Make Them Disappear

With the Somali pirates taking over the world stage with their often out of control behavior, time has now come to effectively make them disappear, literally! I would suggest sailing a few fake cargo ships that are well armed inside and allow these idiots to 'capture' the ship. Once on board, they can be overpowered behind the scenes and destroyed. Their remains are then cremated on board below deck and sprinkled unceremoniously at sea. Problem solved! Gradually, with several of these ships, the pirates just disappear without a trace, never to be dealt with again. Eventually, their counterparts will catch on that something beyond their power is going on, and hopefully decide to back off.

Pirates Pay The Ultimate Price

Friday marked a memorable day for the crew of the supertanker which was taken over by Somali pirates two months ago. After collecting a reported 3 million dollar ransom from the ship's owners, the pirates finally released the ship and its' crew. The ransom was delivered 'a la James Bond' by being dropped via parachute onto the ship (see photo below).

Perhaps in a fitting ending to this incident, it was reported yesterday that five of the pirates and their share of the ransom were thrown overboard when their small boat capsized in rough seas, resulting in all five drowning. Now I realize that human lives were lost here, and that in itself should not be taken lightly, but what kind of rationalization should be presented when trying to justify their actions?

Their act was not just an inconvenience to the crew, it went further than that. Livelihoods were threatened directly and indirectly along with the state of world economy. Consider the price of oil, for example. By having to take longer routes in order to avoid troubled areas could result in higher costs which would ultimately trickle down to us all. We also should realize that these incidents have been escalating at a record pace. I still believe that the only way to bring this to a halt is with force. Showing them we mean business will hopefully discourage these actions, and ultimately we won't have a repeat of what happened to these greedy victims.