Go Pirates Go!

Hang 'em from the yard arm.

So, what is the solution then? What should the Canadian government's response be?

I think they should tell ships to stop going in this area. (However, I know that this is an extremely busy area and not a cut and dry easy thing to do). If they refuse they are on their own and will not receive any taxpayer-funded protection. 

What should those ships do that are trying to deliver food aid? Should they stop going there as well? I know that this is not all ships and the MSM is doing some spin - but there are food aid ships that have been hijacked.

Well the first thing Canada could do is not send military aid to fight these pirates and speak out about the injustice that sparked this violent reisitance. We could denounce countries like Italy and Switzerland whose lax environmental policies allow their domestic businesses to dump poison in Somalian waters at .3% of the market rate. We could boycott states or firms who illegally fish and deep-sea trawl Somalian waters and tell the world why. We could build consensus and solidarity from other European states and assert joint pressure on those who refuse to acknowledge Somalian sovereignty.

We could pretty much do anything but offer our craven help to assassinate three Somalian men in a lifeboat.

Edit re: food aid. I also wonder if the food aid was specifically targeted as such. Did the pirates know that the boat was carrying UNFood aid? None of the stories I've read mention if the boat was marked as a UN vessel, or that food was the only thing on board. It's not hard to imagine a cargo ship carrying hundreds of other types of freight, only a few dozen containers of which are UN rations.

I don't see how delivering food aid is feasibile without learning the specifics of the area and engaging with the political forces therein. It could be that if you allow Somalians to build a 'legal' economy this would relieve the pressure on the food ships reducing a need for security as well as reducing the need for aid in the first place.

Getting aid into hostile and unstable areas is a complex business and it could be that the odd lost shipment to pirates is a cost of it. This could mean raising the level of security for the aid, or negotiating safe passage with the warlords or pirates in the first place.

I find the persistent bait-and-switch between pirates "defending their coastline" against illegal fishing or dumping, and the reality (they'll hijack any ship they can, regardless of activity or cargo) kind of funny.

When the U.S. said "we have to invade Iraq to stop the WMD" the left blew the whistle and pointed out that that's not what was happening at all.

But when Somali pirates say "we're only protecting our fishing and environmental rights" and then proceed to hold a food aid shipment for ransom, everyone buys it, lock, stock and barrel.  Evidently, nobody sees any kind of discrepancy between the stated (and laudable) goals of preventing toxic waste dumping, and the actual facts:  they'll hijack any boat, from any country..

It's the equivalent of having a valid grievance against a co-worker, and taking it out on your neighbour, the barista at the coffee shop, a stranger walking down the street, some guy at the park, etc.  When did that start to make sense to the Left?

No kidding. How courageous of Snert to level his shining morality whistle at both an imperialist war machine bent on aggression and international control and the braying of a few Somalian criminals.

Anyway, it's not worth discussing with him, BB. Snert is a third-rate contrarian who thinks he's a wit. We've seen better, and it's getting boring.

Wish we had the 'rolling eyes' smiley from before the upgrade.

So now we are supposed to care not only what a anti-choice website  thinks,  but FD too...lmaoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

martin: if you read my contributions on this issue - you would see that I am against the injustices the third world suffers to ensure our unsustainable lifestyles. I support any efforts to move our econony to a more local one.  I am not the one supporting piracy in this thread.

Well, NR - I still believe that we can each be the change we wish to see in the world and take whatever small steps we can. Buying fair trade and local products is one thing I am dedicated to. I also have the goal of going off the grid. My point is that launching rocket-propelled grenades and taking hostages is not something I think people here should be supporting - and that if it was someone they knew being held hostage their "Go Pirates Go" chant would change rapidly. Is there anyone here who can write with a strait face that they would still be rooting for actions of the pirates if their family member or loved one was being held hostage at gunpoint?

I agree with you about the history of Canada - however we still have to look forward. I mean - what do you suggest ? To just be totally mired in cynicism and hopelessness because we were born into privilege?

NR, I don't buy into the dominant discourse at all.  You are excusing violent brutality - I did not excuse any brutality, I explained how I was against it.

So if someone you know was being violently attacked and held hostage for millions in ransom - you would advise them that they are ignoring "all those who are continaully brutalized in the name of privilege and comfort...and face far more constant threat and atrocity than them"?

Ghislaine, you are comparing subjective, personal violence--what if it was your family member? What if it was your friend?--to objective, systemic violence and trying to equate them. This is not how the world works. The point is not to moralize these incidents and acts of violence (i.e. USA=bad, pirates=good), but to paint a historically accurate picture with full context. Moralizing, however, is what the West is best at. The West, and some commentors in this thread, think if we squash the subjective violence we will solve the objective violence. Once you see the gaping yaw between these two concepts, the absurdity of such a strategy is revealed.

And in point of fact, I don't see anyone condoning theft of UN Food aid, or 'killing a Korean sailor'. Rather, the general character of our criticism merely points out the hypocrisy of the mainstream media coverage and cheerleading of the latest bullish military action by the United States and its cronies.

Snert wrote:

Quote:

Regardless of doing your little bit our privilege and comfort is still built on the brutalization and exploitation of billions of others that face far more constant threat and atrocities than the crews of these ships.

I think that's a false dilemma. As has been asked, why is it not possible to simultaneously believe that vast injustices were done to Somalia, and also that killing a Korean sailor isn't going to address those?
My Spidey-sense always jangles when someone tries to convince me that of two concerns, I must choose only one. The inevitable next-step is then to convince me that if I choose the "wrong" one, that PROVES that I'm not concerned about the right one. If I care about the loggers' livelihoods I cannot possibly care about the environment (or, depending on who's doing the controlling, if I care about clear cutting I must want loggers' children to starve to death).

I'm sure if you have any sense it is bound to be comic book derived. I am making a distinction between systemic ongoing and world wide brutality and brutality that results from random acts of desparate marginalized peoples. You and those who accept the dominant discourse of western capitalism somehow privilege the latter while expending all your energy on denying the existence of the former. The corrollary is that "we"(the west) must do something about these horrible pirates, disregarding the reality that the pirates are products of western interventions.

Ghislaine wrote:

So, what is the solution then? What should the Canadian government's response be?

I think they should tell ships to stop going in this area. (However, I know that this is an extremely busy area and not a cut and dry easy thing to do). If they refuse they are on their own and will not receive any taxpayer-funded protection.

What should those ships do that are trying to deliver food aid? Should they stop going there as well? I know that this is not all ships and the MSM is doing some spin - but there are food aid ships that have been hijacked.

 

 

Canada could do one thing very easily: all vessels registered under the Canadian flag ought to be forbidden to enter the zone in question, except where special permission is granted for UN purposes only. Doing so should cost them their registration, permanently - that vessel should never again fly a Canadian flag.

As far as the food aid ships go, it would not be at all difficult to provide security to a limited section of the area in order to allow food aid ships coming from the Suez to offload in Berbera. I doubt that it is possible to guarantee safety around Mogadishu.

Maybe we could hang them high...

Of course, I'm a Glasgow Rangers fan.

Maybe the fact it's illegal...

So you are saying that its not robbery if you sing 'Rule Britania" while you are robbing the Scots?

Ontology.

I am not leaving you. You fell behind. Here I will help you catch up:

John Paul Jones, an American national hero was a pirate. In fact the entire British empire was basically founded upon piracy authorized by the crown of England.

Thanks to both of you for bringing me up to speed. I don't know what I like more Catchfire a good Glaswegian Derby or a Merseyside derby.

Catchfire wrote:

Cueball wrote:

So you are saying that its not robbery if you sing 'Rule Britania" while you are robbing the Scots?

No, I am saying that Rangers fans, unlike the rest of Scotland, are ok with robbing the Scots. They sing 'Rule Britannia' as a provocation to supporters with a more nationalist bent. Those supporters, of course, would never think of sinking so low...

John Paul Jones who was a Scot sung rule Britania every morning when he was sailing on slaver ships along the coast of Africa, without a doubt. That is before his conversion to piracy during the American Revolutionary war. His exploits helped fund the fathers of the worlds first democracy. He would have been a rangers fan, I am sure.

Back to ontology: Just goes to show that one mans pirate is another mans founder of the US navy,

Cueball wrote:

Maybe we could just give the pirates money. We could cut a deal. Its one of the best ways of dealing with pirates historically. We could take them at their word about the issues and concerns that their leadership has voiced and then work with them to address these concerns.

So once you have a mailing address, will you be the first to volunteer? Rather than a blank cheque - wouldn't a better solution be to clean up the Somalian coast? An international agreement enforced by the UN would be a start to beginning that process. However, the underlying issue - the lack of a functionining govt in Somalia is much more difficult. We have no right to go in a dictate or install a gov't...so how does the UN deal with that issue? It was the govt that signed the toxic dumping agreements and accepted far, far below market rate. 

Cueball wrote:

Ghislaine wrote:

Cueball wrote:

Maybe we could just give the pirates money. We could cut a deal. Its one of the best ways of dealing with pirates historically. We could take them at their word about the issues and concerns that their leadership has voiced and then work with them to address these concerns.

So once you have a mailing address, will you be the first to volunteer? Rather than a blank cheque - wouldn't a better solution be to clean up the Somalian coast? An international agreement enforced by the UN would be a start to beginning that process. However, the underlying issue - the lack of a functionining govt in Somalia is much more difficult. We have no right to go in a dictate or install a gov't...so how does the UN deal with that issue? It was the govt that signed the toxic dumping agreements and accepted far, far below market rate. 

I assume the effort to "clean up" the Somali Coast would require "peacekeepers" to guard the operations, and come complete with "food aid" packages handed out the people we select as "responsible" parties? Hmm. I say we deal with the guys who are pulling the strings right now. At some level or another they are answerable to the people who they represent, and if there is any hanging to be done, they can decide who needs it and who doesn't. You just make the cash payments dependent on performance of course, hiring locally.

Dealing with "The guys pulling the strings right now" was the attitide taken years ago when deals were struck to dump toxic waste for chump change.  How is that attitude any better now? Are you against UN peacekeeping forces now?

I notice you're using the word "we".  Are you an employee or shareholder of  Achair Partners, or Progresso?

They're the two corporations who contracted to dump waste.  If you're not affiliated with them, there's really no need to say "we" unless you're trying to absorb some of the blame for yourself.  Or, spread it around on everyone.