Somali pirates accidently attack French anti-pirate ship!

edition.cnn.com...

This made my day. They sure are having a hard year

Last time they messed with the french, the pirates also got confused, and mistook a French Navy frigate for a commercial ship.

*Edit* added ly to accident in title!

[edit on 10/7/09 by Cyprex]

reply to post by Cyprex

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Pirates? You mean the Voluntary Somali Coast Guard?

Yes we must get rid of those people, they are disrupting our unchallenged dumping of toxic waste on an unregulated country's shores.

reply to post by ItIsWhatItIs

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Oh please, can you show me ONE incident when pirates attacked a toxic waste ship. So far this coastal guard attacks tankers and other ships that can carry valuable cargo. If they got a waste ship and then sailed with it back to country of origin - this would be great. But boarding totally innocent ships and keeping crew and cargo for ransom does not make you a coastal guard.These guys are pirates.

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did you read the article? they said that the "volunteer coast guard" started in the 80s.

and continued into the 90s

but now they basically just hijack ships for money.

ARRRRRRRR WHERES ME BOOTY???

oo oo whats a pirates favorite restaurant? AAARRRRRbys !@!!


hahahahahaha

The report doesn't state if they surrendered or not?

NO!

Not the French I mean the Somalis!

reply to post by SLAYER69

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You beat me to that one. I'll have to resort to the French fending off attackers with air powered day old baguette cannons.

your sig is the google barcode?

i got the android phone and the barcode app comes in handy now.

NO MORE CODE HIDDEN FROM ME! thats what i say.

always prepared. w00t

the french... youre a hoot...

im still dying over that article.

why not just try to attack a porcupine with a balloon?

edit: who mispells balloon... seriously

[edit on 10/7/2009 by mahtoosacks]

reply to post by Cyprex

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They sure are having a hard time!!!

The Pakistan ISI and their minions behind the Somalian pirates will need to get a thorough training on ship profiles and identification.

The game of gaining from toxic wastes and cover up piracy aint going too well in recent times!!

reply to post by SLAYER69

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Glad you made that clear, I was wondering that too. {the French not the Somali's} Seriously it seems the French are starting to get their act together these days. Why is it that some people jump to the Somali's defense as soon as a environmental angle is given? Hello folks they are holding ships for ransom not playing captain planet

Hmm, I wonder if it was really a mistake. Or perhaps did the pirates want themselves a warship?

Yar! It be easier to plunderin' booty sailin' a ship o the line than it be floatin' a schooner by the powers!

reply to post by hangedman13

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There is a certain romanticism in piracy. Always has been. Yes they are cutthroat desperate men trying to earn a living unlawfully. But some want to justify to themselves why people would resort to piracy.

I think it has more to do with that than any environmental issue.

[edit on 10/7/2009 by whatukno]

Piracy is not romantic. Piracy is theft and killing. Always has been. There is no excuse for it except greed.

Regards

reply to post by paraphi

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Pardon me, I meant a perceived romanticism. Your absolutely right, piracy is about theft and killing. But it has been quite romanticized.

It's part of the problem. Piracy denotes a fantasy life, the harsh reality is quite different.

This is why people aren't too upset about Somali pirates. If the truth of the matter hit home to these people they would demand much more from governments. Instead they have in their minds images of a swashbuckling captain and his motley crew talking funny and swinging from masted ships.

Besides it's the French.

[edit on 10/8/2009 by whatukno]

reply to post by whatukno

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The French seem to have been the most active in recent times at trying to stem this tide of piracy from Somalia. They conduct raids on land to retrieve their citizens, which is more than most other countries.

reply to post by stumason

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That would make historic sense.

I wonder if they ask to parlé with pirate leaders?

I still don't think the attack on the French ship was an accident. Pirates would love a warship. It would make storming ships that much easier.

[edit on 10/8/2009 by whatukno]

Well..sometimes you are the statue, and sometimes you are the pigeon.

Seems they picked the day to be the statue. Attacking a French warship is not the cleverest thing in the world to do now, is it?


The sterotypical anti-french rubbish is getting old though, I have to say.

Guys, the French Navy ship that they attacked yesterday is a Durance class replenishment tanker in other words it is a logistics support ship and not a surface combatant.

en.wikipedia.org...

It's only armament is a 40mm Bofors gun, 2 20mm Oerlikon cannons, 2 Browning M2 .50 machine guns, and 3 Mistral SAM launchers. And of course the small arms that would be issued to the ship's crew - rifles, pistols, light machine guns, etc. It's manned by 10 officers, 25 NCOs, and 100 ratings which is quite a lot for a logistics vessel ...

[edit on 8-10-2009 by ChrisF231]

reply to post by ChrisF231

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That is still a lot more than the pirates had lol.

They dumped their guns but I bet it was some place in the range of a few AK's and maybe 1 RPG.

reply to post by neformore

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I disagree...

They in fact were the dung. But the intent was correct.

These are people with literally nothing left to loose. This is why they choose piracy as an option. They have nothing else to fall back on. The reasons are whatever they are (I don't know) but to them, piracy is the only option they have left.

Now you have decided to become a pirate. You already are at the end of your options at this point. Your buddies (or rivals, cause honestly, piracy is an every man for himself game) have gotten huge ransoms for other targets.

Naturally people are going to want to protect their cargo. So they send warships in.

Well your already doing what you have to do in order to survive, so what other option do you have? You go after the warship.

I don't think these people are stupid enough to mistake a warship for a cargo ship. They knew what their target was. They went after it, they failed.

A warship would be a huge boon in the piracy game, any pirate captain and crew lucky enough to be able to capture one would have an enormous advantage in capturing larger prey.

I believe this was a tactical move on the pirates part that failed miserably. They wanted a warship, they failed to get one. This won't be the last warship some pirate tries to get a hold of.

When you have nothing to loose...

[edit on 9-10-2009 by SLAYER69]