Time magazine discovers pirates

Time discovers modern piracy here. Just a few comments on a first read:

(1) Fact confusion- While asserting that the worst area for modern piracy remains the Strait of Malacca, the actual trend line seems to be heading down in that area since the littoral states have begun to act in concert to clean up the mess. While there are still attacks, it is looking up. Of course, Somalia has no effective government and any piracy clean up must be undertaken by outsiders. And the outsiders need to have some compelling interest to take action. So far, the ship seizures and attacks haven't lit the fuse of anyone with sufficient naval and military assets to take action, though there is some indication that the Royal Navy may do something.

(2) Location confusion - Somalia has the longest coastline on the African continent. It is important to understand that an attack on a ship 100 miles off Mogadishu is a very long way from Djibouti up near the mouth of Bab el-Mandab chokepoint. Don't get confused by the geography.

(3) Importance confusion- Coalition forces are active in the Gulf of Aden and near the Bab el Mandab chokepoint because they are vital sea lanes of communication for oil, among other things. The recent spate of pirate attacks are happening off the east coast of Somalia (see the map, which has the most recent reported attacks marked on it - blue arrow points to recent cruise ship attack). While it is a sea route to Kenya and a possible coastwise route around Africa, the fact is that the Suez canal gets more traffic and the long round Africa trip is relatively rarer except for smaller coast-wise shipping and ships too big to fit through the canal. Note that the ships seized off Somalia are smaller vessels and not large container and crude carriers (though a few of them have reported being attacked or followed by suspicious boats). There are pirates who have attacked shipping in the Gulf of Aden (especially going after some yachts) but the ship seizures have mostly been elsewhere. Of course, there are exceptions as in the recent seizure of a ship moving sugar from Brazil to Yemen. In short, the inshore and offshore areas of eastern Somalia is not a major sea lane.

(4) Timing confusion- There has long been concern over possible sea going terrorism. For several months various international agencies and the US Office of Naval Intelligence have been issuing warnings (and here) for merchant shipping to stay well off the coast of Somalia but some ships, including the Seabourn Spirit have apparently chosen to ignore the warnings. In short, this is not a new problem and some simple steps (like avoiding the area of recent attacks) could increase ship safety.

(5) Priority confusion- Some have called for the US Navy to be more active in pursuing the pirates of Somalia especially based on the recent cruise ship attack. However, even the US Navy has limited assets, and most of them are being used for activities deemed to be higher priority than piracy patrol work off Somalia (which, as noted above, is not on a sea lane of vital interest to the US). Absent a compelling national interest, there is little reason for the US to act.

UPDATE: An interesting nautical discussion on going over here.

UPDATE2 (15 Nov 05): More recent piracy/terrorism posts here and here.

Ignorance on parade

Best coverage of an embarassing collection of ignorant US senators trying to find a clue about oil prices is this Econbrowser post (hey, Jed Clampett gets mentioned)!

Where were these senators when oil prices dropped below $15 a barrel in the 1980s and thousands of oil company employees were tossed out of work? Obviously they were not studying economics...

UPDATE: Even senators might be able to learn from EIA Petroleum Basics.

A IMO meeting on pirates

Set out here, the International Maritme Organization will be addressing piracy soon... Kenya seems to be getting concerned about its cruise ship business:

According to Ondego, five cruise vessels, which are expected to call to Mombasa Port between this month and January next year have expressed security concerns over the Somali incident.

Separately, the national co-ordinator of the Seafarers Assistance Programme, Mr Andrew Mwangura, welcomed the decision by IMO to draft a resolution to address the Somali pirate crisis.

Mwangura said SAP was investigating reports that pirates were using a mother ship to carry out the attacks.

Mwangura said the UN should impose an embargo on the export of charcoal and fish products from Somalia.

"The UN should urgently impose an embargo on the export of charcoal and fish from Somalia because these have been used to finance pirates. A ship can pay as much as US$150,000 to pirates to be allowed to fish in Somalia," he said.

Mwangura said the embargo may lead to the stabilisation of the National Transitional Government of Somalia.

Mwangura said the mother ship was spotted on July 27 and November 5 when the cruise ship destined to Mombasa was attacked.

"The mother ship is quite big and this suggests that piracy in Somalia is an organised business. The ship launches boats in the high seas which in turn attack ships," he said.

He said it was impossible for the boats to sail 70 nautical miles or 170km in the international waters because they could run out of fuel.

Bubblehead, who has some experience in them, suggests a submarine might be a good tool to find the Mother Ship (you might also see my comment #2 here).

Royal Navy to take down Somali pirates?

The Royal Navy (yes, the British fleet) has reportedly announced it will go after the Somali pirates:

The Ministry of Defence told the Sunday Herald that British warships “would undertake action in pursuit of pirates and help deal with the problem”. A spokesman added: “The UK government vigorously opposes acts of piracy.”

The MoD said it could not be any more explicit about action against pirates “due to security concerns”.

Worded a little differently here:

The International Maritime Bureau has made a direct request to the Royal Navy to intervene in east African waters. The Ministry of Defence promised that if there were navy vessels in the area and intelligence of piracy then the Royal Navy “would undertake action in pursuit of pirates and help to deal with the problem”.

Seems to be a change in position from what was reported here:

The International Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile, has appealed for more naval protection in the area. Although the British frigate HMS Campbeltown is in the Gulf, the Royal Navy is reluctant to commit it to Somali waters. An MoD spokesman said: "We are aware of the piracy issues that have been raised since the Seabourn Spirit was attacked but we have to take a long term view on our resources. Our ships already have vital tasks to perform. We will not tolerate piracy anywhere but it would take longer than a week to make such a strategic decision."

Somali pirate attack map

I've plotted the approximate locations of the last seven attacks by Somali pirates for which I have information (yes, they are very approximate). The blue arrow points to the area where the cruise ship Seabourn Spirit was attacked.

UPDATE: Interesting article:

Although it has been seen as a strategic error, last week's failed attack on the Seabourn Spirit has done nothing to dilute the pirates' ambition. Four more ships were targeted by invaders in the three days that followed. "One of those attacks succeeded," Capt Mukundan added. "The ship was only carrying sugar but the owners paid out a substantial sum."

If anything, the criminals are becoming increasingly ambitious. Although any coastline further than 12 miles offshore can be considered international waters, pirates are now using so-called "Mother Ships" to venture far beyond the 100 and 150-mile zones deemed "safe" by maritime authorities. "A speedboat can only go so far before it runs out of fuel," said Capt Mukundan. "They are using bigger ships as a staging post to conduct their operations and we think this is giving them a range of up to 390 miles offshore. The money they have gained from past ransoms will have allowed them to buy impressive boats."

But last week's attack on the 10,000-ton Seabourn Spirit has exposed pirates' limitations, according to maritime security experts. Gavin Simmonds, a defence adviser at the Chamber of British Shipping, said: "They usually go for slow-moving vessels that they can capture quickly but they made a mistake by attacking such a highly-equipped ship.

"For a start, the Seabourn Spirit was so big there was no conceivable way the pirates could have got onboard unless the crew had thrown a rope down to them. They have probably also given away vital clues about their operation. If the US intelligence services are looking at this part of the coast they are likely to have tracked the boat through its satellite systems and be some way towards identifying who is responsible."

The International Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile, has appealed for more naval protection in the area. Although the British frigate HMS Campbeltown is in the Gulf, the Royal Navy is reluctant to commit it to Somali waters. An MoD spokesman said: "We are aware of the piracy issues that have been raised since the Seabourn Spirit was attacked but we have to take a long term view on our resources. Our ships already have vital tasks to perform. We will not tolerate piracy anywhere but it would take longer than a week to make such a strategic decision."

Germany, however, has decided to help. Its navy will be keeping the nation's leading cruise ship, MS Deutschland, under observation using ship and aircraft-borne radar and spy-satellites to protect the vessel and its crew. The navy also has a frigate on station near the Horn of Africa, with 220 German marines based in Djibouti as part of a Nato anti-terror mission.

Hans-Ulrich Kossel, a spokesman for the ship's owners, Deilmann Shipping Company, said: "It doesn't mean that we shall be shadowed by a frigate for the whole duration of the voyage. But it does mean that the navy will be observing us by radar."

But the anarchy that persists in Somalia means that the rebels are unlikely to notice or care. The waters offer them easy prey.

Simmonds said: "The pirates are increasingly behaving like paramilitary units, while the government is totally unable to stop them. More and more of these groups are getting their hands on the AK47s and RPGs that are easily purchased in Mogadishu. The pirates may not have taken over the country, but they have taken over the sea."

You can bet that if the shipping lanes involved were more vital to their national interests, the more powerful sea going nations would be cleaning out these pirate nests.

More on Somali pirate "Mother Ship"

CNN says:

Since November 5, when pirates tried unsuccessfully to attack a 440-foot cruise liner operated by Seabourn Cruise Lines, at least five other attacks have taken place, most of them northeast of Somalia, said Andrew Mwangura, program coordinator at the Kenyan Seafarer's Association.

Overall, he said, seven ships and crews have been taken into captivity in that section of the Indian Ocean.

Fishermen in the area spotted a "pirate mother ship" drifting off the Somali coast in July, on November 5 and earlier this week, Mwangura said. Only one mother ship has been spotted, but there may be more in existence. Officials think the smaller boats used in attacks are launched from the mother ship, he said.

A crew of more than 10 people, including a captain and engineer, are believed to be on the ship. The crew is believed to be well-organized, Mwangura said.

"We are trying to call up the coalition forces to track the vessel and to get pictures of the mother ship," he said.

The Commissar asks where the US Navy is and gets answered by CDR Salamander and me. (UPDATE: And Chap and Lex and Bubblehead and Skippy-san and...)

Previous posts on pirate "Mother Ship" here and here. On latest seizure of a ship here. On other recent attacks here and here.

Kenya imposes anti-pirate security measures

Reported here:

The Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) in conjunction with the Kenya Navy and the Kenya Police have jointly put up stringent security measures to ensure that all ships, and in particular cruise ships plying the Kenyan coastline waters, are safe.

KPA Managing Director Brown Ondego said that the move was necessitated following the recent incident in which a tourist ship was attacked on its way to the Kenyan coast by Somali militiamen and had to divert to Seychelles.

"The KPA, the Kenya Navy, and the Kenya Police are highly concerned over the rising cases of insecurity along the Kenyan coast, and the coast of Somalia where piracy is fast taking root and so have decided to come up with security measures to ensure that all ships plying the Kenyan waters are safe and monitored," said Ondego.

Ondego, who was addressing a press conference at the KPA headquarters in Mombasa, at the same time assured tourists visiting the Kenyan coast of their safety against pirates. He said that among the security measures to be put in place include a radar station operated by the Kenyan Navy on the coastline capable of automatically identifying ships and will be in constant communication with port control stations.

He said that KPA has also assigned a high speed boat which can cruise at a speed of 30 knots and a range of 200 miles to the port police for patrolling the harbour waters and the coastline.

Cardboard Box Added to Toy Hall of Fame

Cardboard Box Added to Toy Hall of Fame

Maybe it's because I grew in a military family and we moved frequently (26 times before I left for college) but we always had plenty of boxes around. And they were the best toys ever... forts, sleds (work well on grassy hills, too), playhouses, could be cut up to make suits of "armor"...


And they come is several different sizes! Still available at your local U-Haul store...

Finally, a Hall of Fame choice I agree with!

UPDATE: Looking even better in light of Lex's woes.

Awesome:"The Military Applications of Silly String"

Thanks to the Carnival of Cordite for pointing to The Military Applications of Silly String.

So simple. So smart.

Somali pirate Mother Ship confirmed

The International Maritime Bureau has confirmed the presence of a "mother ship" being used by the pirates off Somalia in this report:

At the center of the wave of recent attacks is a mysterious, so-called mother ship that has been spotted three times since late July drifting off the northeast coast of Somalia.

"We understand that this is the vessel that is launching the speedboats that go to attack the victims," Mwangura said.

"We are still trying to discover the name of this ship, its owner, its nationality and the identity of the crew on board."

The IMB, which said the situation was completely out of control, confirmed a mother ship had been involved in the attacks, which were taking place way out to sea.

The piracy watchdog has warned merchant ships to stay at least 200 nautical miles away from the Somali coast, but says its warnings have gone unheeded.

See this earlier post suggesting a "mother ship."

It's about time...Pres says "Stop the lies"

Sometimes the truth hurts, and I hope the truth told here hurts the Democrat spinners of fiction:

"The stakes in the global war on terror are too high and the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges," the president said in his combative Veterans Day speech.

Defending the march to war, Bush said that foreign intelligence services and Democrats and Republicans alike were convinced at the time that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

"Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and mislead the American people about why we went to war," Bush said.

He said those critics have made those allegations although they know that a Senate investigation "found no evidence" of political pressure to change the intelligence community's assessments related to Saddam's weapons program.

He said they also know that the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing Saddam's development and possession of weapons of mass destruction.

"More than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate who had access to the same intelligence voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power," Bush said.

Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy, Kerry, Rockefeller and Dean - I hope the pain cannot be quenched by a couple of aspirin, you disloyal twerps.

And don't tell me you've been "doing it for the troops" because that's just another lie.

Made my Veterans Day, Mr. President.

UPDATE: Lies? Read this. Hat tip: GeoPolitical Review.

Oh, yeah, add Senator Durban to the twerp list.

UPDATE2 Heh. and Heh, again.

UPDATE3: Tigehawk works out what what might be legitimate dissent here. HT to Instapundit.

Building a regional defense

With regional cooperation, piracy and terrorism (sea-going and otherwise) is bumping into a new zone defense as reported here:

The Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia have begun discussions to establish a line of defense against terror groups and sea pirates along their common sea borders in Southeast Asia.

Defense officials of the three countries sought to launch the line of defense, dubbed "Coast Watch South," at the soonest possible time to deter piracy and restrict the movement of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militants along the countries’ common sealanes.

The defense program will be established around the vast expanse of the Sulu-Sulawesi seas to protect borders and check on all sea transport passing through the common sealanes of the three countries, Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz Jr. said.

Cruz was accompanied by top military officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations attending the fourth ASEAN Chiefs of Defense Forces Informal Meeting (ACDFIM) in Manila.

Cruz explained to President Arroyo the initial defense agreement among the three countries during a courtesy call made by the officials at Malacañang last Thursday.

Although the "Coast Watch South" will strengthen and enhance the anti-terrorism campaign in the region, Cruz said it is not an indication of any imminent large-scale terrorist attacks in the Philippines similar to the recent bombings in Bali, Indonesia.

The DMZ War: Korea 1966 -1969

On this Veterans Day, as CDR Salamander reports, there are millions of individual stories that need remembering. And there are the larger stories of desperate fights in nearly forgotten places where our troops held the line for freedom.

One such place was the demilitarized zone fo Korea during the late 1960s as recorded in at the Korean War Project here

F rom late 1966 through 1969, the Korean peninsula provided the background for a military confrontation that included guerrilla warfare, sabotage and terrorism directed against the people of South Korea and the Americans serving there. The situation tested the willpower and reserve of the Unified States and the Republic of Korea (ROK))...
... A nearly forgotten place where soldiers from the 2d Infantry "Indianhead" Division and the 7th Infantry "Bayonet" Division were engaged in combat operations on a smaller scale, but no less deadly, than the operations faced during the same period by fellow "grunts" in Vietnam...
...The sole survivor of the patrol ambushed on 2 November 1966, carries 48 scars from the North Korean grenades that blew him off a hilltop when he was just 17 years old. Looking back across 20 years he slowly said, "We did what the country asked us to do . . . that's all."

And then there the Axe Murders from 1976.

Veterans Day

A salute to Veterans:

Today we honor those who have served in the armed forces of this great country during times of war and peace and those times which were neither war nor peace. We salute equally the combat forces, the logistics movers, planners, administrators and the too often forgotten support forces.

Here's to the men who fought on the beaches in France, Italy and North Africa. And to the men who fought on the beaches of Tarawa, Guam, Palau and Iwo Jima. And to those who flew the heavy bombers over Europe (where the 8th Air Force sustained the highest casualty rate of any unit in WWII). To the Flying Tigers and the Tin Can sailors and the Jeep Carrier crews and to the battleship sailors and the submariners, too. Here's to the Coast Guardsmen who drove the landing craft and kept watch over our shores. Here's to the men who organized the convoys that got the cargo to our troops and our allies. Here's to the armed guards who served on the lumbering merchants. Here's to the Merchant Marine, too.

Here's to the men who held the line in Korea until help could arrive. Here's to that help. Here's to the advisors in Vietnam and to every soldier, Marine, airman, and sailor who served during that long struggle. Here's to the volunteers and the draftees.

Here's to the doctors and nurses. Here's to the corpsmen - often the bravest of the brave.

Here's to the cooks and the bakers and the guy who peeled potato after potato. Here's to the mess cooks who made coffee for the midwatch and brought doughnuts to the early morning dogs.

Here's to the truck drivers and the fuelers and the boiler tenders and the boatswain mates, quartermasters, the gunner's mates and the stewards and the laundrymen and the hundreds of thousands of men and women who served in jobs that do not make for exciting war stories, but which made - and still make - a huge difference.

Here's to the men who flew the B-36, B-47 and B-52 bombers during the Cold War. Here's to the interceptor pilots and crews. Here's to the men who scrambled to their aircraft and took off not knowing if this scramble was for real or not. Here's to the crew chief, mechanics and base engineers who had the planes and runways ready. Here's to the missileers, deep in their silos. To the Fleet Ballistic Missile submariners and to the DEW line crews. Here's to the forgotten men and women who stood on guard somewhere every day of every year.

Here's to the reservists, the National Guard - here's to "one weekend a month and two weeks a year" that has so often turned out to be much, much more.

Here's to the paratroopers, the cavalry, the Special Forces, the SEALS, the UDT, the EOD, the Delta Force, the Air Commandos, the Marine Recon, the Rangers - the "sharp end of the stick." Here's to the clerk-typists who complete the paperwork. Here's to the "boot pushers' - the DI's- who shape the raw material they are given into something useful.

Here's to the guards, the MPs, the Shore Patrol. Here's to every person who ever walked a post and recited the duties of a sentry ("to walk my post in a military manner..."). Here's to every quarterdeck watch who stood the mid and made sure the drunks got safely to bed.

And here's a salute to all these Veterans and to all the rest who served in the armed forces of this great country during times of war and peace and those times which were neither war nor peace.

Thank you. God bless you. Happy Veterans Day!

Haze gray and underway: life on a modern destroyer

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Almost any surface sailor for the last 60 years can identify with this article about a day in the life of people serving in USS John S. Mcain.

It's nighttime as the destroyer churns up a phosphorescent wake in the Pacific. The dimmed lights of electronic equipment cast a soft green glow over the bridge, while red lamps add an eerie, darkroom look.
Resuming his starboard watch, Ensign Curtis Peschel ducks out to the lookout posts where it's pitch black, save for the Milky Way, which stretches from one horizon to the other, and a crescent moon hanging low in the sky.
For the next four hours, Peschel, the USS John S. McCain's communications officer, will be driving the $1 billion ship. He has been in the Navy less than two years. This is the first ship he's ever been assigned to.

"We get a lot more hands-on experience out here," said Peschel, a 25-year-old from Mercer Island, Wash.

And some people enjoy accounting.

Pirates strike again off Somalia, kidnap crew of 26 from Thai ship

Pirates off Somalia strike again as reported here:

Pirates have hijacked a merchant ship off Somalia, kidnapping its 26 crew, in the fourth attack in as many days off its coastline as the U.N. Security Council this week urged regional powers to intervene.
The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said on Thursday a Thai-flagged ship carrying a cargo of sugar from Brazil to Yemen was hijacked close to the coast north east of Mogadishu early on Monday.
The IMB told Reuters 26 crew of mostly Thai origin had been kidnapped at gunpoint and a ransom demanded for their release.

Happy Birthday, Marines!

Today is the 230th birthday of the US Marine Corps. To all Marines, Happy Birthday!

Birthday of the Corps
The Marine Corps was founded by the Continetal Congress on 10 November 1775. The resolution which created our Corps reads as follows:

Resolved. That two Battalions of Marines be raised consisting of one Colonel, two Lieutenant Colonels, two Majors, and Officers as usual in other Regiments, that they consist of an equal number of privates with other Battalions; that particular care be taken that no persons be appointed to office, or so enlisted into said Battalions, but such as are good seaman, or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve to advantage by sea, when required. That they be enlisted and commissioned for and during the present war with great Britain and the colonies, unless dismissed by order of Congress. That they be distinguished by the names of the First and Second Battalions of American Marines, and that they be considered as part of the number, which the Continental Army before Boston is ordered to consist of.

(source)

StrategyPage take on Somali pirates

StrategyPage analysis on Somali pirates here.

Oil Industry Hurricane Update from Platts

Wondering how the energy and refining industry is recovering from the recent spate of hurricanes? Platts puts out an daily Update.

So does the Energy Information Administration here.

And there is this "Short-Term Energy Outlook":

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita damaged, set adrift, or sunk 192 oil and natural gas drilling rigs and producing platforms, the most significant blow to the U.S. petroleum and natural gas industries in recent memory.
At the beginning of November almost 53 percent of normal daily Federal Gulf of Mexico oil production and 47 percent of Federal Gulf of Mexico natural gas production remains shut in. Moreover, in Louisiana 1.0 billion cubic feet (bcf) per day of onshore natural gas production remains offline and 0.8 million barrels per day (bbl/d) of crude oil refining capacity remains shut down. Some wells were temporarily shut in as a precaution to Hurricane Wilma. While no damage was reported from that storm, hurricane recovery remains a key factor in this Outlook. Indeed, recent information on damaged and destroyed platforms and shut-in production suggests that the recovery path will be slower than predicted in the October Outlook...

...Total U.S. refinery output this year is projected to decline by about 0.3 percent compared with 2004 because of hurricane outages. A relatively warm October and an increase in product imports are helping to keep total product inventories at levels close to the average of the last few years. However, inventories of gasoline, distillate fuel, and jet fuel are significantly below normal levels and our projections are for a slow recovery from now through early summer

Sen. Cornyn asks the right question of the Dems: "What are you for?

Senator Cornyn says rage at the president is not an agenda.

Shh! Don't tell Pelosi, Reid and Dean.