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[Fluffy Wambler]

Arming the actual vessels is a far more viable option, especially with non-lethal tools - there was a case a few years back where a passenger ship fended off an attack in the same area with those neato directed sound projectors.

You mean the LRAD?  We had these while I was deployed to Camp Bucca, Iraq.  During a riot I wound up on the wrong end of one of these bad boys...I swear my skull rattled!  Doubles as a ridiculously overpowered PA system, too.

Oh, my bad...

feep feep feep feep feep feep feep 

[Yaaga]

Arming the actual vessels is a far more viable option, especially with non-lethal tools - there was a case a few years back where a passenger ship fended off an attack in the same area with those neato directed sound projectors.

You mean the LRAD?  We had these while I was deployed to Camp Bucca, Iraq.  During a riot I wound up on the wrong end of one of these bad boys...I swear my skull rattled!  Doubles as a ridiculously overpowered PA system, too.

Oh, my bad...

feep feep feep feep feep feep feep 

I quoted the fluffy wambler saying something other than feep!!!

[inaluct]

Sounds vaguely like Bromor, but I'm not sure if he's been deployed to Iraq.

[Gunner-Chan]

Wait wait... Deployed to Iraq? OH MY GOD. THE WAMBLER IS STRIFE26'S FATHER.

[Cthulhu]

WHICH MEANS STRIFE IS A WAMBLER!!

WHO ELSE AMONG US IS A WAMBLER!?!?!

I'll be in a wambler-proof bunker, so if anyone needs me you know where to find me.  Except you don't, because you don't know where the bunker is, and even if you did, I'd shoot you before you got to it, wambler scum.

[inaluct]

Wait, remember how Strife babbles about his mod race of sentient fluffy wamblers all the time? The zekevs or something? It all makes so much sense now.

[Aqizzar]

My god...  How did I not see it before?

Diagram for the confused-

Bromor  < is < Fluffy Wambler
   V
 begat
   V
Strife  < is < another fluffy wambler

[Bromor Neckbeard]

Guys, just because VN is gone, this does NOT mean that the VN posting style should take over in GD, or we'll just lose it too.  Fluffy wamblers and who is whose parent has nothing whatsoever to do with this discussion.

Actually, back in the days, Soviets had quite effective ways of defending against pirates: Soviet ships carried not only cargo, but also some troops with it. Once the pirates boarded, military quickly destroyed them and dumped bodies back into their boat. Needless to say, Soviets cargoships didnt experienced a lot of troubles with pirates.

I read about that.  It seems kind of impractical to put a squad of Marines on every merchantman that sails within five hundred miles of Africa, but it may be the best alternative.  As for the moral quandary of destroying a "mothership" that's also a part-time fishing platform, I don't have a problem with it.  Call it ethnocentrism, call it American exceptionalism, I call it fair play.  Even in America, in the Gulf of Mexico, shrimp boats and other fishing vessels can pick up a spare ten thousand dollars per run by bringing in "packages" from eighty miles out, and lots of them do.  But if they choose to do that and get caught, then the Coast Guard can and will confiscate the vessel in question, leaving the families of the fishermen destitute.  I think if you want to keep your fishing platform in a non-sunk condition, don't let it be used for part-time piracy.

I'm fine with cracking down on illegal fishing and toxic dumping, but again, Black Hawk Down.  Helping Somalia hasn't exactly worked out great for us in the past, no matter how morally preferable it may be to bombarding a pirate village into rubble.  I'd like to think Obama's got better sense than to get involved in another nation-building clusterfuck like the one we're supposedly about to get out of in Iraq.

[JoshuaFH]

Why do we have to be so nice to these Somalian guys? Doesn't Somalia have a government? Why can't we just send a guy there, and politely ask that they crack down on the THEIR people that are giving US problems? And if they don't, or can't, then we commence investigations where we kick ass and take names.

Of course, I'm retarded when it comes to politics, so feel free to ignore me.

[Servant Corps]

Why do we have to be so nice to these Somalian guys? Doesn't Somalia have a government?

For a minute there, I thought you were making a joke.

Somalia has no real effective government. The only government they have rule by name only. The militas in Somaila have real power. Troops on the ground. The US has been in Somailia before, back in the 1990's. I thought you remembered all this.

Again, I am aghast at how you think violence is the solution to these pirates, when you have to deal with the underlining causes. Bah.

[JoshuaFH]

Sorry for injecting my opinion in a place it doesn't belong. I should read up on the subject before trying to participate in a discussion like this.

[kuro_suna]

Personally I blame western governments push for world democracy.
Democracy is great when a countries has achieved a certain level of development but I think we need to accept that in some cases people are better off with a dictator that can maintain order than a totally ineffectual democratic government. More specifically you really need free media, educated citizens and rule by law (as oppose to war lords) for it to work.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

^ agreed.
See OUR democracy here... Oh.

Ineffective electing system.
Incumbent *get* advantage because of the ability of putting their men as the election's commisars.
Corrupt legislative.
Power hungry president.
SUPER BIG Coalition to end the mentioned president.
And then: Street wars

Oh man.

(Don't worry, still a prediction, doesn't happen. YET)

[Bromor Neckbeard]

Sorry for injecting my opinion in a place it doesn't belong. I should read up on the subject before trying to participate in a discussion like this.

Better to participate in the discussion and become less ignorant.  I have no problem with you posting no matter how ignorant you are, as long as you understand that your opinion isn't the final word on the subject, and you clearly have no problem with that.  I posted the topic in the first place, and I'll be the first to admit that I don't know everything about the subject.  I didn't know about the "Somalis defending their coast from illegal fishing and toxic waste" aspect until Aqizzar brought it up.  If you have a serious opinion on the subject, it's welcome, regardless of how little you know about it.  Read.  Participate.  Learn.  If there's something you want to ask about the subject and I don't know, Aqizzar or somebody sure as hell will know the answer.

Again, I am aghast at how you think violence is the solution to these pirates, when you have to deal with the underlining causes. Bah.

I'd like a humanitarian solution as much as the next guy, but I'm willing to settle for an effective solution.  From my point of view, it seems that military force is that effective solution.  If we send care packages, the Somali warlords will confiscate them and trade them for more weapons.  Somalia is a horrible place with deep-seated problems, but short of yet another nation-building extravaganza such as we are trying to extricate ourselves from in Iraq (and it's debatable how well that even worked), what are we to do about it?  Violence obviously will NOT solve the problems that are at the root of the piracy, but it can and will make it economically nonviable to continue piracy, or at least, as PTTG said, make the pirates stick to Libyan targets instead of American ones.

Unfortunately, I think kuro_suna's correct.  There are lots of places that aren't ready for democracy for whatever reasons, and horrible brutal dictators are the only things keeping places like that stable.  Saddam was a cruel, ruthless son of a bitch, but all the Iraqis had running water, sewers, and electricity under his iron fist.  We can't provide that even today, and there's a distinct possibility that Iraq will collapse into Mad Max territory once we pull out.

[Nilocy]

Well, why not put some marines or what ever the equivilant is, on some random ships. Basically to act as a detterant to all piraters and the likes. Will they, won't they? (Have marines onboard). Or, just arm the crew. Tbh, it'd be alot more sense finacially hiring mercs or Riddick or something.