Thes Pirates are not Jihadists or ideological fanatics. They are simple gangsters trying to extort money. If I were talking with them, I would put things in simple terms. If you kill the Captain, we will kill you. In the meantime, you just sit and wait. Keep them on the high seas. Jam any communication they have with their allies. While you are doing this, you start tossing up flares at night and playing a lot of loud music. Keep inching your large vessels closer and closer. Send you aircraft including helicopters on constatnt close reconnaisance. Eventually, they will crack.
I understand your points of course, but we don't really know that.
what we do know - and was neatly buried pretty well for awhile - was that Mogadishu was infiltrated or co mingled with AQ pretty quickly.
The training that showed them how to down and fight US air power came straight from that, and if islamos are not part of this bunch then they are going to be pronto, since this is an exploitable weakness.
Were I in their position, I would be doing that now.
It would pay for another slew of USS Cole type attacks, and would be pretty painless to people who have gotten used to hiding in the freezing mountains of Pakistan, or roasting in the desert heat of Somalia for the last 8 years.
This is a perfect description of Mohammad. Who was Mohammad? he was a sand pirate. He made his living from robbing caravans and pillaging villages and cities.
What is the essence of Islam? It gives brigands and robbers sanction to pillage, rape, and plunder (as long as they are kind to fellow Islamic brigands).