Does anybody else think that it is pretty stupid that you would have a whole Supertanker of oil travelling by the Somalia coast, with NO guards on it, with all the piracy that has happened recently? Wouldn't you think that after all the ships that have been captured over the last few months, that maybe, just maybe, somebody would have hired a few mercenaries to protect a ship and cargo of that value?
On the West Coast of Africa there's much more activity (both good and bad). French, US, Cameroon all have navies in the water from time to time. We're trying to get Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria up to speed.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Saudi's just hired an army of mercenaries to kill them all. One day they are capturing ships..a few nights later a few hundred mercenaries show up in the middle of the night and make fertilizer out of them.
exactly. Attacking a US cruise ship is stupid, but at least the US will show restraint in its retaliation. I doubt the Saudi's will hold back much when their source of immense wealth is threatened.
Actually, pirates fare pretty poorly on the high seas...they spend their time in the littoral areas just off the coast, usually inside territorial waters so only the host nation has international authority to persecute with warships.