Tag: Pirates

Let’s Talk Pirates

Arrrr Matey!

NO!  This is not one of those posts on the pipe dream of hidden pirate loot waiting to be found.

I am not going on some diatribe about the Spanish Main and stuff…..nor am I going to report on the “pirates” off the Coast of Africa that keep taking over tankers and such….not the pirates that operate in the Caribbean looting and stealing yachts…..none of those are good enough for IST.

I will cover the “pirates” that operate withing the highway system here in the good old US of A……

On May 11, 2013, a semi cab made its way up Interstate 555 from Memphis, Tennessee, northwest to Jonesboro, Arkansas. The man driving — a career trucker from Memphis — was accompanied by his nephew, and the pair was bobtailing, meaning their truck wasn’t pulling a trailer. Drivers often have to travel between warehouses and shipping facilities to pick up a new load, and these two men were indeed in search of new cargo to haul. Only in this case, they weren’t looking to do it legally. They were cruising the truck stops along I-555 for unattended trailers to pick up and steal.

Truckers sometimes leave their trailers at truck stops or even in parking lots in order to visit a mechanic or drive the cab home for the weekend. So the men knew it was only a matter of time before they came across an unattached trailer, overlooked in the bustle of a busy truck stop. The pair’s combined experience came in handy, as either one of them could hook up to a trailer, crank up the landing gear and connect a few hoses, then drive right off in a matter of minutes. Working as a team would make the process faster, allowing the thieves to blend in with the endless streams of highway traffic and be gone before the trailer’s rightful driver realized what had hit him.

At around 5:40 p.m., the men found what they were looking for. A 52-foot Wabash trailer, sitting in the parking lot of the Snappy Mart Truck Stop in West Plains, Missouri. The nephew dropped out of the cab and ran over to the trailer, directing as his uncle backed up. They maneuvered the large, U-shaped coupling on the back of the tractor, under the trailer’s enormous kingpin, which clanked into place and locked automatically. The nephew hopped up and walked through the space between the tractor and the trailer to connect a few hoses and cables. He took a quick look around the lot as he hopped back into the cab and slammed the door. It appeared that nobody had seen them. The two men drove off with the errant trailer, itself worth $7,500 even empty, and hightailed it with whatever cargo was inside, intensely vigilant but giddy like kids at a criminal Christmas

The Pirates of the Highways

Leave it to the Old Professor to tell you something that you have been missing.

To brighten your day….Jimmy Buffet…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Pirates Of The Mediterranean

God NO! This is not some pathetic off-shoot of the wildly popular Caribbean theme…..besides I cannot afford the price of Johnny Depp……

This post is basically about the noble employment as a pirate in the days of yore (ancient times)…….

Mediterranean stretching from the time of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten (r. 1353-1336 BCE) and throughout the Middle Ages (c. 476-1500 CE). Piracy in the Mediterranean remains a persistent threat in the present day only with different kinds of ships and more advanced technology.

Historians sometimes telescope the history of piracy for narrative convenience and wind up implying or even claiming that piracy in the Mediterranean began with the decline of the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE and ended when Pompey the Great (l. c. 106-48 BCE) defeated the Cilician pirates at the Battle of Coracesium in 67 BCE when, actually, Egyptian records substantiate piratical activities in the Mediterranean centuries earlier and Roman accounts report its continuance for centuries afterwards.

Piracy was engaged in by governments and was often considered a legitimate act of war. Pirates were not always the “outsiders” flying under their own flag but were frequently employed by governments and were encouraged in their piracy by the slave trade which continued throughout antiquity. Long after Pompey had defeated the Cilician pirates, Rome continued to rely on them for slaves for the empire and, after that empire fell, piracy and the slave trade continued for centuries.

https://www.ancient.eu/Piracy/

This brings us to the US of 1800….and the presidency of Thomas Jefferson…..

In 1800, Thomas Jefferson was elected president of the United States. As a Democratic-Republican, he was deeply suspicious of a regular military establishment. He worried that professional officers might turn into a new aristocracy (a privileged ruling class) and that professional soldiers could threaten or coerce the people, depriving of them of their inalienable human rights.

Jefferson initially cut back on the armed forces. For maritime security, he felt that America could be protected by a fleet of small coastal gunboats. He sold off or decommissioned most of the Navy’s conventional warships

Thomas Jefferson and the Mediterranean Pirates

Jefferson’s paranoia led to the rise of the Barbary pirates in American history…..

The Barbary pirates (or, more accurately, Barbary privateers) operated out of four North African bases–Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli and various ports in Morocco–between the 16th and 19th centuries. They terrorized seafaring traders in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, “sometimes,” in the words of John Biddulph’s 1907 history of piracy, “venturing into the mouth of the [English} channel to make a capture.”

The privateers worked for North African Muslim deys, or rulers, themselves subjects of the Ottoman Empire, which encouraged privateering as long as the empire received its share of tributes. Privateering had two aims: to enslave captives, who were usually Christian, and to ransom hostages for tribute.

The Barbary pirates played a significant role in defining the foreign policy of the United States in its earliest days. The pirates provoked the United States’ first wars in the Middle East, compelled the United States to build a Navy, and set several precedents, including hostage crises involving the ransoming of American captives and military American military interventions in the Middle East that have been relatively frequent and bloody since.

https://www.thoughtco.com/who-were-the-barbary-pirates-2352842

Some historians like to push the narrative that the US brought the Barbary pirates to their knees….it is BS…..Jefferson decided to pay them their ransoms and agreed to a treaty with them.  But the propaganda of the day told it differently.

The mention of pirates brings up romantic illusions of swashbuckling situations and the romance that surrounded these men and women…..but that is what Hollywood sees….reality is far more hard than the fantasies of the movies.

Class Dismissed!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Dangers Of Being A Moron!

It is the weekend and as usual I have found a story that is NOT part of the driving stories of politics….as a political geek, it hurts me to write about something other than politics or economic…..but I try to be a well rounded blog……so with that said….OFF WE GO!

We have all seen the stories of this camper getting lost in the woods or that climber that has been overdue back at base and then the massive amount of rescue attempts to find these people…helicopters, people, dogs and well, the usual rescue stuff……and each of these tries cost millions to either state, local or federal governments…..

Well, my feeling is that the people that go up Mt. Hood in winter and then get caught by a storm or such….should be liable for the cost….if these people are not bright enough to know what happens then they need to pay the piper…regardless of the cost….

I bring all this up because of a situation in the Indian Ocean…..a Danish couple and their 3 children have been nailed by pirates off Ethiopia……..but there is more to this story that just that….

On a blog on which they chronicled their voyage, they reported that they had drawn up a “pirate plan” in case of attack. They sent daily position reports to naval authorities. They were comforted by the sight of anti-piracy patrol planes overhead. And they thought the vastness of the sea would help protect them.Jan Quist Johansen, his wife, Birgit Marie Johansen, and their sons, Rune and Hjalte, and daughter, Naja, ages 12 to 16, were captured by pirates Thursday in the Indian Ocean. Two adult Danish crew members also were seized in the attack on the Johansens’ 43-foot sailboat.

Please do not try to justify this!  They we well aware of where they were and what the possible consequences could be……that makes them…MORONS!  A “pirate plan”?  The pirates have massive fire power and unless this idiot had a howitzer mounted on his yacht, then it was NOT going to end well!  Any person that would put his family in that sort of danger is a MORON!  There is NO justification for this…everybody that can read is well aware the capability of these pirates and the violence that they have NO problem bringing to the table…..
If these people get out of this situation…..charges should be brought against the parents of the three children for endangering their lives…then there should be a “stupid” fine and the loss of his sea privileges….then maybe these sanctimonious a/holes will think twice before putting anyone else’s life in danger……
An arrogant a/hole that had ALL the answers!  I would almost pay to have the pirates pistol whip this guy and his wife for putting their children in this much danger……..

US Navy 3–Pirates 0

Bravo!  Bravo!

An American ship captain was freed unharmed Sunday and three of his captors were killed in a daring rescue by U.S. Navy Seals that ended a five-day standoff between the world’s most powerful Navy and Somali pirates in a lifeboat far off the Horn of Africa.

Capt. Richard Phillips was in “imminent danger” of being killed before U.S. Special Operations forces shot the pirates in an operation personally approved by President Barack Obama, U.S. officials said.

But it should not have lasted this long.  The captain is alive and free…pirates are dead and floating….a new manual needs to be written and understood on this situation.  The situation should have never lasted 5 days.

The captain should be making his rounds very soon on the airwaves and we will hear the rest of the story……(thank you Paul Harvey for the line).

Pirates Of The Aden: Curse Of The Small Boat

WARNING:  THIS POST MAY CONTAIN POINTS THAT MAY OFFEND SOME READERS

By now most Americans have seen or heard the continuing sage of the pirates operating just south of the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean just off the coast of Somalia.  Their most recent acquisition was an American flagged ship.  THe captain gave himsel fup to insure the safety of his crew and is being held in a small life boat about 300 miles off the coast.  The US Navy has responded, the ship has continued on his way to deliver aid supplies to Kenya sans captain with armed Americans on board the Navy destroyer has stayed behind to try and get the captain to be released.  A Mexican stand-off.  Over 60 hours with an FBI negotiator and not much success and more naval vessels to join the destroyer.

My problem is that the hand full of pirates is controlling the situation…they are holding the US Navy at bay.  What happened to the false bravado that we do not negotiate with terrorist….and make NO mistake pirates are terrorists!  The US has let this situation get out of hand.  These pirates have now become some what of a group of local heroes…they have stood up to the US Navy and are winning.

Sorry to say, but there is only one way to handle this….the French are doing it…..attack them……make them pay for their brazenness.  The captain accepted his fate when he offered himself up as a hostage for the safety of his crew….a brave man and he should receive the highest award for that bravery…but do not sullen his bravery by wimping out in the face of a hand full of pirates with brass cajones.

By doing nothing, the US has almost guaranteed that this will occur again and again, if decisive action is taken and taken now then the chance that future stand offs could be eliminated.  The cost will be high but the return will be less cost in the future.

Once again if you were offended by this post then I apologize but you were warned!

Pirates, Pirates Everywhere!

A lot of news has been generated lately by the pirates operating off Somalia.  But what about their captives?

“They are fine,” a pirate calling himself Daybad said by phone from the ship in the Gulf of Aden. “They are allowed to contact their families. The crew are not prisoners, they can move from place to place, wherever they want to, they can even sleep on their usual beds and they have their own keys. The only thing they are missing is their freedom to leave the ship.”

Two Britons – Peter French, from County Durham, and James Grady, from Renfrewshire – are among the crew, and there were local reports yesterday that the ransom had been reduced to $15m (£9.9m) as the hostage situation entered its 10th day. The ship’s cargo of crude oil is worth $100m.

“I would say there is not a reason for complaint,” said Marek Nishky, the ship’s captain, speaking under the scrutiny of the pirates. “We were given already the opportunity to talk to our families and today I was negotiating with a gentleman here [about] another such possibility. I am promised it will be soon, today or tomorrow, my crew will again be allowed to talk to their families. As you can realise, these are the most important things for us now.”

So they are treating their captives pretty huh?  Well not always.

Five Indian sailors who were among the crew of a Japanese-owned cargo ship hijacked by pirates and held for two months before a ransom was paid said Monday their captivity was “total desperation.”

“I wish that no one else ever has to go through this — (hijackers) are not human but rather animals,” said Alister Fernandes, one of the sailors, at a news conference in Mumbai, India.

Oh well you decide.

Blackwater Goes Pirate Hunting

The Moyock, N.C., company has a ship in Hampton Roads ready to begin patrolling the Gulf of Aden to protect merchant vessels against pirates.

The company has spoken to about 10 shipping firms but as yet has no takers, said Bill Mathews, Blackwater Worldwide executive vice president.

“There’s definitely a need and a desire,” Mathews said during a tour of the 183-foot vessel, named McArthur, on Friday. It’s moored at a commercial pier at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base.

Somali pirates in late September seized a Ukrainian ship loaded with military vehicles in the Gulf of Aden and still hold the ship while demanding a multimillion-dollar ransom. The standoff is being monitored by the U.S. Navy.

In the first half of this year, pirates launched two dozen attacks off the Somali coast, including 19 in the Gulf of Aden, Said the International Maritime Bureau. At least eight vessels reported attacks by grenade launchers and automatic weapons, the organization said.

For anti-piracy operations, the 14-sailor crew would be supplemented with Blackwater security guards, four rigid-hull inflatable boats and helicopters, Mathews said. Security teams could follow a merchant vessel by air and land.

Mathews said the crew and guards are qualified to provide maritime security, noting that the security teams would consist of former Navy SEALs. The force is highly trained in handling vehicle boardings and anti-terrorism missions.

The ship could be overseas within 40 days, pending approval from the State Department and roughly a month long transit across the Atlantic

The use of private companies to protect merchant ships has a long history, said Claude Berube, a former congressional staffer and professor who has written on the topic. The East India Co. employed private convoys about a century ago along the coast of Africa, he said.