Without wanting to add to the personal abuse on this thread, I think some of the comments here are frankly ridiculous.
Double Zero
You cannot tar all Kenyans, or all Africans, with the same brush. Many years ago one of my Engineering lectuers commented that he had worked in Kenya, and was demoralised when her returned to teach in the UK - due to the lack of willingness to work/learn. Whether you intended it or not, your comments sound quite racist...
As to the Japanese and Germans, everyone knows of the appalling acts carried out in WWII by both nations, and Japan has never acknowledged responsibility. Not sure why this is being discussed here....
yamagata ken
Are you having a laugh? People in the Horn of Africa have the same opportunities are us in the developed world? Is that what you think? And you say the Somalis have opted for piracy - what, all of them? No Somalis suffer because of pirate attacks against World Food Programme or other ships then?
Isn't Somalia a failed state, and the current piracy is a symptom of the anarchy and chaos there? Certainly the
senior naval figures at the recent IONS meeting think so:
ABU DHABI, May 13, 2010 (AFP) - Navies can intercept Somali pirate skiffs and foil hijackings but fighting waves of attacks at sea will not solve the problem, which is rooted in instability on land in Somalia, naval leaders say.
Anti-piracy efforts "will not actually resolve the base problem of why piracy is occurring ... That solution lies in the stabilisation" of Somalia, Commodore Bob Tarrant, director of Britain's Royal Navy staff, told AFP at the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) in Abu Dhabi.
"The symptoms (piracy) we're seeing now off Somalia, in the Gulf of Aden, are clearly an outcome of what's going on on the ground" there, said Australia's navy chief, Vice Admiral Russell Crane.
"As sailors, we're really just treating the symptoms," not the root of the problem.
Razor61
So the French, Dutch, USA and Russians all assault the ships with pirates holding their nationals hostage, what do we do? Shadow the ships (and yacht) and let it go with the hostages onboard... or just circle around doing nothing.
Well, sometimes, that does work. See: HMS
Chatham Forces Release of Pirated Dhow
So you say the French used special forces to assault a pirate held yacht. The USS
Bainbridge towed a liftraft 25 yards astern, then when the hostage jumped clear the pirates were engaged, by Special Forces snipers (SEALs) who had spent hours setting up. The Russian and Dutch Navies used Marines to recapture ships were the crew were locked in safe compartments, in other words, no hostages were involved. I think you are talking about this
incident.
Can anyone see any difference here? Perhaps the difference between a warship and a RFA? No special forces? Two vessels on two different courses? Hostages held, on a tiny boat full of fuel and other stuff that burns? Was
Wave Knight right, or should they have attempted to take out the pirates with GPMG, Mingun, and maybe even 30mm fire? Perhaps the person who responded on the
Times website and advocated that the pirates could be engaged by riflemen (sic) and the hostages rescued by swimmers (sic) was right? Or perhaps not.
This incident was discussed at length on ARRSE, and as noted there, it was the media making a story out of nothing. Sadly, most of the public seem to be unable to use their brains and think everything is as simple a clear cut as the media likes to pretend. Much of the media coverage is politically driven crap by tenth rate hacks like Max Hastings who don't even bother to check basics.