The biggest tanker ever hijacked, Sirius Star is carrying a cargo of two million barrels of oil - a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s daily output - worth more than $100m (£67m).
Analysts say the pattern of other hijackings suggests a ransom request is likely to follow. Given the value of the tanker and its cargo, that is expected to be a sizeable demand.
Two of the captive crew are British. The UK Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, said the Royal Navy was co-ordinating the European response to the incident.
“The problem of piracy around Somalia is a grave danger to the stability in the region,” he told the BBC.
Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991 and has suffered continuing civil strife.
One almost hears cries begging “if only Somalia was statist”. Well let me ask you a question - who did more victims - the US invasion of AfghanIraq or Somali pirates?
I disagree with some of the optimism concerning Somalia due to the tribalist nature of their anarchism, but I would relish the schadenfreude of Somalia continually pirating & amassing more resources to sustain their stateless status, while the Statists scratch their heads with what to do (unless, of course, they decide to bomb Somalia).
Now, there are a lot of things to pick apart in there, starting with the pussified suggestions by supposed experts: waterhoses, grease the rails so the pirates can’t get a grip, and fall and hurt their widdle heads. But what really stood out for me was the US and NATO basically said we can’t do anything, hire your own security. They are completely baffled by Fourth Generation warfare, and won’t even begin to fight it. This is the seed from which anarcho-capitalism will grow: the modern democratic states admit their incompetence in the one area people would voluntarily pay them for, so they will turn to other entities for their security needs.
Kind of amazing to see it playing out in front of you.
Interesting, I did not know about this. Perhaps optimism is not unfounded at all, considering your comment on fourth generation warfare (something I should go google right about now, actually…) confusing the States that be.
Although, one wonders: how long will that last until States adapt?
I read many of the pirates are former fishermen who took on piracy, after foreign fishing fleets particularly the South Korean took out most of the fish from their waters. Supposedly that is one reason why the pirates have repeatedly targeted South Korean shipping in particular.
If true then this piracy thing could have very much been prevented by proper application of property rights by recognising the ownership of the sea and of the fish by Somali fishermen instead of this statist hippie thing we have going on where no one is allowed to own the sea and the fish, except for states which are allowed ownership of a small coastal zone. (And since there was no Somali state…)
Had the property of Somali fishermen been recognised as such they would have today probably be living off from selling fishing quotas to South Koreans and using some of the proceeds to get some modern hardware of their own.
Go to LewRockwell.com and pull up William Lind. He coined the term, which is basically warfare by non-state entities. The only way to fight 4GW is to radically decentralize, and the State will not, cannot do that without jeopardizing its existence.
In the age of cronysm just what is a private company?
The lines are blurred. Saudi Aramco is not a private company. Is Chevron? Is a luxury yacht bought by a Halliburton executive his rightful private property? The T-72 tanks the pirates captured last month were certainly not from a private company..
Who do you work for and what indigenous people’s land are you squatting on? You surely won’t mind if I break into your unjust house and take your unjust iPod.
So what if they’re semi private companies? It’s still someone else’s property. And they do use violence agains the employees who hasn’t done anything wrong to them. They’re no Robin Hoods.
Do I have a moral right to go to the Macy’s and point a gun at the cashier because Macy’s nothing is fully private anymore?
I find this very ironic. Since 2001 NATO warships have cruised the Indian Ocean: first they were to support the invasion of Afghanistan and then they were supposed to hunt down and stop “al-Quaeda’s merchant fleet”, which was probably busy carrying around suicidal bombers and chemical weapons. Do you remember this hilarious piece of news?
Since both tasks proved to be highly succesful these same warships, instead of being ordered home, were sent to deal with the Islamic-extremists-turned-pirates from the Horn of Africa. The mighty, freedom-loving (and NATO backed) Ethiopian army had “liberated” the country, bent on freeing those poor souls from the clutches of evil but since Ethiopians are not known to be great sailors and do not own a navy they are unable to stop piracy (or keep the country in line, beat the militiamen, restore infrastructures etc for what that matters).
Now we have hundreds of million dollars (or euros, if you prefer) of high-tech material and highly trained men combing the area for pirates and one of the world’s largest tanker was stolen from right under their noses, or very sophisticated radars if you prefer. Each day at least a merchant is stolen so what is all that firepower for? Do those high-tech radars really work? Or perhaps is this used an excuse for a “surge” to stop the pirates? Can you bet against President Obama withdrawing troops from Iraq to send them to the Horn of Africa, perhaps under a UN charter and fully backed by a new “multinational cohalition”? Been there and done that under the Clintons… [;)]