"Stonewall" Jackson - before the war.

"Stonewall" Jackson House

Rockaway cariage

Fun with lawyers

I had a little fun the other day. Professor Volokh and several other law professors run a blog called the Volokh Conspiracy. I enjoy reading it because they have some interesting and thought provoking posts. But most of my enjoyment is derived from the comments, which range from the Right all the way to the far Left. So I put on my Liberal suit and decided to post a few responses to a post by Jonathan Adler on How to handle pirates.

Most of the responses were recommendations to shoot, invade and destroy the pirates and their sanctuaries. Since only a timid Lib was responding, suggesting that nothing be done because paying the ransom was cheaper than doing something about eradicating the pirates, I chimed in.

I am shocked by the belligerent attitude expressed by those on this thread. These so-call “pirates” have the right to live too. The very idea of not treating them with compassion, to seek the root cause of piracy and to address those root causes is the obvious answer.

And to those gunslingers who want to breach international law by arming crews with the potential loss of life that could result from gunfire by untrained people is just crazy. Do you people want the “Wild West” shootouts on the high seas? Do you realize that ships’ crews are not trained in the use of firearms? The potential liability is staggering. They would end up shooting each other, if not on board ship, then in port while drunk.

There have been suggestions of capturing and hanging these freedom fighters. I’m glad that the US congress has finally seen the light and most of the Neanderthals have been replaced by people with real compassion for the downtrodden and dispossessed. Congress will stand up for these people and demand a fair trial followed by release in the United States once acquitted since their rights have been violated by the bloody butchers who use force to re-take the ship.

Our new non-political attorney general, Eric Holder, has declined to say whether the kidnappers of the American captain will be “brought to justice” by the U.S. “I’m not sure exactly what would happen next,” he declares, yet some people want to take the law into their own hands. I thought we were a better people than that; that we had outgrown out atavistic impulses with the election of President Obama.

One of the reasons that the British Navy has declined to intervene is that under the European Human Rights Act, any so-called “pirate” taken into custody would be entitled to claim refugee status in the United Kingdom and if be able to apply for government assistance during his stay. We should take a leaf from the pages of the Europeans and calm down. These people are merely Somali nationalists fighting against the aggression of a foreign occupying power. They can’t be evil, they’re a minority.

This is all a distraction from the really important needs of this country: health care, housing, education, income redistribution. Leave the President alone.

You have to understand that many comments on this site during the Bush administration discussed the manner in which members of that administration should be prosecuted for their actions in the "war on terror." So I went all out.

A comment by Oren

What do you really think would be required to solve the problem? And what would a solution look like?

I don't see any solution that is more economical than paying the toll.

I wanted to tweak him a little:

In a world of law, resistance is futile. Relax and enjoy it. It's cheaper.

And a final note:

Oh no! The insurgents were gunned down just as the government negotiators were trying to re-establish contact after their initial negotiations broke down. How many rules of international law were broken by this lawless act by the US navy against civilians?

Oren,
It's you and me my friend against the trigger-happy, lawless militarists. We can still pay the ransom to the widows and orphans of the poor freedom fighters.

Note the deft avoidance of the term "pirate" and its replacement by other, less loaded descriptions used by the MSM: insurgent, freedom fighter, nationalist.

This is fun, I may do it again. I'm thinking of applying for a job at my local paper. I can write just like them.

How should the crew have responded?

Belmont Club:

The rules for ships are much like the rules formerly in place for planes: if captured don't resist.

According to a set of best practices for ships off Somalia as laid out by 11 international agencies including the International Maritime Bureau issued in February, when attacked by pirates a vessel should speed up, take evasive action and even turn fire hoses on their attackers. But once boarded, crews should “offer no resistance; this could lead to unnecessary violence and harm to crew.” …

The crew of the Maersk Alabama was criticized by one risk management firm:

John Wick, managing director of corporate risk management firm International Security Solutions Ltd, said the crew was very lucky. “It’s all very gung ho and it’s like watching a good movie,” he said. “But what the crew did was potentially very dangerous and could have gone very wrong.” … Wick said in general Somali pirates have treated captives well and a system is in place for ransoming captured crews.

You can only imagine the horror with which he greeted the killing of the remaining pirates and rescue of the captain.

Richard Fernandez (Wretchard) makes this observation which I believe to be very true:

My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that the fear of liability prevents the arming of merchant ships. That can be incurred in several ways. One is where a jumpy merchant crew opens fire on an innocent small boat, or what is later alleged to be an innocent small boat, for which they may be sued. Alternatively, one of the crew may be hurt in repelling boarders and he may later allege that whatever he may have contractually agreed to, he is entitled to more damages.

If your crew is largely Bangladeshi, Filipino, or such, then it is probably cheaper to let them be kidnapped and ransom them. If any should die in captivity, a few tens of thousands of dollars are typically enough to buy the silence of their destitute families. Human rights lawyers are expensive to pay off. Filipino widows are comparatively cheaper to mollify.

But if ships crews are instructed to fight, how can the "civil rights for pirates" crowd be cowed?

That’s why Fred Ikle’s suggestion that the UN forbid the payment of ransom may be a good way to go. This would put a crimp in the liability argument of the human rights people because if something is mandated by the UN, then that’s the final word in their world. Things don’t have to make sense to the politically correct ambulance chasers, but the right bit of paper can make all the difference.

US Navy Kills Civilians Just Trying To Provide for Their Families.

Impeach Obama!

Those Annoying Distractions

Life happens while you're making plans.

Mark Steyn on Obama's annoying distractions.

The Reuters headline put it this way: “Pirates Pose Annoying Distraction For Obama.”

So many distractions, aren’t there? Only a week ago, the North Korean missile test was an “annoying distraction” from Barack Obama’s call for a world without nuclear weapons and his pledge that America would lead the way in disarming. And only a couple of days earlier the president insisted Iraq was a “distraction” — from what, I forget: The cooing press coverage of Michelle’s wardrobe? No doubt when the Iranians nuke Israel, that, too, will be an unwelcome distraction from the administration’s plans for federally subsidized daycare, just as Pearl Harbor was an annoying distraction from the New Deal, and the First World War was an annoying distraction from the Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s dinner plans.
...
As it happens, Somali piracy is not a distraction, but a glimpse of the world the day after tomorrow. In my book America Alone, I quote Robert D. Kaplan referring to the lawless fringes of the map as “Indian Territory.” It’s a droll jest but a misleading one, since the very phrase presumes that the badlands will one day be brought within the bounds of the ordered world. In fact, a lot of today’s badlands were relatively ordered not so long ago, and many of them are getting badder and badder by the day. Half a century back, Somaliland was a couple of sleepy colonies, British and Italian, poor but functioning. Then it became a state, and then a failed state, and now the husk of a nation is a convenient squat from which to make mischief. According to Chatham House in London, Somali pirates made about $30 million in ransom and booty last year. Thirty mil goes a long way in Somalia, making piracy a very attractive proposition.

It’s also a low-risk one. Once upon a time we killed and captured pirates. Today, it’s all more complicated. The attorney general, Eric Holder, has declined to say whether the kidnappers of the American captain will be “brought to justice” by the U.S. “I’m not sure exactly what would happen next,” declares the chief law-enforcement official of the world’s superpower. But some things we can say for certain. Obviously, if the United States Navy hanged some eyepatched peglegged blackguard from the yardarm or made him walk the plank, pious senators would rise to denounce an America that no longer lived up to its highest ideals, and the network talking-heads would argue that Plankgate was recruiting more and more young men to the pirates’ cause, and judges would rule that pirates were entitled to the protections of the U.S. constitution and that their peglegs had to be replaced by high-tech prosthetic limbs at taxpayer expense.