Climate Scientists Ask For Help Fighting Somali Pirates 300
thebchuckster writes "Scientists are seeking the help of the Australian and US navies to repel Somali pirates who are threatening one of the world's key climate monitoring programs. They hope to deploy about 20 robotic instruments in a no-go area north of Mauritius. The instruments, which record ocean heat and salinity patterns, are programmed to submerge and eventually resurface to upload their data to satellites."
Re:Why don't we give the pirates a choice (Score:5, Informative)
Give it to whom precisely? Somalia has been in a civil war for the last 20 years, there isn't anybody that can take the money and make it happen. Most folks there are more concerned with starving or being killed to do anything about this.
Re:Correlation (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Why don't we give the pirates a choice (Score:5, Informative)
The US? We're not really big on spending money overseas except if it's Israel or bombing someone.
I'm guessing you're young. The US (under President Clinton) sent its military into Somalia in the early 1990s with the goal of stabilizing the situation enough to allow aid (both goverment-sponsored and that of private relief agencies) to help ameliorate an ongoing famine. Given the way it ended, I doubt the US government has much motivation to attempt helping Somalia again.
If you don't trust the slant of a military-published document, dig up some old newspaper archives. I think you'll learn why so many governments appear to be ignoring Somalia.
Re:Why don't we give the pirates a choice (Score:5, Informative)
Bah - forgot the link [army.mil].
Re:Why don't we give the pirates a choice (Score:5, Informative)
The "civil war" is largely a creation of foreign and now AFRICOM interference.
http://webarchive.ssrc.org/Somalia_Hoehne_v10.pdf [ssrc.org]
"Thanks to half a century of pouring US arms stockpiles into Africa, the price of an assault rifle in Africa has for some time been cheaper than anyplace else on the planet."
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/africom-americas-military-foot-africas-doorway [blackagendareport.com]
Somali "piracy" is the outcome of the illegal, exhaustive, industrialised over-fishing of Somali waters, by foreign fleets - leaving the coastal towns without any livelihood.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/you-are-being-lied-to-abo_b_155147.html [huffingtonpost.com]
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/14/analysis_somalia_piracy_began_in_response [democracynow.org]
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1892376,00.html [time.com]
The US manufactures foreign wars and "terrorists" the same way it used to lead in the creation of Automobiles and heavy manufacturing. But remember your Gibbon: The decline of Rome was seeded from its very rise on world's stage.
Re:Why don't we give the pirates a choice (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, it was Bush I who sent the military to Somalia to provide security so aid could be distributed. It was Clinton who decided to try "regime change"...........and that resulted in Black Hawk Down.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mogadishu_(1993) [wikipedia.org]
Re:Why don't we give the pirates a choice (Score:2, Informative)
That was then, in a relatively stable post-USSR world. This is now, in the age of instant digital fearmongering, rampant invisible terrorist threats, and overwhelming governmental corruption and outright bribery. Expecting anything to get done even 1/10th as efficiently as a 1990s government is just pointless.
Can we have Bill back, please?
Re:Why don't we give the pirates a choice (Score:5, Informative)
Thats great and everything, but the US, French, British, South Africans aren't the only destabilizing influence, following decolonization in Africa the Soviets dumped thousands of tanks, thousands of aircraft, tens of thousands of large caliber weapons and millions of guns into Africa from 1960 through 1989.
For the region
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etheopia#Mengistu_Era [wikipedia.org]
"In 1977, there was the Ogaden War, when Somalia captured the part of the Ogaden region, but Ethiopia was able to recapture the Ogaden after receiving military aid from the USSR, Cuba, South Yemen, East Germany and North Korea, including around 15,000 Cuban combat troops."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia#Communist_rule [wikipedia.org]
"By 1978, the Somali troops were ultimately pushed out of the Ogaden. This shift in support by the Soviet Union motivated the Barre government to seek allies elsewhere. It eventually settled on Russia's Cold War arch-rival, the United States, which had been courting the Somali government for some time. All in all, Somalia's initial friendship with the Soviet Union and later partnership with the United States enabled it to build the largest army in Africa."
So the Soviets backed Somalia and loaded them with weapons, then Somalia starts to lose, the Soviets dump weapons into Ethiopia and the US back the Somalis, but all you care to cite are sources blaming it on the US.
Re:Why don't we give the pirates a choice (Score:2, Informative)
As opposed to Bush II raising the debt ceiling (7 times in 8 years), lowering taxes, and increasing spending like a drunken sailor. Choose your poison.
(Most) Republicans only care about the debt ceiling when there's a Democrat in the White House.
Re:Why don't we give the pirates a choice (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, no. The primary rifle used by militias in Africa is going to be the Kalashnikov because it's cheap, rugged, any idiot can use it, and it's light enough for a child to carry. Which is useful, of course, if you want to arm children. As you might guess from the name, the Kalashnikov is a Russian assault rifle that was sold off in vast quantities by Warsaw Pact countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union.