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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."
But global warming is caused by a lack of pirates!
'Letter of Marque and Reprisal'.
Given that the pirates are using any old junk to mount their attacks, I'm guessing that there would be no economic incentive to hunt them down under the historical mechanism of condemnation and sale. Some sort of bounty-based alternative, in addition to the cost, would amount to offering to pay anybody who can come up with a few rusty Kalashnikovs and a boat full of dead Somalis. What could possibly go wrong?
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.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
You've got the wrong idea entirely, frankly. Mercenaries are expensive. Tourism, however, is profitable. So, you make it like a safari. You know, for the chance to go send some pirates to Davy Jones' locker. The 'fishing license' just absolves prospective pirate hunters from prosecution.
So, you restore and or build a few PT style boats, strap a few twin-fifties, miniguns and grenade launchers on pintle mounts, and let any sociopath with ten thousand bucks to spare have some fun. You'd have a waiting list a mile long.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
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.