Encouraging Kidnapping

The American Government does not officially pay ransoms to kidnappers. But they go wink, wink and let the insurance companies pay. Essentially the insurance companies are setting foreign policy. And from the standpoint of the insurance guys, a ransom of several million dollars is really quite cheap compared with the value of a ship and its cargo which may be insured for several hundred million dollars. Oh, yes, and there are the lives of the crew members to think about also.

So to make the insurance lobby happy, and to keep their large campaign contributions coming, we let them continue paying off these criminals. The whole thing really is so easy that it is a kind of free money. Just capture a ship and you become an instant millionaire.

In the latest incident an American cargo ship got away but not before the pirates fired rocket propelled grenades at it. In the past wars have started over an incident like this. Freedom of the seas used to mean something.

One of the complications is that recent reports suggest much of this money being paid to the pirates and kidnappers is being used to help fund groups which hate the west and all that it stands for, such as the Taliban.

The American military should be given instructions to treat these pirates like they are at war with America. Because they are. Sink their ships and let the criminal bastards drown and get eaten by the sharks.

Even with this the American Navy is not big enough to effectively deal with this problem, so another approach would be to make it illegal for insurance companies to pay off criminals by paying ransom money. Any insurance company which does engage in these payoffs to criminals outside of America would have all of its assets in America seized, and would also be prohibited from doing any kind of business in America.

If it is your child or husband who is kidnapped this would be a hard pill to swallow. But this sort of tough approach is the only way to get this piracy situation under control.
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