Go Pirates Go!

Cueball wrote:

Oh yeah, Back to  "its not our fault that their ministers were for sale when we bought their compliance in our plan to dump our shit in their water."

 

I did not say that it wasn't partly the West's fault as well - although as Snert points it was only certain companies that did this. I pointed out that these companies took the exact same approach as you - to deal only with those "pulling the string at the moment".  Aren't we just buying their compliance to stop using violence and piracy? I just cannot comprehend how you think handing over millions (they already received over $30 million in ransom payments in 2008 by the way) to the "pirates" will solve anything. Has any of this 30 million gone to fund a clean up of sorts? Has it been used to better the lives of ordinary Somalians? Has it gone to buy weapons?  If the issue is the toxic waste clean up and illegal over fishing, then the international community via the UN should deal with this. However, companies made deals (which were scandalous and unjust) with the government at that time. Who are you to say that that government wasn't legitimate? There are corrupt and repressive governments the world over and I don't see you advocating that deals and legislation they pass should be ignored by the rest of the world.

I guess that means "spread it around on everyone".  That's really what you're trying to do, isn't it?  Make everyone to blame for the dumping by two companies, the better then to justify retaliation against everyone?  I don't have to be living in the woods to not be responsible for what two Italian companies did (and no, I'm not somehow benefitting from what they did either, so you probably shouldn't waste much time trying to construct an argument that we all reaped the huge rewards of Achair Partners and Progresso getting some cheap dumping done.)

We're not the wife of the thief here.  The thieves, with regard to the toxic dumping, are two private companies.  It should be clear to anyone that, say, a Korean sailor is not somehow the "wife" of those companies, and suggesting as much is ridiculous.

But eventually you need to be able to reconcile your support for pirates jamming guns in people's faces (and in at least one case, pulling the trigger) and the only way you can do that is to concoct some kind of preposterous argument that makes everyone to blame, and thus everyone a reasonable scapegoat. 

Why not just say "it's not OK to jam a gun in anyone's face, even if you're desperate"?  It's really not that hard, and as has been pointed out about fifty times, it would in no way prevent you from also supporting actual justice for Somalia.

How do you know I'm not a Korean sailor?  :)

Anyway, I don't follow.  I have nothing to do with either of those companies either.  But as I noted above, a Korean sailor was killed by pirates when the ransom $$$$ didn't get delivered.  How are you justifying that one to yourself?  By repeating "thepiratesweredesperate, thepiratesweredesperate..."?  Or what?  If you're going to give a reasonable and progressive analysis of the situation, how are you explaining why it's OK to kill someone in cold blood when you don't get your million dollars? 

Nobody's saying it's OK to dump toxic waste.  Nobody's saying it's OK to poach fish stocks.  But you seem to find the actions of the pirates acceptable, or justified, or something.  Something that's preventing you from saying that what they're doing isn't OK.

I am not offering a moral judgement on wether or not this particular violence is justified. I am offering a solution to the problem.

They want money. They are poor. They are poor partly as a result of the actions and past actions of European empire, which you benefit from. The specific agencies are only peripherally relevant to this case. Do you actually think that the Italians paid out compensation packages to the people of Somalia after they were forced out of Somalia in 1940? How about the Dutch and Indonesia? The French in Vietnam? We here in Canada? Did we ever pay the FN people of this country anywhere near the kind of compensation that would be required to pay for this, "our home on native land"?

Well no. In each of those cases the answer is a distinct no. That profit, and that money still resides with us, and is used to continue the domination of the world and its resources by multiple means, not the least of which is sticking guns in peoples faces, or more often than not just blowing them up from afar.

So, very simply put. we have all gained greatly from the rabid exploitation of these regions of the world, and this destitution and this desperation is largely a result of the imperial processes which you today still benefit from, so I am saying why not just give them the money?

My mistake.  Three Korean crewmembers were injured in a hijacking.  The sailor killed, in a different incident, was Chinese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_attacked_by_Somali_pirates
In a giant bit of irony, note that in yet another incident, the Somali pirates killed.... wait for it.... two members of the Somali Coast Guard. So even this nonsense about Somalia having no Coast Guard (so therefore the pirates "had to" step up to protect their shores!) is inaccurate. And if you want to count them too, then it's America: 3 Pirates: 3
And if the pirates make good on their boast that they'll begin specifically targetting American ships and their crew, we can expect those numbers to climb.  

Piracy of Africa [A Cartoon From Jordan] (sorry, can't get the image to post)

That's fascinating, but pretty much any report I've read about the lives of the pirates on shore suggests that they're far, far from being economically destitute.  Whereas Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor, the pirates seem to steal from the rich, then buy themselves all kinds of consumer electronics and other consumer trappings.  It's really not clear that the money the pirates are receiving goes toward feeding anything other than their urges.  Don't go too far down the road of assuming that this is some kind of wealth redistribution scheme.  It is, in the sense that Somalia now has a few hundred very wealthy pirates, but I don't think that's what most people are assuming. 

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So, what's your problem?

Only in the assignment of blame (which in turn is going to lead to the assignment of financial responsibility). I'm never a fan of massive and vague generalizations like "the West", when it comes to things like this. But if you're suggesting holding the *actual polluters* financially responsible, let's do it. But not a vague group of vaguely white, vaguely "europeans" who you believe have benefitted, in some vague way, from this dumping. I don't think we can hand over the bill for this cleanup on the basis of a money-trail that at this point is only in your head. And the fisheries that are *known* to have overfished in territorial waters? Bill them too.

N.R.KISSED wrote:

Snert wrote:

Quote:

So, what's your problem?

 

Only in the assignment of blame (which in turn is going to lead to the assignment of financial responsibility). I'm never a fan of massive and vague generalizations like "the West", when it comes to things like this. But if you're suggesting holding the *actual polluters* financially responsible, let's do it. But not a vague group of vaguely white, vaguely "europeans" who you believe have benefitted, in some vague way, from this dumping.

Naturally you're not interested in actually examing the historical, political  economic context of your own privilege and comfort that would involve much more thinking and soul searching than you are accustomed to and might actually result in you acknowleging your complicity in ongoing brutalties that would render the actions of the Somalians as somewhat negligible.

Its the typical course of white european privilege to cry "I didn't do it" I didn't steal the indigenous lands or plunder others resources slaughter other people, I didn't own any slaves etc. Which of course is bullshit everything we(white europeans)own all our rights power and privilege were built on these historical actions and the ongoing colonial actions that maintain this privilege. So it is not due to your libertarian fantasy of how special, clever and hardworking you are. The reality is that you are enjoying your inherited share of the loot and you want to keep quiet about where it came from.

Quote:

Naturally you're not interested in actually examing the historical, political  economic context of your own privilege and comfort that would involve much more thinking and soul searching than you are accustomed to and might actually result in you acknowleging your complicity in ongoing brutalties that would render the actions of the Somalians as somewhat negligible.

Actually, we were discussing the illegal waste dumping that forced Somali fishermen to become pirates.

You seem to want to lump the last 400 years of history in there too, the better to rationalize blaming All White People or something, but unless this claim that the pirates became pirates because they couldn't fish is a lie, we really don't need to artificially blow the problem up to being bigger than it is.

Somalian-Canadian Hip Hop artist K'Naan: Why we don't condemn our pirates

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Can anyone ever really be for piracy? Outside of sea bandits, and young girls fantasizing of Johnny Depp, would anyone with an honest regard for good human conduct really say that they are in support of Sea Robbery? Well in Somalia, the answer is: it's complicated. The news media these days has been covering piracy in the Somali coast, with such lopsided journalism that it's lucky they're not on a ship themselves. It's true that the constant hijacking of vessels in the Gulf of Aden is a major threat to the vibrant trade route between Asia and Europe. It is also true that for most of the pirates operating in this vast shoreline, money is the primary objective. But according to many Somalis, the disruption of Europe's darling of a trade route is just Karma biting a perpetrator in the butt. And if you don't believe in Karma, maybe you believe in recent history. Here is why we Somalis find ourselves slightly shy of condemning our pirates.

Somalia has been without any form of a functioning government since 1991. And despite its failures, like many other toddler governments in Africa, sprung from the wells of post-colonial independence, bad governance and development loan sharks, the specific problem of piracy was put in motion in 1992.

After the overthrow of Siyad Barre, our charmless dictator of twenty-some odd years, two major forces of the Hawiye Clan came to power. At the time, Ali Mahdi, and General Mohamed Farah Aidid, the two leaders of the Hawiye rebels were largely considered liberators. But the unity of the two men and their respective sub-clans was very short-lived. It's as if they were dumbstruck at the advent of ousting the dictator, or that they just forgot to discuss who will be the leader of the country once they defeated their common foe. A disagreement of who will upgrade from militia leader to Mr. President broke up their honeymoon. It's because of this disagreement that we've seen one of the most devastating wars in Somalia's history, leading to millions displaced and hundreds of thousands dead. But war is expensive and militias need food for their families, and Jaad (an amphetamine-based stimulant) to stay awake for the fighting. Therefore a good clan-based Warlord must look out for his own fighters. Aidid's men turned to robbing aid trucks carrying food to the starving masses, and reselling it to continue their war. But Ali Mahdi had his sights set on a larger and more unexploited resource, namely: the Indian Ocean.

Already by this time, local fishermen in the coastline of Somalia have been complaining of illegal vessels coming to Somali waters and stealing all the fish. And since there was no government to report it to, and since the severity of the violence clumsily overshadowed every other problem, the fishermen went completely unheard. But it was around this same time that a more sinister, a more patronizing practice was being put in motion. A Swiss firm called Achair Parterns, and an Italian waste company called Progresso, made a deal with Ali Mahdi, that they could dump containers of waste material in Somali waters. These European companies were said to be paying Warlords about $3 a ton, where as in to properly dispose of waste in Europe costs about $1000 a ton.

And if you haven't heard of K'Naan before, check this video out.

http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/news-nouvelles/view-news-afficher-nouvelles-eng.asp?id=2954

The Government of Canada has authorized  Her Majesty's Canadian Ship (HMCS) Winnipeg, currently conducting counter-piracy operations in the coastal region of Somalia, to conduct a naval escort of a UN World Food Programme (WFP) ship carrying life-saving supplies to Somalia. The government is acting on a request from the UN World Food Programme and UN International Maritime Organization, submitted through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

I believe the difference between this press release and the previous press releases is this is the first time a Canadian warship has been order to escort a single named ship.

Wait for the inevitable comparisons to WWII:

Brave Canadian sailors escorting relief ships across dangerous waters...

Just like in the commercial!

Ya. Not exactly Das Boot, now is it?

"Left wing author and columnist" Gwynne Dyer on the freeing of Maersk Alabama captain and killing of three pirates: A Good Start.

"Gwynne Dyer" wrote:

So the abortive Somali attack on the U.S.-registered ship Maersk Alabama last week may have a silver lining. It may get the U.S. Navy to take over the job of fighting the pirates.

. . .

Would enforcing the exclusion zone mean that some of the pirates get killed? Yes, of course, but there was a reason why pirates were defined as "enemies of all mankind." The sea is an alien environment, a place where people die very quickly if things go wrong. Those who prey on other people in this environment have very little call on our sympathy.

Would the dead also include a few Somali fishermen who enter the exclusion zone by accident or in desperation? Probably. You try to avoid it, but some innocent people almost always die when you use military force. So let the fishermen put pressure on the local warlords to end their collusion with the pirates. It is not everybody else's duty to put up with piracy so that Somalis can go on fishing.

The world has consistently failed Somalia for almost two decades while it has languished in violent anarchy. The United States bears a special responsibility, because it was behind the 2007 Ethiopian invasion that destroyed the country's best chance of stabilizing itself since the collapse in 1991. But letting the piracy continue doesn't help Somalia in any way, so the U.S. Navy might as well get on with the job of suppressing it.

Note, the introduction is not meant to disparage Dyer at all, I've been a big fan for a while.  Just discovered EmbassyMag and am glad to finally have a source for his most recent columns - he has had difficulty being published here in Canada, largely for criticism of Israel, or so I've heard.

Not just repugnant, but downright stupid. "Let the fishermen pressure the warlords" ... I mean come on!! That's like saying that biker gangs are the fault of the average Canadian, and if we don't want someone to carpet bomb communities where there are biker HQs, the neighbours should take them on. Like that would end well.

And this: "It is not everybody else's duty to put up with piracy so that Somalis can go on fishing." Well, actually, its the Somali's territorial waters and it belongs to the fishermen - passage through it for American oil tankers and European cargo vessels is a privelege, not a right. Note, also, the implication that somehow the rights of the wealthiest economies to suck up consumer resources from abroad at the cheapest possible price somehow trumps the rights of the people who actually live there, to feed themselves and their families. As if they are vermin, like some rats living on an abandoned lot where we'd like to build. Too bad for them, right?

With optimist humanitarians like Dyer who needs cynical manipulators?

Meh, rights carry responsibilities. I'd say that right was forfeit when the international community failed to prevent Somali waters from being used as a toxic dumping ground and failed to act against illegal fishing by foreign nations.

I would say that, when this issue came up before the Security Council and they chose not to enforce the Convention on this issue, it is effectively in abeyance in Somali waters; and therefore any rights that go along with it have ceased to exist until such time as the UN decides to enforce its other provisions.

A seat at the UN does not mean they have an [b]effective[/b] government. Clearly, they do not, or this wouldn't even be an issue.

The member states of the UN are, by definition, a bloc.

I'm no lawyer; I'm just calling it according to my sense of justice. Rights carry responsibilities, and when you fail to live up to those responsibities, rights can be forfeit. You can't make an agreement (like the Convention) and then expect the benefits that go along with it, without living up to the responsibilities. 

Do we have a GO BLUEJAYS GO thread yet?

Canada's catch-and-release approach to countering piracy off Somalia is at odds with other Western navies and flouts Ottawa's obligations under international law, according to maritime and international law experts.

"Its ludicrous for the Harper government to claim that it can't arrest and prosecute pirates," said Michael Byers, who holds the Canadian Research Chair in International Law and Politics at the University of British Columbia. "Canada has a legal obligation under the United Nations and international law to bring pirates to justice."

Pirates seized by French, German, Spanish and other NATO warships have been clapped in irons - or at least detained - and delivered to Kenya, where they are put on trial as part of a broad international effort to punish piracy using a mix of old national and new international law.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090430.wpirate30/BN...

????

Luxury yachts offer pirate hunting cruises

Luxury ocean liners in Russia are offering pirate hunting cruises aboard armed private yachts off the Somali coast.

Wealthy punters pay £3,500 per day to patrol the most dangerous waters in the world hoping to be attacked by raiders.

When attacked, they retaliate with grenade launchers, machine guns and rocket launchers, reports Austrian business paper Wirtschaftsblatt.

Passengers, who can pay an extra £5 a day for an AK-47 machine gun and £7 for 100 rounds of ammo, are also protected by a squad of ex special forces troops.