Lack of Naval Response to Piracy
erudito, in http://erudito.livejournal.com/796864.html?mode=reply, points out
The low risk and high return of current piracy on the high seas.
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2008/11/26/the-business-case-for-high-seas-piracy/
I'm curious about this ... when did it become international law, or some Euroweenie delusion of international law, that navies could no longer do anything effective against piracy on the high seas? Back in the day, pirates would be engaged, their ships captured or sunk, and any surviving pirates taken back to be tried and hung. Even granted that the Europeans and most of the Anglosphere have rejected capital punishment, why can't they simply legislate lesser (but still severe) penalties for piracy?
Additionally, it's obvious that some Power or Powers (America and India are obvious candidates, but given how pathetically puny the pirates and the Somali combatants are, almost anyone could do this) needs to go over to the pirate ports and burn them to the ground. They should pay especial attention to those mansions being built with the profits of piracy, either plundering them and selling the contents at auction to benefit the victims of piracy, or simply destroy them, so as to beggar those financing the pirates. It would take only a little of this before piracy would become both unprofitable, and cease to be a practical route to gaining status.
Why is nobody willing to do this, when the cost of doing so is so ridiculously tiny?
The low risk and high return of current piracy on the high seas.
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2008/11/26/the-business-case-for-high-seas-piracy/
I'm curious about this ... when did it become international law, or some Euroweenie delusion of international law, that navies could no longer do anything effective against piracy on the high seas? Back in the day, pirates would be engaged, their ships captured or sunk, and any surviving pirates taken back to be tried and hung. Even granted that the Europeans and most of the Anglosphere have rejected capital punishment, why can't they simply legislate lesser (but still severe) penalties for piracy?
Additionally, it's obvious that some Power or Powers (America and India are obvious candidates, but given how pathetically puny the pirates and the Somali combatants are, almost anyone could do this) needs to go over to the pirate ports and burn them to the ground. They should pay especial attention to those mansions being built with the profits of piracy, either plundering them and selling the contents at auction to benefit the victims of piracy, or simply destroy them, so as to beggar those financing the pirates. It would take only a little of this before piracy would become both unprofitable, and cease to be a practical route to gaining status.
Why is nobody willing to do this, when the cost of doing so is so ridiculously tiny?