

Investing in Pirates - huangm
http://www.reuters.com/article/africaCrisis/idUSGEE5AS0EV

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pg
"'I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for
the operation,' she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband
in alimony."

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yardie
I can't imagine how you go about getting a divorce in a country with no gov't
and thus no court. Do you draw a line in the sand and say everything on this
side is mine?

~~~
DrJokepu
Large parts of Somalia are governed by local Muslim groups. While divorce is
not common in Islam and is generally condemned, it is possible in certain
circumstances none the less. I imagine that the local religious leader can
arrange a divorce, according to the Shari'ah.

~~~
Evgeny
The triple talaq is a mechanism for divorce which exists in some forms of
Islam. It simply consists of the husband saying the phrase I divorce you
(Arabic:talaq) to the wife, three times.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_talaq>

I definitely like the idea.

~~~
DrJokepu
The "triple talaq" is not as simple as just saying "talaq, talaq, talaq".
First, it is generally condemned. Second, there must be a month between each
"talaq", so the whole procedure takes up at least two months. For more info,
see <http://www.religioustolerance.org/mohd.htm>

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daeken
What I don't understand about investing in criminal activities is what's
stopping them from taking the money and running. It seems to me that once
you've done one job, you'll have plenty of money to continue your activities.
Is it that other pirates will come after you, or is there just an insane
amount of overhead that I don't see?

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fwez
I say let anarchy in Somalia run it's course. Notarized contracts will need to
be drawn. A system of jurisprudence will need to be set up to enforce them.
Pretty soon they will arrive to a social contract with a state (or something
resembling a state backed by the big fish in that pond).

~~~
DrJokepu
Don't be so naive. A "social contract" can only exist if there's a large
enough middle class, which is something Somalia (and East Africa in general)
lacks. Unfortunately a more likely outcome will be the emergence of a few
local warlords and a particularly bloody tribal war and a total humanitarian
disaster.

Don't forget that things have changed since the creation of "social contracts"
in modern Western nations; genocide is a lot cheaper and simpler to execute
than it used to be. These days all you need is to put four men equipped with
cheap Russian-made machine guns into a jeep and they will exterminate a dozen
villages in the course of an afternoon without breaking a sweat.

~~~
fwez
I stand corrected. I failed to take into account the effectiveness and
efficiency of modern weapons. They assign disproportionate power to the top of
the thugocracy (Saddam Hussein being an extreme example). Such a thugocracy
can propagate itself brutally, suppressing the trickling down of wealth and
development.

The question that follows (and that I honestly don't know the answer to) is
whether the invention of modern weapons was a historical tipping point that
obliterated previous routes of national economic development. What if
mechanized warfare had been invented before the rise of the West by a non-
Western civilization and transferred (via trade) to the medieval European
feudal lords. Would they have allowed the rise of the middle class in the West
the way it did?

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or
religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.
Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do" -- Samuel
Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, p. 51.

~~~
DrJokepu
Hard to tell. If you ask me, I think that if the invention of modern warfare
happened before the Thirty Year's War and the subsequent Peace of Westphalia
(which created the modern West as we know it) then the Thirt Year's war would
have been a lot bloodier and more violent, not unlike the current tribal wars
in Africa but on the scale of the World Wars. Eventually someone would have
won it but the West would have became a lot weaker than it is (due to the
destruction and death toll), making the world a lot more multipolar.

This is, of course, worthless crystal ball history, but that's my two cents.

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kevingadd
Thus far, it seems like most of this piracy has affected commercial shipping
and civilian vessels. It seems likely that eventually, somebody is going to
hijack the wrong boat and the owners will turn out to be willing to retaliate
with excessive force, at which point innocent bystanders - for example, anyone
else living in Haradheere - will get dragged into the conflict and lose their
lives as a result.

~~~
defen
> somebody is going to hijack the wrong boat and the owners will turn out to
> be willing to retaliate with excessive force

It's been known to happen:
[http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/l...](http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/lives/caesar*.html#2)

~~~
onoj
I talked with a shipping guy a while ago - they are used to paying "fines" of
25K up just to pass through. He also said that they never arm the ships - it
would just lead to escalation and he did not want his crews harmed.

