The BBC hosts one for Somali pirates who killed four unarmed American mariners:
Somali pirates face hell in US prison system
Two Somali pirates are expected to be sentenced to life in US prison on Monday, joining nine others who have just begun long sentences for their roles in hijacking attempts. What’s in store for them as they enter the alien, unforgiving world of the American jail system?
Federal prison is a frightening, perilous environment of intrigue, violent gangs, terrible food and severe isolation, even for the most hardened criminal.
For men from a faraway land with little or no English-language skills and no prior familiarity with American culture, it will be especially hard, say lawyers for the men, and experts in psychology and the criminal justice system.
Seven Somali men have already been sentenced to life in prison and two more to three-decade terms for their roles in hijackings of US-flagged ships. All the Somalis were brought to the US after their capture by the US Navy.
On Monday morning, Muhidin Salad Omar was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to his part in the hijacking in February of the yacht S/V Quest, in which pirates shot to death four American sailors.
Neither Jean and Scott Adams of Marina del Rey, CA, nor Phyllis Macay and Robert Riggle of Seattle, WA could be reached for comment.
“Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances.”
“hell in the US prison system” will likely mean better food, better sleeping quarters, better medical care, and better clothing than they have ever had before.
You’re right, Joe in N. Calif. Those folks from Guantanamo who were “relocated” by Eric Holder and his merry band to a pretty little “cottage” in Bermuda still can’t believe their luck. They’ve even got their own swimming pool. If they could read English they might endorse Milton’s quote from Paradise Lost about it being better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
Wrong.
Marianne
We should just execute them. End of problem.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaah! The cruel people on this blog. Just no compassion for those poor misunderstood Somalis just trying to make a living.
Hang the SOBs (The poor misunderstood Somalis, that is). JNC and Marianne are correct. And it ain’t right. Plait a rope of pig skin and hang ‘em higher than Haman, sez I.
I posted this on a different forum (Cowboy Action Shooting) and one comment was that the treatment is cruel and unusual punishment, bordering on torture. More humane to just put them out of their misery.
More logical to put them out of OUR misery, I’d think.
Your thinking is as warped as mine. And I agree with you 110%.
Yep – should have just made them “swim for it” after capture…catch and release.
Of course, I would have put chum in the water with them to hasten the end of their suffering…
There are enough Oceanic Whitetips in the Indian Ocean that chumming would not be neccessary.
No, we need to put them out of OUR MISERY.
ROE for the US Navy in that God forsaken area of the ocean should be as follows:
1. If any indiginous craft is found to be more than 2 miles off shore and containing weapons, ladders, grappling gear or any other equipment that would suggest boarding is the only function of the ship, the vessel will be scuttled and occupants imprisoned IF and only if they surrender on first warning.
2. Any vessel that refuses the first warning to heave to and surrender will be treated as a direct threat to free passage of maritime craft and sunk. Occupants included.
Once the boats start leaving shore and never being heard from again, one would hope these idjits will have basic common sense and stop going out to sea for piracy.
If not, send them to Davy Jones’ locker.
+1
+2 & I should have read ‘em all first, heh.
+3. The only problem is Davy Jones might not want ‘em either.
That’s Davy’s problem, not ours.
I’d allow the ship small arms if they were also engaged in actual fishing and was absent boarding equipment. I wouldn’t want to be out there for any legitimate reasons without the means to defend myself.
This is the only thought I’ve ever had about this problem. Gonna be at least a year and change before it becomes possible of course.
A few Q-ships could help eliminate some of the problem. So would allowing M/Vs to mount some 40mm bow and stern chasers.
Or at least some pivot mounted 24 pounder carronades.
The traditional and only proper punishmnet for pirates is being hung from the nearest yardarm.
Return to that policy immediately!
F n A.
Sniff, sniff, boo-hoo.
I hope the are cute.
Another issue that’ll not affect my sleep.
It affects mine! At $100/day to keep a felon in prison? With OUR deficit?
Hanging. It’s the economical option.
cardoso lives in Brazil and doesn’t worry about our taxes. Other than supporting them in a style to which they would like to become accustomed (and will, like it or not) it won’t affect my sleep either.
I prefer the hanging option as well, however.
Somalia?
A US prison is a step up.
I submit that the sea lanes were much safer when the Royal (and U.S.) Navy’s policy toward pirates was a swift and fair trial followed immediately by the miscreant dancing the Newgate Hornpipe.
This terminal belly-aching from a country whose penal system releases child murderers, gives them new identities because their crime was so heinous and pays for their livings for the rest of their lives.
The old revenue cutter service believed in hanging pirates. We should return to that policy.
I got some spare screwdrivers. Tool rack walking.
No, but those of us who knew Phyllis and Bob can speak volumes for them. We’d mostly start with “Shoot the bastards post haste.” We miss our friends dearly.
THIS is how far down the slope we’ve fallen. A culture and society that burdens it’s citizenry with the expense of locking up, for life, foreign nationals who have been convicted of piracy on the high seas…it indicates a pervasive and insidious cultural self loathing. We have forsaken common sense and justice to the gods (read: devils) of P/C and tolerance. A sane, intact, properly functioning culture would not even blink it’s eye at a trial at sea aboard the arresting US Naval vessel and a quick and lethal punishment.
My great fear is that my 7 year old son will not know the Republic we loved and let slip away from us. I tremble to think that it may be past any chance of rescue short of Mr. Jefferson’s remedy for the Tree of Liberty…and I fear the men and women of virtue and honor, courage and duty, may be too vastly outnumbered to even mete out that remedy.
Checks meter.
Nope, still reading low.
Some people simply can’t admit that evil exists, for their world would suddenly disappear – never to be seen again. Can’t have that.
The BBC has some nerve to talk about “terrible food”. Have they seen British food lately?
As for the rest, mouldering corpses hanging from gibbets in the ports and harbors all along the Horn would be far preferable to US taxpayers footing the bill for these pirates.
But then, I am not in the liberal elite, so what could I know?
The Plank. Simple, durable, economical, minimum capital investment. Install right next to the garbage chute, use immediately after mess deck evening clean up. The sharks will learn and spread the word.
The Yuma (Arizona) Territorial Prison, regrettably, is closed. Tent City, Maricopa
County, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Proprietor (The Vacancy sign is always lit)is for short sentences. The county spends more per daily ration for the guard dogs than for the inmates, ave evening temp 108 May-Sep this year. The whole pink underwear under big horizontal pinstripes thing will (culturally speaking) will be lost on them. Yep, The Plank.
The Yuma (Arizona) Territorial Prison, regrettably, is closed. Tent City, Maricopa
County, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Proprietor (The Vacancy sign is always lit)is for short sentences. The county spends more per daily ration for the guard dogs than for the inmates, ave evening temp 108 May-Sep this year. The whole pink underwear under big horizontal pinstripes thing will (culturally speaking) will be lost on them. Yep, The Plank.
About the Russian solution:
Some sloppy gunnery here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDmdtcyDVlg&feature=related
That’s better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdGHzxGZ_Ag
By the way, Somali Coast Guards boat has the same meaning as pirate vessel.
Seems the Germans have caught up with some Somali pirates
I like this part:
My emphasis, as I noted that a) the boats were destroyed and b) the men were released close to shore. So I wonder – were they released “close to shore” without a boat and told to swim for it?
Piracy: an exciting lucrative job, but the retirement plan sucks. I think feet first is in every single description.
“Federal prison is a frightening, perilous environment of intrigue, violent gangs, terrible food and severe isolation, even for the most hardened criminal.”
True, and it costs the taxpayers a significant chunk of change to provide this sort of luxury. Maybe instead we could just send them to Detroit?
– Max
Maybe instead we could just send them to Detroit?
Now THAT would be ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’
They would end up in Dearbornistan and be right at home. That wouldn’t be punishment at all.
No offense, England, but you’re one step away from full blown sharia law…John Bull is now John Steer. So I hope you’ll understand it if we say, “Piss off”.
Please don’t judge Englanders by this sad ducks (sic) article. I am hoping my `counter piece` to the Beeb will get published later today. I toned down the title to give it a better chance of passing the sub editors: “How many Somali pirates, lined up, does it take to stop a .50cal AP round”.
(Have been absent, with leave, due to house move, so I may take a while to get up to speed – I’m in Norfolk now. had to set my watch back 20 years to fit in)
Set yer watch back? From the swingin’ Eastern Ride of Yorkshire?
@Zane: You have clearly got the gist of the local vagaries of England! North Yorkshire was pretty darn up to speed by comparison to my new `hood! The local town still has half-day closing on Thursdays – and there are no traffic lights or pedestrian crossings either – and parking is still free, true!!
Hey Hogday,
Love to have you and yours over for a meal. We make a mean American B-B-Q. We live in Va
Bch, one block from the ocean.
Timdog1650@yahoo.com.
Anytime…
babs
Dear Babs, you are a gem! Sadly, the Norfolk I’ve moved to is the English County, aka East Anglia, former home of many a USAAF bomber and latterly USAF kit. Would love to join you, but its a heck of a ride from here. Next year maybe?
Well, if life in the (relative) lap of luxury of a US prison system is so terrible, we can always do what I’ve thought we should be doing with pirates all along: skip all that middle part, and keel haul them as we catch them (a somewhat longer ride than in Walt Raleigh’s day), then leave them to fend for themselves in the sea in which they were caught–without flotation device of any sort.
Still a better chance then they give their murder victims.
Eric Hines
Now, now, they’re young and don’t even shave, and they’ve already been pretrained in the service skills. I’m sure someone in the prisons will take them under their wing.
“a frightening, perilous environment of intrigue, violent gangs, terrible food and severe isolation…”
They’re being sent to high school?
“They’re being sent to high school?”
The Emigrant wins the thread HANDS DOWN!!
Emigrant, coffee spew ensued! Well played Sir!
This place needs a keyboard replacement fund. Winners of threads should be required to contribute.
Hogday, Zane/
“…had to set my watch back 20 years to fit in.”
LOL. When stationed in Suffolk at RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge in 69-71 I occasionally dated the young daughter (she: 19, me: 25, the parents were highly dubious at best. I met her when she was up in Woodbridge from London visiting a friend of her’s who was the daughter of the then Clerk of Court–a high position in the UK–of Ipswitch. Her father told me,: “I’d have never allowed you to date my daughter not knowing you, but since you are a friend of Sir Peter’s, that’s enough for me.” LOL, little did he know I was but a nodding acquaintance only because Sir Peter kept bringing his daughter to all the social functions at the base hoping to marry her off!) of a high-powered BBC TV producer whose wife was a Barrister and who lived in one of the more “fashionable” areas (to say the least) of London. During conversation over drinks one night at their home he leaned forward and said to me: “You should realize that Suffolk is the only place left that still looks like the England of 30 years ago” (i.e., late 30s, early 40s–LOL!!)
Emigrant:-)
Gag me! Besides I thought it was hosptials that had such horrible food … shouldn’t prison food be good in comparison?!
Where is your compassion??? I’d let them go home….if they could swim that far…..heh