No, Marty- pirates are theives.  Sometimes they are murderers.  But they are not terrorists.  These Somalis, if reports are to be believed, are not radicals or even particularly religious.  Some might even be diests (I made that up).  They are people who need/want money.  This doesn't make them noble- they aren't Robin Hood or anything- but calling them terrorists is at best not helpful and at worst kind of loony.  

Bone is right that "terrorism" doesn't really fit piracy. Terrorism means violence towards some political or ideological aim. Violence towards pecuniary ends is crime.

Notwithstanding that distinction, it is important to somehow create a deterrence against future piracy. One way is to sink the ships. I worry, though, what the pirates' response will be. They might be dissuaded from future attacks or they might raise the ante somehow.

They refer to themselves as "coastguards" and some actually do seem to think they are. A lot of them are ex fisherman who were run out of business by the factory ships. They're making serious cash and they don't seem to fight each other gangsta style because they're making too much money. They also tend to wed the most beautiful girls and build huge houses. They seem to be romantic figures respected in the community by a lot of people despite the guns, drugs and violence.

Sounds like a great screenplay's in there somewhere. "City of God", pirate style.

Terrorism or no, piracy is an evil and I was happy to read this morning of the Indian navy's action.

Hope more countries now start to fight back.

Leave it to the anarchist retard Ignoramus to stand up for piracy.

Rozen, you are right that they need t be deterred, terrorists or not.  Ships just can't be attacked willy-nilly.  I think that action against them is, perhaps unfortunately, the only deterrent.   For them it is about the cost, and that is it.   If the insane amount of money they are making isn't worth it anymore, it will slow down.  

This, by the way, is another way that they are different than terrorists- the threat of death is a deterrent.  

I don't think Iggy was "standing up for piracy", jack.  In Somalia, from everything that I have read, they *are* romantic figures, and they pump a lot of money back into the community, at least in terms of buying massive amounts of booze and women.   So, that is something, I guess.  And by all accounts they treat their hostages fairly well.   It isn't like the guys in the South Asian Sea who kill the crews and take off.  

I think it is important to remember that the aren't pirates due to a grave-be-damned devotion to the piratical* arts- it comes out of the chaos and lack of any opportunity in Somalia.   I mean, too much of the world's economy comes from shipping lanes in the ocean, and when one as important as the Red Sea is nearly impassable, then there clearly needs action.   But let's not get too gleeful about blowing these guys out of the water.  

*Holy shit.  I didn't know that was an actual word.  I just typed it expecting that blasted red underline.  This is awesome.  

 boneill, come on Neill, if your ship were hijacked while you mother was on board, I don't think you'd be thinking of causality.

“Holy shit.  I didn't know that was an actual word.”

Didn’t you ever read  R. L. Stevenson's Treasure Island or James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pirate, or my favorite author of pirate fiction Rafael Sabatini, when you was a kid?

Too bad they didn't sink it outright. They should also machine-gun anyone escaping from the wrecking and those in the speedboats.

"boneill, come on Neill, if your ship were hijacked while you mother was on board, I don't think you'd be thinking of causality."

Yeah, jack, you are probably right.  But I still think the "terrorist" appellation is a bit hysterical.  

I did read Stevenson, but I must have forgotten that word.   I've never even heard of Rafael Sabatini, but now I will check it out.  It is good to escape every once in a while right?  

I escape by reading The Spine Bone. Don't you?

It's goodies vs baddies in Straussian simplicity.

I agree that these pirates are not terrorists.  

Still, it's a shame that there seems to be so much hand-wringing when the solution is pretty straight-forward:  tell the USN and whoever else wants to get involved to kill all the pirates they see and sink their ships.  I know this would require, like, action ("unfortunately" someone says above?  Did I read that right?) and decisiveness and all that unpleasant stuff, but it would be effective.  Hell, it seems to me that having a few rifles and shotguns on these cargo ships might even do the trick. Maybe even a brick or two when they are coming up the side.  How do these takeovers even go now?

Pirate ship to cargo ship:  Hi.

Cargo ship: Hi.

Pirate ship:  We are taking your stuff.

Cargo ship:  Sounds good to us, we'll throw a ladder of the side so you can take possession.

Pirate:  Good.  Please have an honor guard ready as well.

Cargo Ship: Already done.

Rafael Sabatini wrote "Captain Blood."  Errol Flynn owes his career to him.

" It's goodies vs baddies in Straussian simplicity."

As if  Ignoramus were  capbale of reading Strauss.

"Yeah, jack, you are probably right.  But I still think the "terrorist" appellation is a bit hysterical. "

Some may be terrorists  some not, but pirate is bad enough, isn't it?

Jack,

I'm going to try an experiment.

Let's see if we can have a civil, informative discussion without the egocentric intellectual one-up-manship.

So...deep breath...here goes:

I'll short circuit my badly written prose by pointing you in the direction of this: www.youtube.com/watch, about 7:30 mins in. (Although, I'd also recommend the most entertaining prologue to any doc, I've ever seen.)

Is this, in your view, an accurate summary of Leo's thought/logic/worldview?

In a history of piracy I read a while back I was surprised by the fact that the first state-sanctioned terrorism (on record) was by the British Crown, who hired pirates to attack French and Spanish ships in the 1600s.  Pirates can indeed be terrorists.  Maybe not in this case, but historically piracy has been used as a terrorist tactic and it can be state-sponsored.

"Jack,

I'm going to try an experiment.

Let's see if we can have a civil, informative discussion without the egocentric intellectual one-up-manship."

NO! John Ignorant

It's true that the British crwon used the services of "privateers."

en.wikipedia.org/.../Privateer

However Muslims pirates raided not only other ships but even countries taking prisoners and turning them into slaves since the early Middle Ages:

en.wikipedia.org/.../Pirate

They of course didn't invent piracy which has been around since antiquity.  The word Pirate is of ancient Greek origin.