There aren’t enough mental facilities to hold all the lefties that will go over the edge when President Bush takes his ‘cat that caught the canary’ smile and goes back to Tx. He has to enjoy watching the left wing democrats take the entire democrat party down the sewer.

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Looking Glass, seeing as how I didn’t write the parts that are quoted, nor did I do the chart (click the link), I wont be correcting it.

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Blaming everything on Bush is a politician’s way of suggesting that if THEY were in power, or if THEIR party were in power instead of “this administration” then things would be better. The same is true of all the BS about stories that are basically, “X is bad because of Iraq” which suggest that if the US weren’t in Iraq then X wouldn’t be bad. It’s pure politics, and people fall for it every time no matter how untrue it is.

Yeah, there’s a bigger threat to the US from Somali, Eritrean, and Yemeni pirates because the US navy is patrolling Baghdad. People’d believe that even if the excuse weren’t Iraq and it was because the US Navy had all its ships in Afghanistan.

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Ya know, I think I’m really missing out here. There MUST be something to this global warming thing, and I can see a connection…it is so obvious. My hairline is receding in direct relation to global warming!!!! Oh, my, where is my savior the Gohracle…stop global warming and I’ll lose the bald spot!!! Put Bosley out of business I say!!

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Nice post, but it should read “forced out of the pirate trade by Bush’s policies.”

The chart shows the number of pirates decreasing to the right. It’s global temperatures that are increasing.

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EagleSpeak has been following this story longer than anyone else just about.

Part of the issue is nobody seems to be able to get permission to enter Somali waters to deal with the threat.

Most of what is being troubled is UN shipments of relief supplies to Somalia.

Also the pirates are hitting passing traffic over 200 miles offshore and are capturing crews and boats for ransom along the way.

Insurance rates are jumping in the area and some are starting to form free form convoys to counter the threat.

They seem to be working from motherships with high speed launches being used against slower ships.

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There’s an international coalition of navies patrolling off the horn of Africa. They stop pirates all the time-even off Somalia. To be protected, the ships don’t have to be US flagged, but have flags of nations involved in the coalition of navies. For more information goto CENTCOM, look up more information on Operation Enduring Freedom and see the nations and navies involved.

http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom2/default.aspx
Specifically, look up OEF-HAO or CTF150 which is the 5th fleet element tasked with anti-piracy ops off the horn of Africa.

This wiki para details SOME of the nations involved nicely.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Task_Force_150

Pirates of the Caribbean, Sumatra, Persian Gulf, and elsewhere all have their own scenarios and thus different forces combating them. For example, in the Caribbean, there’s a multi-national alliance involving the US, South and Central American countries, and more. Off Sumatra there’s multiple navies involved since it takes place near several nations (this is the least coordinated area of anti-piracy ops, the most dangerous choke point for trade, and a serious problem, but it has nothing to do with OIF).

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There are pirates in Indonesia which are preying on the global trade. The pirates in both locations are not seafaring pirates on large ships. They are on small fishing (their main trade) boats which stay fairly close to shore. One of the tricks used is to head out to “open water” where the small boats can’t go (they wouldn’t have the fuel to get back to shore and also the larger waves would swamp their boats). Many large cargo and fuel ships have very small crews themselves, which is why these pirates can be so dangerous.

Also most of the cargo ships entering those waters are not U.S. flagged ships, so those ships need to be protected by the navy where the ship was flagged.

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That’s such BS that the US is “bogged down” doing naval ops in the Persian Gulf. The Red Sea, Arabian Sea, and Horn of Africa area as well as the W Indian Ocean have seen an unprecedented spike in US and allied naval ops post 911. It’s the place where our allies (yes, even Germany and France) are most eager and involved. In fact, the US has been stopping pirates there bigtime, and if the rise in reported pirate attacks is due to anything its that shipping can now transit the area and survive to report the attacks. What absolute crap.

Yeah, invading Iraq has destroyed the world blah blah blah. Heard it a thousand times before going on for years now, and guess what…we’re still here. Life goes on.

BDS, classic. Reminds me of the one article in the Washington Post where anti-war protesters said they’d been spied on by the CIA using remote controlled UAVs in the shape and size of dragonflies. Post article even had pics and quotes from the anti-war protesters. Aside from the obvious problem of watching waaaaaaaaay too many XFile re-runs, this dragonfly spy camera bit, and the kneejerk reaction to blame pirating on the Bush Admin both (along with limitless other examples) show beyond a doubt that millions of Americans have been so misled and terrorized by the left into believing that George W Bush is an ubermastermind of secret society power and manipulation that they are now afraid…of bugs. Hurricane coming? Bush’s fault. 4 Hurricans in one years? Bush’s fault. Randi Rhodes gets drunk and falls down? Bush’s fault.

These people need to stop being so paranoid, and get the courage to ask the leaders who’ve been saying “BUSH LIED-it’s all for oil and Haliburton” and ask those same people (those same people who lied about a New Direction in Iraq, about getting rid of earmarks, etc), ask them…why’d THEY lie, and how much have they lied about?

Nah, easier to be terrified of CIA robot dragonflies and Eritrean pirates, right?

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