Monday, October 14, 2013

Really?

There's a new Tom Hanks (pfeh) film out which dramatized the takeover of a merchant ship by Somali pirates.



When I saw the stills, it pictured four skinny Somali guys in a tiny boat. And they captured a huge tanker?

Turns out that by "international law" merchant ships are not allowed to have armament. Even though Somali pirates by the thousands have been capturing them, for years.*

So instead, companies pay out millions in ransom per ship, to say nothing of hostages harmed or killed.

And they won't let merchant ships carry a complement of soldiers to protect them?

Am I missing something?

*I remember reading an article predicting this, back in the 1990's when The Atlantic was not a piece of liberal crapola.

1 comment:

Stirner said...

Not all the shipping companies are pussies. However, one big problem is that most countries take a dim view of incoming cargo ships having weapons on board. If you can't dock, it is unfeasible to carry weapons.

However, some enterprising private sector security companies have begun deploying their own ship-based armories. Pull up to a cargo ship when it enters bad waters, offload guns to the ship, then have a sister ship meet them when they are approaching port, and get the weapons back.

Alas, I don't have a link at hand for that.

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