun in the captain's safe. Ridiculous.
I’m shocked and appalled that I was a dumbass and didn’t plan for expanded piracy operations outside of where we were.
Damned. Quite making excuses and start killing the bastards. Take no prisoners unless you want to get some intelligence as to where their bases are, and then execute the SOBs.
You need Harrier, vertical-liftoff jets that can operate from the decks of cargo carriers as well as warships. They have more speed, better range, and carry more weapons than the slow helicopters.
Oh, by the way, I recall that the Navy/Air Force/Army/Marines have decided to discontinue producing the AV Harrier. Who was the dumbass who thought up and promoted this policy?
What is DOD coming too? A home for military losers?
We need leaders with guts and determination. Oh, I forgot, the Great One (not Mark Levin) is coming in and his advisors will emasculate what is left of our military.
How much more of this stupidity from the administration and brass are the American people going to take before they stand up and say “NO MORE”?
"Paying the ransom would only lead to further demands, Jefferson argued in letters to future presidents John Adams,
then America’s minister to Great Britain, and James Monroe, then a member of Congress.
As Jefferson wrote to Adams in a July 11, 1786, letter, “I acknolege [sic] I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace thro’ the medium of war.”
Paying tribute will merely invite more demands, and even if a coalition proves workable, the only solution is a strong navy that can reach the pirates,
Jefferson argued in an August 18, 1786, letter to James Monroe: “The states must see the rod; perhaps it must be felt by some one of them. . . .
Every national citizen must wish to see an effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other element than the water.
A naval force can never endanger our liberties, nor occasion bloodshed; a land force would do both.”
“From what I learn from the temper of my countrymen and their tenaciousness of their money,”
Jefferson added in a December 26, 1786, letter to the president of Yale College, Ezra Stiles,
“it will be more easy to raise ships and men to fight these pirates into reason, than money to bribe them.”
GMTA.
"Give my regards to Davy Jones, &%$%#! Okay, lads, Heave-ho!!" (AHHhhh....KER-SPLOOSH!!)
Kind of like putting up a sign in your window.
No firearms.
Welcome home invaders.
If that is the continuing case, why would Mullen be shocked!
FGS.
Allow them a haven and they will have at you, Admiral.
When Eisenhower was faced with trouble coming out of Lebanon, he put in 20,000 men and eliminated the problem.
This statement from the admiral has me questioning his capacity for the postion he holds. I think he’s still waiting for the Red Fleet to sail out for a big fight in the North Atlantic.
But they have to land somewhere. Eyl.
“
This statement from the admiral has me questioning his capacity
for the postion he holds.
“
I wonder if the good Admiral was out sick on the day they covered
The Barbary Pirates in history class at the Naval Academy!!!
Muslims boarding and stealing ships (or holding for tribute)...
Mullen must not have read the memos about piracy off the east coast
of Africa for a few years!
I wonder if there is a maritime version of Blackwater?
How about equipping the crew with Super-Soakers, filled with Chlorox, Ammonia, whatever. Hell, in some “developing” countries, they spray schoolgirls with acid using squirt guns.
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