Passing The Buck

 

1. I think its safe to say ( insert Turtlers correction here) that most shipping in this region is carried out by ships flagged with foriegn ports of origin. Liberia is one that many US ships use and many others as well. So its no surprise that we have not seen US vessals attacked. There simply arent many if any flying the flag to begin with.

   Posted by Rich K       11/20/2008  at  04:24 PM  



2. “One of the challenges that you have in piracy, clearly, is, if you are intervening and you capture pirates, is there a path to prosecute them?”

   Gee, I dunno…

   Sinking their freaking boat and then waving good bye strikes me as a method.

   Just from a personal, self-revealing sort of viewpoint, pirates frost my cookie.  I am deeply and seriously offended by people who simply steal other people’s stuff because they’re too lazy to do anything productive.

   Posted by Archie       11/20/2008  at  05:27 PM  



3. According to Wiki, the US has 465 merchant ships which fly the flag (ie American registered). 77 of those are passenger ships. Around 100 are large Great Lakes only ships.

   US companies own 700 ships that are flagged to other nations.

   Basic definition of a “ship” in this case is something that floats and has more than 1000 Gross Register Tons (ie 100,000 cubic feet) of cargo volume. I guess anything smaller is a “boat”. I have no idea how many US flagged “boats” are at sea earning a living.

   Rich K is right. You won’t see many American flags at sea unless they’re on Navy ships.

   Posted by Drew458       11/20/2008  at  05:36 PM  



4. "Just from a personal, self-revealing sort of viewpoint, pirates frost my cookie.  I am deeply and seriously offended by people who simply steal other people’s stuff because they’re too lazy to do anything productive.” Posted by Archie

   Pirates = Obama Voters

   Posted by SwedeBoy       11/20/2008  at  06:02 PM  



5. Anybody happen to know how US or other maritime law these days addresses piracy? I mean, why can’t they just be hung from the yardarms (or a suitable substitute) if captured . Don’t ship captains have legal authority that gives them wide latitude to deal with such things?

   Posted by Miami Harold       11/21/2008  at  04:04 PM  



6. First off, NATO has no business there in the first place. What part of North Atlantic do you see off the coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean?

   Sorry Drew, but that isn’t the definition of NATO. NATO was a global alliance, expected to fight anywhere, anytime if the Soviets were to cross the Wall and attack. We can debate whether NATO has a place deciding this issue or not, but the fact is that several Non-North Atlantic Nations are in it (the Baltic republics, Greece, Bulgaria, Italy, etc).

   Don’t ship captains have legal authority that gives them wide latitude to deal with such things?

   In theory, yes. However, the issue is A: Whether punishment for piracy is meant to be meted out by private groups of the government, or some other body, and B: What that punishment should be.

   Translation: The Red-Tape on the issue is a mile thick, and probably will not be done anytime soon.

   Posted by Turtler       11/22/2008  at  03:10 AM  

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.