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Should ships be armed to combat pirates?

Arm the ships?

  • Yes

    Votes: 152 81.3%

  • No

    Votes: 20 10.7%

  • Offer the pirates carrots

    Votes: 15 8.0%
  • Total voters
    187
#101
rcarraher said:
They are merchant ships, and tho' in the days of yore, even merchant ships sailed with light arms, my understanding is that if they are "officially" armed, they are no longer merchants. Besides, do we really want a bunch of private navy/marine corps floating around, no matter what the intentions? No more so than we want Private Air Forces, and giving guns to every stewardess (or Steward, or flight attendant if you want to be PC) on every commercial air liner. And before someone pipes up and says something about armed air marshalls, those people are official reps and sworn law inforcement personnell of the government where they fly from.
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Funny. Blackwater has armed their ship for hire as en escort.

It's something I'd considered for a while, financing some small vessels, maybe large PTs or small Corvettes, arming them lightly, and whoring the flotilla out to shipping companies as visible muscle.

I was thinking I might even be able to get a small business grant from the Small Business Bureau to kick start it. :D
 
#106
john turner said:
1 live captive recovered
3 dead pirates
1 pirate in custody

yo ho ho and a bottle of rum, yo.
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Hey! Did I called that one or not? Looks like we found Arnold....

From the end of my previous post and before this mornings news: Can you really tell me we don't have the capability to take a life boat in open water, manned by 4 Somali pirates with light arms? Where's Arnold and a team of S.E.A.L's when you need them to swin up under cover of darkness and place a few silenced rounds from a 9mm in these guys heads and go have a beer with the rescued Capt.? And, that would be legal.
 
#108
john turner said:
yeah, and? a hostage was murdered. it's erroneous to blame that on the french. they didn't pull the trigger, nor did they put the hostage in harm's way.

frankly, this piracy crap is going to continue until the defacto response is like this.
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I wasn't meaing anything,just responding to succesful saves.
I don't blame French,this happens like this and there's always chance of a casualty when guns are involved.

The only way to prevent Somalians from doing piracy is helping Somalia for development and a chance to live with the human standards.
 
#109
73jbass said:
Here you go. [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

More guns aren't the answer,right?
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so you want the military to guard all merchant ships? the consequences would be twofold: the price of everything is goig to skyrocket and you will pay taxes like you never paid before.

and to say 'so what' to a dead hostage is a bit insenitive me thinks.... the point was to get the hostages out alive, so there is an element of fail in the result of the operation.
 
#110
machine gewehr said:
The only way to prevent Somalians from doing piracy is helping Somalia for development and a chance to live with the human standards.
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...or making the consequences much worse than the potential benefits. frankly it's not my responsibility, or those of my countrymen, to improve someone else's living standards. they are welcome to improve their own, and they may even get help if they ask for it civilly.

kidnapping foreign nationals and stealing someone else's property is not asking with civility. as long as they act like criminals, they should be treated as such.
 
#113
machine gewehr said:
screw it,nuke 'em all.:D
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YES!!!!!!

132792-nuke.jpg
 
#114
mvw356 said:
so you want the military to guard all merchant ships? the consequences would be twofold: the price of everything is goig to skyrocket and you will pay taxes like you never paid before.

and to say 'so what' to a dead hostage is a bit insenitive me thinks.... the point was to get the hostages out alive, so there is an element of fail in the result of the operation.
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nobody said "so what" to the dead hostage. :rolleyes: the point being, these individuals are -criminals- and they murdered the hostage.

or do you think that somehow the french government was responsible for the actions of criminals? :eyebrow:

criminals must be dealt with. they cannot be allowed to continue in their behavior just because that behavior might hurt someone. that's the exact opposite of reason and logic.
 
#115
john turner said:
...or making the consequences much worse than the potential benefits. frankly it's not my responsibility, or those of my countrymen, to improve someone else's living standards. they are welcome to improve their own, and they may even get help if they ask for it civilly.

kidnapping foreign nationals and stealing someone else's property is not asking with civility. as long as they act like criminals, they should be treated as such.
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AMEN!!!!
You tell 'em John!
 
#116
john turner said:
nobody said "so what" to the dead hostage. :rolleyes: the point being, these individuals are -criminals- and they murdered the hostage.

or do you think that somehow the french government was responsible for the actions of criminals? :eyebrow:

criminals must be dealt with. they cannot be allowed to continue in their behavior just because that behavior might hurt someone. that's the exact opposite of reason and logic.
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i didn't say that the french government or even the troops who carried out the mission are responsible for the actions of the criminals, all i'm saying is that the mission somewhat failed.

you said 'yeah and?' to the endresult of the mission, which as i said, imo was at least a partial failure because one hostage is dead. the mission wasn't to kill the hostage takers, but to get the hostages out.




feel free to delete if too political.
 
#117
john turner said:
...or making the consequences much worse than the potential benefits. frankly it's not my responsibility, or those of my countrymen, to improve someone else's living standards. they are welcome to improve their own, and they may even get help if they ask for it civilly.

kidnapping foreign nationals and stealing someone else's property is not asking with civility. as long as they act like criminals, they should be treated as such.
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Yup. Abso-frikkin'-lootly.

I'm all for helping folks out, but not criminals. These guys deserve exactly what they get in a situation like this.

Really, how STUPID are you to think you are going to sit in a life boat with a couple AK-47's and a single hostage and out last the US Navy?
 
#118
mvw356 said:
i didn't say that the french government or even the troops who carried out the mission are responsible for the actions of the criminals, all i'm saying is that the mission somewhat failed.

you said 'yeah and?' to the endresult of the mission, which as i said, imo was at least a partial failure because one hostage is dead. the mission wasn't to kill the hostage takers, but to get the hostages out.




feel free to delete if too political.
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If memory serves (I don't know why it should, hasn't for sometime but anyhow....) In the Israeli raid on Entebe, there were hostages lost. Was that a failure? No ones highjacked an EL AL flight since....
 

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