Criminals Wanted

No doubt about it. In the 21st century piracy is reborn and growing into such a widespread problem that piracy has actually become a real threat to international trade. Today’s pirates are real, armed to the tits and they will rob you blind without thinking twice about it. They are greedy, desperate and willing to die for the chance at a ransom. On the other hand they have little interest in hurting you because fanatical ideologues they are not. In the rapidly growing world of maritime piracy today’s elite pirates come from Somalia. In Somalia piracy is an industry and a way of life. In this part of the world piracy is supporting the last ditch hopes of an impoverished people and they are making a real go of it.

Battling even an average pirate is no easy task. And Battling Somalia’s booming pirate industry is a task requiring the best international efforts. One of the obstacles working against those trying to bring this problem under control is that pirates lack a proper classification under international law. They are not war criminals so they should not traditionally be dealt with by a military presence. But no adequate civilian naval presence exists. Furthermore, if a criminal pirate gang is captured in international waters, who is responsible for prosecuting the offenders? Should the arresting nation be responsible? Should the nation where the attacked vessel is registered take charge? Or should the criminals be handed back to the country from which they came? These are all legal issues waiting to be resolved because at the moment no international treaty exists and no properly organized international force is in place to protect international trade routes. As a result piracy is now big business and maritime transport is in jeopardy.

So what is being done? As recently as 1992 there was no organization set up specifically to deal with piracy. But with threats steadily rising since the early 1970’s the International Maritime Bureau finally stepped in and created its IMB Piracy Reporting Centre. The problem is that the IMB is not a response service. The IMB is only a reporting service. And as useful a service as it may be to seafarers in the event of an attack the IMB is not going to help you. The best it can do is report the incident to an authority (which one is anyone’s guess) and hope for the best. But it is a step in the right direction.

Another organization  tied to battling the problem of Maritime Piracy is the Combined Task Force 150 which boasts an excellent name but is still woefully inadequate to tackle the scale of the current problem. If Task Force 150 was restricted to the waters off Somalia’s coast it is doubtful if even this response would be enough. The real problem exists on shore. In the specific sense the conditions of Somalia itself need to be addressed and a stable government put in place. In the general sense Forces like 150 need the legal authority and mandate to counter the problem effectively. Until an International agreement is in place with law and force behind it pirate attacks will to continue to rise.

Somalia’s pirate industry is born from the kind of human desperation that comes from government corruption and absolute poverty. A good old fashioned civil war helps as well. You basically need to create a condition of perfect human misery for a population of people living near the sea and chances are they will turn to piracy. If drug, diamond and slave trading are not an option piracy may be the perfect choice. Somalia has established these conditions better than anywhere else in the world and as result the Somali pirate industry is the Ipod of pirating. They do it better than anyone else.  In fact, they do it so well that Somalia’s pirate industry is no longer just a small gang of armed thugs in speed boats. In the 21st century Somalia’s pirates are well organized, well armed and well focused with an onshore support system and an entire population devoted to sustaining this network of criminal activity.

Now let’s look at some recent success stories. Recently Somali pirates hijacked the Sirius Star (pictured above), a Saudi oil tanker which measures out longer than an aircraft carrier. We’ve all heard the news. The hijacking went off without a hitch and at the time of writing the Star is anchored off the coast of Harardhere. Consider that it takes more than just a few thugs with machine guns to take control of such a vessel. In a case like this armed force is the smallest of logistical concerns. What is important is having a team in place that can pilot such a massive tanker without running aground. If you kill the Captain who is going to make this thing move? It takes organizational skills that go way beyond the abilities of armed thugs. This is the result of very well trained and well financed crime syndicate.

In another audacious example of Somalia’s pirate capabilities the Ukrainian ship MV Faina, holding 33 Russian-designed T-72 tanks, was hijacked. The vessel and its cargo are, at the time of writing, still in possession of the pirates despite a strong international military presence that is monitoring closely to make sure the weapons don’t fall into the wrong hands. And there are only the cases that were notorious enough to grab the attention of the international press. Imagine the thousands of smaller vessels hijacked on a daily basis. Pirates are not just after cargo ships. They will take down a pleasure craft too if they think the chance at a modest score is reasonable.

And yet the thing we need to consider is that pirates are not interested in old Soviet military hardware and they are certainly not interested in the oil aboard the Sirius Star. The pirates are after cash, loot and ransom and nothing else. They have no interest in harming captives and, in fact, rarely do. They have no misguided ideologies, no mission from god and don’t care if the world insults their sensibilities. They want cash and they want it now and as much of a nuisance as they are greed is something that we, in the Western world, would be hypocrites to pretend we don’t understand. All of this is what makes the industry profitable. In most cases ship owners are willing to pay a ransom to get the cargo back while the pirates are more than willing to do so if the ransom is paid. Add to the fact that news headlines are unable to include hostage killings and you start to understand why the industry of pirating has gone relatively unnoticed for so long.

If all this makes you think that pirating might be a good business to get into think again. Remember that these pirates come from some of the most desperate human populations on earth. You can be absolutely sure that for every man getting rich there are a few thousand underneath him taking the big risks and still only managing to scrape a meager living. Plus you don’t want to land yourself in a Somali prison. Because if you do happen to get captured pirating, there is a good chance you will land yourself in a place you really do not want to be. And the cold, hard facts of that reality, is that you would rather be blown up by whatever nation’s warship happened to be the one to intervene. A Somali prison is a death sentence for anyone reading this article.

But if the living quarters in the images above look like something you could survive for more than 30 seconds by all means go try your hand in Somalia’s thriving pirate industry. If you think you’re coming out alive, though, think again. There are dark places in this world that you don’t want to be a part of and you can bet that Somalia’s prison system is one of the darkest. Remember, if you are apprehended by ANY authority whatsoever during a pirate endeavor they can pretty much do whatever they like with you. There is no legal process set up for dealing with you and you essentially have no rights whatsoever. If you’re caught you’re rolling the dice with your life and that’s it. Pirating, particularly off the coast of Somalia is dangerous business.

Yet the danger is still not enough of a deterrent for the thousands upon thousand of people attempting to pirate worldwide. Where there are riches to be had and people desperate enough to go after them you can bet that they will. At the moment Somalia happens to be leading the charge and they are getting very good at what they do. Seizing a supertanker full of Saudi oil and getting away with it is no small feat and even James Bond would have trouble stealing a fleet of Russian T-72 tanks. It is also no small feat to stare down the barrel of a Task 150 Warship without flinching. It is a shame that diplomatic solutions are not a viable answer to such problems. Piracy is a crime and international as stipulated originally by Hugot Grotius allows for private navies to defend themselves for deeds that would cause a Canadian criminal background here at home but such acts go unpunished now.

In the 21^st century Somali pirates are a naval force to be reckoned with.

The International Criminal Court’s primary objective is to try those who have been indicted for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The court is based on a treaty signed by 106 countries including such powerhouses as Zambia, Latvia and Djibouti. The United States has never ratified the treaty that would enter it into the ICC. The core of international humanitarian law is the Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention has been accepted by 194 States across the globe, with what can be considered universal acceptance. There are parts of the Geneva Convention that date back as far as 1863 when the red cross held a conference in the city with hopes of making war more civil. Now if a civilized war seems like an oxymoron to you then you’re probably right: while characteristics of old style warfare like large scale massacres and depopulation are gone, we can now see with awful clarity a cruise missile or a predator drone destroying a wedding party.

There has been a great deal of speculation lately as to whether President George Walker Bush Jr. will ever be tried for crimes against humanity when he steps down from office. A large number of people across the globe would love to see him on trial for the massive cluster fuck he brought down on the Middle East, the reaming he gave to the global economy, the number of politically-based manipulations of the media (not to mention wiretapping, Enron, stock manipulation, New Orleans, FISA, and Guantanamo). That an administration in the United States violated the Nuremberg principles is a sign of a truly dark time. Yet still, George Bush Jr. is not a war criminal, just the worst US president to ever stand in office.

Would the current administration ever face trial? Most likely not. As much as people despise the current President, it is unlikely that he will ever be held accountable for his actions and his policies. With roughly four months left in the Bush Jr. Presidency, it is important to examine the criteria required to be tried, as well as the role of the ICC, the UN, and some of the conventions in greater detail.

According to the ICC, genocide has five criteria. “Genocide by deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction” is the one seemingly applicable to the war in Iraq. Article 6c of the elements of crime prosecutable by the ICC explains the conditions by which this would constitute genocide. Part 3 of Article 6C is where things become difficult and why the Bush administration could avoid conviction. Part 3 states that “The perpetrator intended to destroy, in whole or in part, that national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” Unless people can prove that Bush and his administration intended to create an environment where a large groups in the population would kill each other, Bush can walk away.

Proving intent is the often most difficult aspect of any trial. Motive means nothing in the criminal justice world. Intent is the big one. Did Bush intend to create a situation in the Middle East where thousands upon thousands of people have died? It is rather obvious what the intents were of the Bush administration. They wanted oil and good times. The whole human cost thing was rather secondary. Long term thinking does not seem like one of the strong suits of the Bush administration. After all, these are the same people who didn’t think that global warming was a potential threat or that petroleum speculation, large-scale debt purchasing and investing could have negative effects on the American economy. Obviously the intent to cause harm is not in the Bush administration. What they intend to do is make as much money as possible for their friends while in office and gradually screw over anyone who stands in their way of making more money.

In 1968, the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity banned the use of mercenaries in conflicts and stripped mercenaries of their combatant status. Since 2003, Blackwater Security Consulting LLC has been on an official government payroll. In reports published by Congress’ official accountability office, the GAO, Blackwater received nearly $11 million dollars from the government. Three years later the official amount paid was $24 million. All this was for security consulting. There are an estimated 48,000 private military contractors currently operating in Iraq. Wouldn’t people feel that having an unmonitored, unregulated, and unaccountable military force operating in a combat zone is a bad thing?  There are dozens of private security firms operating in Iraq. The US army core of engineers is protected by a British private security firm. That specific firm that is operating in Iraq has estimated that they have killed about seventy insurgents while losing about three men.

The United States has lost 4,124 military personnel since 2003. The total number of injured or wounded personnel is officially at 30,435. The documented amount of civilians directly killed by violent acts perpetrated in Iraq is between 86,000 and 94,000. The total number is off because the bodies are pilling up so quickly that it is becoming difficult to accurately measure the complete number of deaths and their causes. Unfortunately, an “accurate” figure of the number of deaths that have resulted from non-violent acts (e.g. improper storage of food, lack of medicine, ruined infrastructure, exposure, etc.) is still missing and the total number of dead Iraqis at this point is immeasurable. There are estimates, though. Lancet estimates that six hundred thousand have died from the invasion alone. The British based Opinion Research Business has calculated that about 1.2 million have died. This number is based on the percentages of the population that it has been tracking, and calculated by the amount of adults who have lost a family member since the invasion.

One million two hundred thousand dead is a massive part of a population. That’s a rate of 240,000 people dying in Iraq each year. The kill ratio (the term used for the number of killed enemies per dead US combatant) was about 40/1. In Iraq that number is 290/1. That means for every dead US soldier in Iraq there are 290 dead Iraqis. In July of 2007, the Iraqi population was about 27.5 million, according to the CIA. It is quite obvious that America will not be in Iraq for a century since it would take 114 years to deplete the country of its population in entirety. Remember: this is not directly genocide. Most of those who have been killed in Iraq have been killed by other Iraqis and US employed mercenaries, and so do not count towards the number of US military casualties. Only when the last Iraqi is killed can we bring back the mission accomplished banner.

As Navy medic Timothy Bryan said about border entry by the US into Iraq, “we aint liberated shit, this country was fucked before and is fucked now.” Bush was a fuck-up seven years ago and is an incredible fuck-up now. Along with cronies in the Republican party, this president has fouled up much of the Middle East, destroyed the the economy, polarized the American population, and incurred the wrath of the entire world upon the USA. The most effective analogy of the Bush administration would be that of a hurricane smashing through an unprotected coastal city. This has happened twice now under Bush and amazingly both events have been mishandled. What makes even less sense is that Bush Jr. has been one of the best presidents when it has come to terms with relations with Africa. More federal aid has been given for African relief projects than under any other president. How is it a man who has strived so hard to help feed, house, innoculate and care for Africans can be absolutely incapable of effectively running relief efforts in his own country?

Thomas Aquinas theorized on the possibility of a “just war.” It is evident though that sometimes a war begun with noble intentions is rendered unjust by the manner in which it is fought. This becomes that much more complicated when the opening salvo is a bombing of a shopping centre, the killing of women and children or the crashing of passenger planes into skyscrapers. When there are no rules of how the conflict can be waged between the combatants, what are the effects on the civilian population? At this point we begin to see the true rationale behind terror campaigns, and the devastating consqeuences for the civilians of warring nations. Many will point to how, in times of conflict, various leaders have changed or broken the laws of their country in order to protect their people. Can there be such a thing as a “just war” if there are no longer any rules? Or are we back to that old and depressing tenet of realism - might makes right?