Pirates, Then and Now

The historical perspective you offered is fascinating. I think Ralph Peter's suggestion that the U.S. should not allow firms that pay off pirates to do business in-country is a bit harsh and might not catch on given current economic conditions. For more on pirates, you might be interested in America.gov's special feature package on Combating Piracy. See:

http://www.america.gov/piracy.html

while your historical perspective was indeed fascinating, your knowledge of the current situation off the Somali coast appears to unfortunately not be up to the same caliber.

One fundamental mistake you, or your sources, seem to be making is treating Somalia as homogeneous from a political perspective - it is not. A second one, which could be a consequence of the first, is buying into the Al Quaeda / Al Shabaab line of reasoning.

Most of the attacks do not come from "Somalia". They come from the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, which is, from a Somali clan perspective, a Darod area. It also happens that the current president of Puntland, who has vowed to fight piracy, comes from Eyl, the pirate capital... There is a lot of name calling in Somali politics (the favorite tactic to get western support is currently to call your enemy a pirate, or Al Quaeda, or, preferably, both), but there does seem to be a consensus as to strong politicking on the pirate's side, in the current Puntland president's favor.

Another anecdotal element is that the rapid increase of the number of attacks came into play at a time where the international community was supporting a Darod president (and former president of Puntland) in Mogadishu. Anecdotally, there was a minor political snafu with France, when it was found that the pirates that French commandos had seized were members of the western-supported president's (extended) family...

Now onto Al Quaeda. Much of the so-called Al Quaeda elements are in the south, in areas with much less pirate activity, in part for geographic reasons, but also because the support for the Islamists came from the Mogadishu business community, during their rise to power and during the Ethiopian occupation. This community has strong links in Dubai, an economical interest in keeping the shipping lanes open, and most of them are from a clan that has been traditionally opposed to the Darod. In other words : those who support the Islamist insurgency would appear to have strong incentives not to support the pirates.

One indicator that the links between the pirates and the islamist opposition are extremely limited is that there has been little if any Islamist activity in the north. A few suicide bombings, but not much else, while in the south and center, and despite the African Union contingent, American weapons and as much self-delusion as they can handle, the radical islamists de facto run the show. The islamists have sources of revenue, and do not need the piracy, at least for the time being. Most of the piracy is also hundreds of kilometers away, in areas they have absolutely no control on, and where they are unwelcome.

This is a great event to go to.

But let's talk about scuba breaks because they're more interesting than you'd think. Certainly more interesting than sewage systems!. Having said that, this is quite interesting, as is this.

I quite like Quarry stuff, websites and this.