Climate Scientists Ask For Help Fighting Somali Pirates

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."

Comments

Re:Why don't we give the pirates a choice

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

The "civil war" is largely a creation of foreign and now AFRICOM interference.

http://webarchive.ssrc.org/Somalia_Hoehne_v10.pdf

"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

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

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/14/analysis_somalia_piracy_began_in_response

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1892376,00.html

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

[Wyatt Earp]

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
"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
"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.