Posted on 05/05/2010 9:01:41 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
MOMBASA, Kenya (AFP) – Somali pirates seized control of an oil-laden Russian tanker in the Gulf of Aden early Wednesday, setting up a high-seas standoff with a Russian destroyer steaming to the zone.
The 230-metre (755 foot)-long Moscow University was heading east from the Gulf of Aden early Wednesday when it was boarded by pirates around 350 nautical miles off the Yemeni coast, the EU anti-piracy mission said.
The ship's Russian operator said the tanker had been on its way to China from the Red Sea with 86,000 tonnes of crude oil, believed to be worth around 50 million dollars.
The anti-piracy mission NAVFOR said the Marshal Shaposhnikov, a large Russian warship with two helicopters and an infantry unit aboard, was rushing to the hijack zone. The warship is part of the Russian fleet deployment to the international task force.
The 23 all-Russian crew of the Moscow University were unharmed, the ship's operators Novoship said.
"According to the latest information received from the master none of the 23 seafarers on board have been hurt, the vessel and the cargo sustained no damage," said Novoship, adding that communications with the vessel had been cut at 0450 GMT.
It said the attack began around 50 minutes earlier when the pirates opened fire and tried to board the vessel. The captain managed to inform naval forces in the region before his radio was silenced.
A company spokesman said later Wednesday that the pirates had yet to make a ransom demand. "No aggressor has made contact with us since the attack. No claims have been made," the Interfax news agency quoted the spokesman as saying.
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Armed with AK-47s and grenade launchers, GPS navigation and satellite phones, pirates raked in an estimated 60 million dollars in ransoms last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Clearly, the 2006 kidnappers were too young to have learned the lesson of the ‘80s.
Piracy is an industry, which does not operate in a vacuum. They need port facilities and repair facilities for their boats. The pirates have homes. They contribute to the local economy. The whole village is the pirate support infrastructure.
The pirates are effectively operating in a state of war against the rest of the world. The only effective treatment would be for the rest of the world to treat the Somali coastline like it would have treated enemy bases during WW2. Namely, carpet bomb any village from which pirates operate.
Yes.
No survivors.
Well, then . . . that goes to the effectiveness of the message, yes? Perhaps this Rambo-thing has its limits. Maybe even with Somali pirates.
Precisely. There should be no limit to how many innocent civilians we kill. They all have flies up their noses, anyway. Eff 'em, they're not human.
Face it, you have no idea how long Russian diplomats were "off limits." Unless you keep track of Russian diplomats, that is.
Our aversion to any possibility of harming enemy "civilians" is what guarantees we cannot win.
The last war we thoroughly won, World War 2, saw us bombing entire enemy cities into rubble. We incinerated Dresden and Tokyo. We nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We killed hundreds of thousands of women and children. And we did not delude ourselves that this is what we were doing.
We did what we needed to do to win.
No Rambo needed, just kill them. Worth a try, sending them to NYC for indictment and 3 hots and a cot isn't working.
Moscow -— send in the Speznatz for a Wet Mission.
Looks like you formed your conclusion and worked your way backwards. There's a more efficient and cost-effective way to solve the problem: place armed guards (i.e., mercenaries) on ships transiting the problem area, with agreement between shipping companies to rotate them on-and-off. Companies agreeing to the program receive the benefit of support provided by the various nations participating in CTF-151. Companies that do not--"no pay, no play."
The mercenaries operate by Ready4Freddy's rules, really, a no brainer (no offense intended). There's no need to send in the B-52's, like we're all watching Apocalypse Now. Killing a bunch of skinny women and kids with flies up their noses is pointless (and expensive), despite PapaBear's need to prove a social point to himself.
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