I think I see a cost effective solution here….
Thursday, April 16th, 2009I’ve been listening to the talking heads for about a week now blathering about the Somali pirate situation, about how our navy is too small to effectively patrol the shipping lanes, we’re just escalating the violence since the scurvy bastards always treat their hostages like royalty in hopes of an easy payday, etc., etc.
I did a little research on the subject (if you can really call something as easy as Google and Wikipedia “research”)
According to the almighty wiki, Somali piracy has been netting upwards of $100 million a year in ransoms for some time now. Shocked the hell out of me too. I had been reading about this shit going on since 2007, but I had no idea the profits were so high.
And therein lies the problem. As long as it’s profitable, the assholes will keep doing it. And the bitch of it is, I can see their side of it. If I was stuck in the economic situation in that area of the world, I would be robbing the fuck out everything I saw afloat. Wikipedia also had an interesting side note about how the fishing waters off their coast has been polluted by illegal waste dumping, and poached by European and Asian fishing concerns. Seems that quite a few of the pirates are ex-fishermen organized under a warlord.
Given these facts, if they are facts and not pseudo-sympathetic bullshit, it genuinely makes me feel real remorse that the dumb motherfuckers decided to start going after ships flying the Red, White, and Blue. It’s a damn shame, it is.
Even more of a shame that it’s honest to god cheaper just to frag the skinny fuckers. They think launching skiffs from a base ship out in the middle of nowhere helps their asses, but being out in the blue where you can’t see the horizon means there ain’t no fucking place to scoot to and hide in a hurry too.
With the average ransom demand pegged at 1 million or more, the BGM-109 Tomahawk missile is a bargain at a hair under $600,000. On the fly updates from satellites, internal GPS, AWACS, unmanned drones, and it’s own targeting processors make missing highly unlikely. It comes in an anti-ship variant that’s designed to sink aircraft carriers. A 2500km cruise range means we only need a couple ships and/or subs to patrol the major shipping lanes along the Somali coast. If ELINT, satellite recon, etc. identifies the coastal base, there several warhead or bomblet round payloads to choose from. Granted, it may take a few hours to reach it’s destination, but it’s one hell of a party when it shows up.
And every time we blow a pirate to hell, a legitimate argument can be made that we saved the American taxpayer $400k. Beautiful.
By the way, I was lying about that “remorse” thing. I couldn’t give a flying fuck about Somalia, and since these assholes seem to like hijacking international aid ships the REAL economical solution would be to stop sending aid entirely and let the fuckers rot. Less fun than sinking the fuckers, but cheaper.
Today’s paper says Obama’s going after the money. Track it down and freeze it or confiscate it? Might hurt the a bit. Not sure it ever “reformed” anyone else we’ve “attacked” this way.
Although it’s hard to bomb stone age people back to the stone age, I still like your remedy better.
I like the asset freeze aspect of it as well, if they can pull it off. As for blowing them to the stone age, their base ships are hardly stone age. Not state of the art, granted, but blow enough of them to hell and see if they can board a freighter 350 miles from shore using a rowboat
I think you already know my solution to the situation. I think 10 megatons would work.
Predators with Hellfire missiles are more fun. Some kid in Arizona “piloting” the thing might even start treating it as a video game.
At $65K per AGM-114 Hellfire missile its an even better Return-On-Investment than a $500K BGM-109 Tomahawk or a $700K AGM-158 JASSM. Remember the “new” DoD is cost efficient. Just look at the savings.
Basic weapon data provided by fas.org.
I considered that, but I’m not sure the Predator has the range for that much open water. Fuckit, deploy both
Don’t fear the Reaper (MQ-9, Predator B) 14 hours (fully loaded) range 3600 mi. Sounds like it would do.
Its replacement (now under live flight test over there) the Avenger (MQ-not assigned, Predator C) , stealth, 20 hours (loaded) should be able to handle the range too (and it will have a tailhook for operation off of carriers, where ever).
c.f., http://www.neptunuslex.com/2009/04/16/ufos/
Hells yes!
I’d like to know just what the hell is wrong with letting merchant crews arm themselves. Seriously, have a weapons locker with enough rifles, ammo, etc on board. Keep ‘em locked up until they get close to where those motor-boating gangbangers prowl. Skipper hands out weapons and the crew can blow ‘em straight to friggin’ Allah!
What’s wrong with that, for fucksake?
Because shipping companies, like most corporations, are run by pussies. If the board members had to be on deck, you bet your ass there would be some firepower. Of course those pansies would probably have a security detail instead of sullying their own hands, but the end result would be the same.
Wes wondered: I’d like to know just what the hell is wrong with letting merchant crews arm themselves.
The International Maritime Organization (a branch of the U.N., which foreshadows what follows) says that arming the crews of cargo ships is a bad idea because it would only encourage pirates to arm themselves more heavily, and lead to more violence.
No, seriously. That’s their position. It’s just like convenience stores that forbid their employees from being armed—although unlike the poor bastards who work in convenience stores, at least ship crews aren’t instructed never to resist at all. They’re allowed to resist. They just have to do it with fire hoses.
Yup. Thank God for the U.N., right?
In fairness though, most countries won’t allow a cargo ship with armed crew in its ports. That’s not a U.N. policy, it’s the law within each country. Nobody wants the added trouble of inspecting all those sailors to make sure they’re not sneaking weapons OFF the ships, and into their country.
Of course, that too is a stupid excuse. If you aren’t inspecting those crews before you let them off the ships, then for all you know they’re armed anyway.
I wouldn’t want to set foot off the ship in the shitholes around Somalia anyway. Not with a big “Hey! Ransom here!” sign around my neck from being American.
Awesome first photo. Can I copy it on an article I’m writing about cycling in London and the health benefits on the body?
I liked reading this post so much I wished it was longer. Very engaging writing style!