What the pirates are doing is wrong... Using force to take from others is always wrong... EVEN WHEN IT IS UNDERSTANDABLE... Now, having said this.... If you are looking for a way to stop it, you should not be looking at the pirates... they are doing what they feel the should, right or wrong is irrelevant as they are not asking us our opinion on whether or not they should do it... Would you send a child carrying stacks of money through a ghetto (of any racial mix)? Why would you send billion dollar ships unarmed around the world... anywhere, but especially in waters that are KNOWN for being infested with them? Yes, it would be better if the pirates weren't threatening people's lives and so forth... It would be even better if people would stop sending them more unarmed money ships...
Point in fact on all this shit... All of you involved in this argument are in violation of site guidelines... Please keep this about the issue of the pirates.
Please quote the part of the guideline I violated. If it is the one I suspect you think I did... ...please read the whole guideline. It mentions PMs too. I can quote your PM here If you want. (sexual advances, threatening, arguing, disrespecting, soliciting, etc.) in numerous threads or PMs. I guess this is the first occasion so it isn't "numerous". If you start throwing around racist remarks I'll call you what you are. If it was a joke, fair enough I'm not that precious. It just wasn't that funny.
lol surely if they weren't actually holding hostages and so on abercrombie & kent would be running adventure tours to view them in their native habitat for rich folks who have become bored with bhutanese monks . . .
Is there an alternative route? "Just keep in mind that the obvious defense, arming merchant ship crews, is forbidden or too difficult rules-wise to be a valid option. That leaves either doing nothing and welcoming pirates aboard, diverting traffic away from the area entirely, or some other form of defense." http://blog.usni.org/2009/01/29/on-defending-unarmed-merchant-ships/
I imagine my first post wasn't 100% true. I was looking into it and noticed "forbiden" a few times that's all. "There's basically resistance to the idea of armed guards because of the risk of escalation ... possible harm to the crew," said Neil Roberts, a senior technical executive at Lloyd's Market Association, which provides support to underwriters with Lloyd's, the largest maritime insurance marketplace in the world. "Most ship owners don't encourage it." http://www.katu.com/home/related/42761347.html
To a ship owner, it doesn't matter in the slightest if their ships get hijacked, they are insured... The insurance companies are the ones who end up paying for it, and then they recoup that by charging everyone more for insurance. Perhaps if the insurance companies cancelled the policies of ship owners who send unarmed ships into pirate waters, you would find there would be less piracy going on right rapidly... Or perhaps the ship owner should say, we just won't send out ships out until they are escorted by navies... how long would it take the governments of the world to change things when the sea's we're closed to shipping? It is the money off the products in those ships that they tax and that keeps their subjects at home happy. Going back to the analogy of the little girl in the ghetto... Laws be damned... I would give her an armed escort if I had no choice but to send her through....
I'm sure it is down to money. It's not like all ships are hijacked. The cost ratio might just be too much.