Sunday 26 April 2009

Amazing new strategy to beat Somali pirates

It seems someone's come up with a great idea for preventing pirates from seizing your ship: you fire back. Of course, a little preparation is necessary, you have to actually have some weapons on board to begin with.

You don't need to be Einstein or Sherlock Holmes really, do you? It's common fucking sense.

6 comments:

alison said...

Israeli security guards. Kick ass too. They'd be boo'ed and spat on over here in our anti police anti anyone with authority eunuchverse. We like letting officers into the City to go up against environmentally retarded pirates armed with nothing more than a metal baton. Someone gets twatted and we have to call in nursey. In fact had that been a British ship and those were British ex army security officers this would headline news with the British media stacked firmly against.

Trooper Thompson said...

The situations are not comparable.

Demonstrators in London do not carry AK47s and RPGs.

alison said...

They could easily carry any kind of weapon. We saw enough police bleeding from head wounds. Our police force don't. But then this is the eunuchverse we live in here.

Trooper Thompson said...

You're grossly exaggerating. Surely violence is wrong from protesters and police alike? It is possible to disapprove of rioting and also criticise police tactics in the recent protests, such as 'kettling' which is an infringement of citizens' rights, and bound to lead to trouble and confrontation.

Only a small minority of demonstrators go with the intention of engaging in criminal acts, and indeed there are many examples where they have been found to be agents provocateurs. Policing such events is certainly difficult, and when trouble flares it is almost inevitable that innocent people will get caught up, but once you give the police carte blanche to crack whatever heads they choose - which seems to be your attitude- you are heading in the wrong direction.

I think it's clear that demonstrations in this country are generally much more peaceful than in other European countries, but if you prevent peaceful protest, then you virtually guarantee violence. Do you really want water cannon, teargas, rubber bullets etc to be turned on protesters?

It's a long time since I went on a demonstration, but when last I did, the trouble was started by the police deciding to clear the area at a time when everyone was getting ready to go anyway. You have to take into account human nature, and if you're in a crowd that is attacked, then you react as a crowd, and if the police lash out indiscriminately, unless you're from the 'eunochverse', you will fight back - as is your right. Self-defence is the most basic of rights, and that applies if you are attacked by a dog, a criminal or a policeman.

alison said...

Where was the exaggeration? The bloodied and beaten officers were on TV.

They weren't protests they were full on riots and the demonstrators went there with full intent.

We cannot simply expect unarmed officers to go up against people intent on destruction to stand there and do nothing. They have a duty to protect the city and property. Those protestors were utterly utterly disgusting.

When you suggest kettling is incorrect you fail to take into account that we are the ONLY police force in the world that does not use baton rounds, tear gas, water canons or bullits to disperse rioting crowds. Other police forces around the world look on at the British in utter disbelief. Noone would send men in to those situations and expect them to maintain a calm outlook in fear for their lives. Some of the officers commented on Inspector Gadget. Disgusting what they were thrown into by those wanker rioters.

They go in with padding and a metal baton.

In 2001 in Italy when fighting broke out at the G20, as usual, the police fired baton rounds into the air and a protestor died when a bullit was deflected. Not even half the shitstorm that was cooked up over that jerk Tomlinson, who was also there, not on his way home as alleged but expressly to cause problems, hit their papers.

And yet we trawl our officers through a trial by media that is not only outrageous for that fact alone but used immediately to discuss new police tactics. Out of those I hope we DO ditch kettling and get baton rounds tear gas and plastic bullits. You get the policing you deserve.

It disgusts me the way we don't even know what we want from our police force and then condemn them without mercy.

An (armed) officer died last weekend from a gunshot wound to the head in London trying to attend to an armed robbery. Noone gave a shit about it. A family man with kids doing his job to the best of his ability. Dead.

The only place they know how to treat police offocers with respect is in America. They extend the men a modicum of understanding for the job they do while squaring that with the potential for rigue officers. When those men died in San Francisco, gunned down in cold blood by yet more jerks with full access to automatic weapons, the country went into mourning.

Who's mouring that London officer.

Noone

Trooper Thompson said...

"Where was the exaggeration?"

The exaggeration is bracketing rioters with pirates, the latter armed with assault rifles and RPGs.

"They weren't protests they were full on riots and the demonstrators went there with full intent."

Some of them broke a few windows. End of. The majority of protesters were not violent. If you are going to say that as soon as anyone in a crowd commits an act of violence, then everyone in the crowd is guilty and should be punished, you have destroyed freedom to protest. If there is no right to protest, there is no freedom.

"In 2001 in Italy when fighting broke out at the G20..."

The actions of the Italian police at Genoa was absolutely appauling. Beating the fuck out of people and urinating on them is not acceptable police tactics, and I do not wish it to become standard in this country.

You are too partisan. You seem to support the police no matter what they do. What you say equates to this: if I decide to attend a demonstration, the police have the right to assault me and violate my rights, and if I die, it's my fault.

Police are human beings. Some are good, some are bad, and like the rest of us they make mistakes. They are not above the law, and by attempting to make them so, you increase the division between them and the rest of us.