exiledonline.com/war-nerd-update-yo-ho-ho-and-a-tanker-of-crude -> exiledonline.com/war-nerd-update-yo-ho-ho-and-a-tanker-of-crude/
What an Xmas morning that had to be for some sleepy fishing village on the Somali coast! Little Abdul Jihad goes to sleep dreaming of sugarplums-dreaming of picking them off from a hundred meters with his AK--and wakes to find the horizon blotted out by a ship that's bigger than the whole village. You know that Lefty line, "this is what democracy looks like"? Well, this is what Robin Hood looks like: a bunch of black skeletons swarming over the side with RPGs. These guys used to be humble fishermen, till the Taiwanese and Korean trawlers took advantage of the fact that Somalia has no government to scoop every last sculpin out of the waters they used to fish. No government means no coast guard, so who was going to stop them? Well, karma went out and traded in its fishing boats for a few fast outboards and some Yemeni guns, and made a career move into the piracy business. And getting rich off it, bling and all the nomad girls you can buy. So a big hundred million ton shout out to my perps, showin' your fat Jack-Sparrow-worshipping kiddies what piracy is all about. All those overfed retirees have relatives who'll pay big to see their crumbly old folks back in Arizona! You can't miss'em, big white ships that smell like buffet tables and used Depends!
Add your own * 1 Ripley | November 18th, 2008 at 12:15 pm Nuke em from Orbit- it's the only way to be sure. Buy some local help, use pirate tactics on pirates, and burn the villages which help pirates. No small element of schadenfreude here, as all the rich fat people sweat it out on their fancy yachts squinting over the horizon to see if any small black specks are speeding their way. Their gravy train being siphoned off by freelance skinnies who have the unmitigated gall to gank their product. I like the fact that they just pulled the ship into harbor, probably to what was a fantastic party. Some people that actually count might start getting embarrassed and annoyed. These same people actually get worked up when the subject matter turns to disrupting oil supplies. these dudes were in Mogadishu ten years 15 years ago massacring their own people for fun. The "Robin Hood" angle of this story should be reserved for dumb kids who wear Che Guevara t-shirts, you can do better than this. Most of that money is spent on hookers and drugs in Mombasa, it doesn't even find itself back into the Somali community. I want to see them take a carrier or an Aegis cruiser next.
Rune | November 18th, 2008 at 4:28 pm Who doesn't like a bit of sticking it to the man. Except those sailors they take hostage are mostly poor sods from The Philippines, and those that are going to be hurt economically are Egypt - which gets a good part of its income through the Suez Channel - and China/India, as they see their outsourcing business from Europe being less profitable. I say, wait it out and let China or India take on the pirates. They also have some fine new carrier ships they need to show off.
Nestor | November 18th, 2008 at 5:18 pm Hey comments are enabled at last. I wonder how they even got aboard, those things are tall! Wanky O'Shea | November 18th, 2008 at 6:43 pm I blame the Christians missionaries for a lot of this shit. Go to Africa, build hospitals and help solve the infant mortality problem. Then preach the sins of birth control to people that regularly spit out 15 children. Luny | November 18th, 2008 at 8:39 pm It's nice to see comments enabled. I don't understand why they don't just mount a heavy machine gun or two on these ships and make swiss cheese of any boat that comes within range. They should either bribe the ICU and the governments of Somaliland and Puntland to crack down on these guys(who have more money right now than any of those groups), or ransom all the ships and hostages and bomb the shit out of Eyl. You should check out the BBC's article about Eyl, the port city they take all of these ships to. It's probably the nicest place in the whole country right now. This is Somalis refusing to get screwed over again and again. People here think westerners are squeamish about killing Somalis? Westerners have been killing Africans at a high clip for a very long time. This is westerners being scared of Somalis, which is much much different. If the crew is non-Saudi, I am sure the Saudis would be willing to kill all of them to just get their prize ship back. The Europeans and Americans are concerned with getting their people back in one piece. The Somalis should just arm the crew and promise them a cut if they defend the ship while it's being stormed. Tyler Durden | November 19th, 2008 at 12:46 am Ye especially if the crew isnt muslim the Saudis will definately not give a shit about them. Tyler Durden | November 19th, 2008 at 12:53 am I am afraid the pirates have bitten much more than what the can chew. They have already been appearing in the news and attracting too much attention. This tanker might be the last straw that will result in all hell being unleashed on them by the rest of the world. Zhlobko Yebic | November 19th, 2008 at 12:54 am Good story. The UK newspaper, the Guardian has a pretty neat photo essay about Somali music downloaders.
stm the pirate ship responded by threatening to "blow up the naval warship if it closed on her",' Gotta admire their self-confidence. Klink | November 19th, 2008 at 3:35 am Proof, as if any more were needed, that pirates are better than ninjas. cphi | November 19th, 2008 at 4:13 am it wasn't 100 million gallons, it was 100 millions dollars value. Thomas_Nolle | November 19th, 2008 at 8:52 am My favorite fact of this is that the "mother-ship" was a hijacked Nigerian tug.
Petkovich | November 19th, 2008 at 10:42 am I dunno man, this all seem too neatly packaged to attract attention, the NATO and USA attention. Right when I read the USA are losing to the Muslims in Somalia. MY prediction is that we will see a few USA war ships sail there to bring "freedom and democracy" to those people. the fact they aren't involved probably means that the pirates support the united states backed government or visa versa * 24. Marignac | November 19th, 2008 at 1:08 pm Great to hear there are still some real people out there, who just want something and get it whatever it takes. Boris Pavlov Grozny | November 19th, 2008 at 3:32 pm This needs a British solution, an old British solution, burn everything within 50 miles of the coast - or get the Ethiopians or Egyptians to do it. Lord of War | November 20th, 2008 at 2:21 am Now that the skinnies have a taste of the good life, they won't want to go back. It will be fun to watch and see how high they can tech-up their arms to keep the pirate business going. Eventually these downloaders are going to have to actually kill a crew or sink a ship to maintain the credibility of their threat. it's all fun and games 'til the Stingers come out- * 27. John Smith | November 20th, 2008 at 3:27 am #6, interesting point, but this is an oil tanker rather than a container ship. I suppose it could still have had an interesting little gizmo on board, which has since been removed by some nation state ally of the pirates, but it seems no more likely than the plots of any of a dozen less recent, less "respectable" international thriller novels featuring big boats and pirates. A supertanker holds about 500,000 "deadweight tons", which today probably means 1000 kg rather than the old 2240 lb "deadweight ton", so that's about 500 million kg of crude oil. A gallon of crude oil weighs about 315 kg, so that *is* probably a bit over 100 million gallons, as well as about 100 million dollars worth. Another way to do this is to say that a barrel of oil is 42 US gallons, and this ship was carrying about 2 million barrels, which suggests it's about 84 million gallons. I'm really curious to see how this pans out - there's a lot of money at stake and the Saudis tend not to be too picky about the general public's view of their problem-solving approaches... Snidely Wachovia | November 20th, 2008 at 7:59 am I love Somalians. mombasa | November 20th, 2008 at 10:56 am so it took the indian navy to kick the pirates' a$$ ! too bad for you gary seems your dream is coming to an end. Pyotr...
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