Iran’s bought-and-paid-for Houthi pirates have concentrated at the top of the Red Sea, at the southern end of the Suez Canal. These are not dirt-poor Somali’s racing up in a couple of wooden boats with outboard motors; these pirates are scouting their targets with reconnaissance drones and coming aboard unarmed merchant vessels by helicopter. And what do the mighty nations of the West do in response to these pygmy provocations? Well, the commercial vessels simply run away and add another 5,000 miles of water and twenty days of travel time to sail all the way around Africa. As far as The Most Powerful Navy in the History of the World is concerned, a sternly-worded declaration was made by the US Secretary of Defense, and a ten-nation coalition — including the full naval might of Seychelles, the smallest and least-populated country in Africa — are involved in Serious Discussions about building Multi-National Coalitions to combat the problem. Hooray for us.
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The solution is to put a few drones on these ships and train an operator. The operator has only one mission in life – to turn his drone into FOD.
The Australian navy wants to send two ships and the crews are raring to go, but the Australian Labor government is trying really hard to keep the ships at home. Labor is pro-Iran and Pro-Hamas but can’t say that publicly. Its coalition members the greens are very public Hamas supporters. It and two other snafus’ may sink Labors ship even before the next scheduled election. The coalition with the greens is crumbling.
Most don’t know why the Somali pirates stopped raiding shipping. 1. Someone, who remains unknown, paid them with a box of gold bars but they put the gold bars in a nuclear reactor for a month. The radioactive bars killed dozens and made thousands sick. They are now in lead box in a Djibouti bank. They will be safe in 2060. 2. They messed with a Chinese ship. The Chinese took it back, took no prisoners and then blew two villages off the coast. Devastating artillery bombardment left no boat on the shore and no building standing. One town was… Read more »
Our navy is just as big as it’s ever been! Global Warming™ made the ocean bigger!!!
Q ship was the first thing I thought of before the video even started playing. But there is a glaring hole in the just shoot the pirates plan. We need to purge the sorts of people who prosecute the McCluskey’s from any position of influence first.
The advantage of the “just shoot the pirates plan” is that it will occur on the seas (both low and high) where sharks and other ravenous creatures can dispose of the evidence. No body, no crime. Add to that a cell phone jammer, and there will be no live streaming of the events.
Just how much of a background check do you want to give the crew? Because Hydra will be a problem until we win a crushing victory in the culture war. Sometimes Democrats really do win elections. People talk and brag and get disturbed when they see people die. Just keeping the overbearing games of Dungeons and Dragons that most people refer to as government agencies from hearing about it could get tyrannical real quick.
If you made a show about this you could call it “Al Capone: Pirate Hunter.”
the problem with the pirates is gun control. NO country will allow ANY, unless you’re a billionaire, to have weapons on a ship. From what I understand you are not even allowed a FLARE “gun” and whose fault is that, the navies/countries of the WORLD. You guys have been great in the PAST but you seem to just miss the bullseye lately.
Here, here! Bring back free-booters and Letters of Marque!
“A-Pirate huntin’ we will go, a-pirate huntin’ we will go! Hi-Ho, the Merry-O, a-pirate huntin’ we will go!!”
Lol, now that might be fun. I often thought about doing something like that in my younger days. Sailing a private vessel into pirate infested waters and blowing the crap out of some pirates is an idea that would appeal to me back then.
I finally decided that I didn’t have the required resources and that it wouldn’t work anyway. It’s a good way to become the hunted rather than the hunter.
That’s not true. It’s simply not so. International Law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) allow for merchant ships to carry arms for their own defense. In the case of UNCLOS you can find the rules in Article 101 of the 1982 treaty. Many ships now transiting the pirate infested waters off Somalia are armed, have arms or trained security personnel aboard, or have some other lethal and non-lethal force countermeasures in place. The US Coast Guard REQUIRES by law U.S. flagged ships to be armed when transiting known pirate waters and can prosecute… Read more »
Remove map grids from the face of the planet with B-52s.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
That’s after destroying every piece of Iranian hardware the floats, of course.
There are very few problems in life that cannot be solved by the suitable application of the proper type and quantity of high explosives.
Bill. Where are you launching from? I volunteer as crew.
Put me in a Crow’s Nest. I got a really sweet, VERY accurate Mosin ’94 for sniper duty!
Don’t wanna be cowboys? Oh yeah we do. Yippee Kiyea Mother F*****r!!!
I couldn’t afford $15K to ride an at-risk vessel with my AR15, but I would certainly pay several thousand dollars to be an “armed tourist”! And if a Ma Deuce was provided in the package, I’d be glad to pay for rounds fired.
Some people are talking to the wrong people when talk comes to “cowboys.” How about we give more credence to those who are rescued from these scum of the Earth how THEY feel about “American cowboys”!
I think it’s a bit weird how being called a “cowboy” has become an insult in some circles. I see it as a compliment. I guess it’s a matter of perspective but also a matter of application. You don’t want “cowboys” doing diplomatic or social work, they’re unsuitable for that kind of thing. When it comes to wrangling horses, herding cows, hunting bad guys or kicking some well deserved butts, “cowboys” are the kind of people suitable to cowboy work. You don’t want to send a diplomat to take down a nest of terrorists. You want to send a few… Read more »