As I mentioned in my article “The Taj Mahal Hotel,” I once sailed commercially. On the same trip that carried me to India back in 1993, my ship also made a stop in Djibouti. Djibouti is a small nation bordering Somalia, and at the time of my trip, the civil war in Somalia was spinning out of control. U.S. Forces were deployed with United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM).
Due to the war, our ship was not able to dock in Djibouti. Fortunately, the vessel that I was on was called a LASH – Lighter Aboard Ship. This vessel carried barges rather than containers (as with the Maersk Alabama), so we could off-load our items at sea. Within a days time, our cargo was being towed ashore and we were on our way to India.
While we often talked about modern day pirates, the threat was never a serious concern for us. It wasn’t that our vessel was too fast or we were heavily armed, but rather that it rarely ever happened to large commercial vessels. This has definitely changed over the past 16 years.
The Maersk Alabama, an U.S. Flagged vessel, was taken over by pirates on Sunday with little resistance. From the reports that we’ve received, the crew attempted to deter the pirates before they boarded the ship. The Captain ordered the crew to disable the ship and lock themselves in their rooms to avoid capture. After the pirates took over the vessel, the crew exited their rooms and overpowered the pirates. However, the pirates escaped using one of the lifeboats, taking the Captain with him. The boat is currently out of gas, and an U.S. Destroyer is keeping watch on the pirates while trying to rescue the Captain.
It is my hope that the Captain is returned safely and the pirates are brought to justice.
UPDATE: Reports indicate that Captain Richard Phillips was freed this morning.
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One can only hope that Obama orders that these pirates be hit HARD in order to discourage them from EVER messing with another U.S. flagged ship. The only things these animals understand is money, power, and death. Let’s hope we can make them taste the last two items on that list.
I will give Obama credit here with giving the Navy the option to take out the pirates. While we can question if this will escalate the violence, especially towards the 200+ sailors already being held hostage by the pirates, there didn’t seem to be any other solution to this problem of than giving in to the demands of the pirates.