Blood in the Water

Spot on OBL... again. My most hazy notion of the history of piracy like this (e.g. Barbary Coast) is that the merchants didn't have the resources to stop it and governments hadn't gotten to that point, so the costs of ransom were just factored in as costs of doing business. That led to it's logical extension, and governments finally exerted the resources to snuff it. Don't like the idea of the escalation that will be the pirate reflex, but where the past would lead ultimately would cost more in every way, with the worst ramifications, including being the cash cow for terrorist groups.

Pretty bound up in your logic, aren't you?
Already you can see no options other than killing or piracy?
Gee. Could there be ANY OTHER WAY to solve this piracy problem? The answer is yes, and other countries are using different measures, with limited success.
My point is that killng, and especially indiscriminate killing of civilians as advocated by PAULEBJ and ASBESTOS, is a stupid, immoral response that is bound to have very bad consequences.

So if your choice is DO NOTHING or KILL EVERYBODY, then I think we need to look for more choices, don't you?

Never any genicide, yous???? Which planet did you just arrive from?! What do you call what Hitler did to the Jews----playing footsie?!? Give some people a book, teach them to read, and this is what you get....

YOUSOCRAZY-

Maybe a complete genocide has never been completed as you say (I bet there have been), but I gotta say that this is close to the worst arguement for anything I've ever seen.

"More importantly, genicide has never been done in the written history of the planet. "

Incorrect. The Beothuks of Newfoundland were wiped out entirely.

sorry about your hysterical ranting problem STAR3.
Sounds like you are ready to take all of your frustrations built up over the last 60 years or so and go lynch some Somali villagers with PAULEBJ and ASBESTOS. Is that what it amounts to?

Hey, too bad about kamikaze pilots, children with bombs, lending, food aid, disaster aid, journalist beheadings, .... but what does that have to do with solving this problem?

You go for your gun, right STAR3? After all of your frustration, your FIRST response is to go to the gun, not the last, am I right? Tell me that this is not what is destroying America. From West Virginia to New York to a hospital in California, people in the US decide every day that killing is the only solution left. Do you?
Negotiation solves a lot of problems. Engagement and dialogue, thank God, solve most problems of the world today, even in law enforcement. Technology, barriers, caution, observation, precautions, knowledge... you probably own a gun, but you still lock your doors and lock your car, right? I think what you are trying to do is call everyone else in the world stupid because they do not advocate violence as a FIRST, or second or third resort.

Killing the pirates is not the answer. Killing their families and destroying any other means of livelihood for them is not the answer. There are less expensive, moral, more effective means of solving the problem. I am certain that other countries have found them. I hope America does too.

I'll take that under advisement, McLovin, in the mean time, how are those cookies coming along?

This is a fact. A few years back, the pirates were restricted to coastal waters. Thanks to ransom money, they are now capable of operating hundreds of miles out from the coast.

Have to add that the traffic is more concentrated into lanes than you might think. Most of the ships are taken in or near the Gulf of Aden, but are then moved out to the eastern coast of Somalia or other locations. The MSNBC site has an interactive map of some attacks of 2008.
If you remember that the attacks are mostly near the coast, you can probably figure the lanes and vulnerabilities pretty easily just by looking at a big map.
I am baffled as to why 30 or so armed vessels from different nations would not be able to form a picket or convoy system to work craft through these areas. There are already about that number of military vessels there, I think. India, Japan, Iran... Saudi Arabia could afford to send five with no sweat.

The question is not what might have been, the question is what do we do now. Yes the Republicans created several problems, however the Democrats are making those issues worse by saddling our country with a level of debt that has not been seen since WW2. The Democrats really need a better justification for their polices than "the Republicans did this." Character assassination is the first sign of an uneducated argument and the Democrats are engaged is blatant character assassination to cover up the horrible fiscal decisions they are making.

Furthermore, by your math the war in Iraq costs $120 billion a year. Get rid of the war in Iraq and Obama's budget still produces a $1.7 trillion dollar deficit, over 3 times larger than the largest deficit in history.

Next, anyone who blames this entire economic mess on one party is a polarized partisan zombie. There is plenty of blame that belongs to the Democrats. Over borrowing is at the root of this economic meltdown. The average American household first started exhibiting a negative savings rate under the Clinton administration. Aggressive lending to low credit home buyers began under Clinton and you can see that in that it was in the late 90s that home value was first detached from inflation rate. Anytime any commodity increases at value at a rate significantly higher than inflation rate that commodity is headed for a bubble.

Next, the Bush administration tried several times before the meltdown to place extra regulation on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those efforts were blocked by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. A good deal of the deregulation you talk of happened under the watch of Democrats. The Democrats are every bit as at fault for this current mess as the Republicans. If you can't see that, stop watching Keith Olbermann and try reading some intelligent conservative writers such as George Will.

if you have repressed homosexual tendencies and would do ANYTHING to get with a liberal democrat, just ask ONE to bend over.

No need to go all the way back to Pompey and the Mediterranean Sea. (A history major... mediterrean? seriously?) Go back to see what Thomas Jefferson did to the pirates.