U.S. seamen being trained to fend off pirates

[IDemo]

AP -updated 3:28 p.m. MT, Mon., Feb. 2, 2009

PORTLAND, Maine - With an alarming number of tankers and cargo ships getting hijacked on the high seas, the nation's maritime academies are offering more training to merchant seamen in how to fend off attacks from pirates armed not with cutlasses and flintlocks but automatic weapons and grenade launchers.

Colleges are teaching students to fishtail their vessels at high speed, drive off intruders with high-pressure water hoses and illuminate their decks with floodlights.

Anti-piracy training is not new. Nor are the techniques. But the lessons have taken on new urgency — and more courses are planned — because of the record number of attacks worldwide in 2008 by outlaws who seize ships and hold them for ransom.

'This isn't a joke'
At the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo, Calif., professor Donna Nincic teaches two courses on piracy. Students learn where the piracy hotspots are and how they have shifted over the years.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28981350/

[aquart]

1. Everything old is new again.

[Horse with no Name]

2. "huh huh, huh huh, he said seaman"

Sorry just channeling Beavis and Butthead.:D

[htuttle]

3. They should just flash a picture of Queen Victoria...

[SoCalDem]

4. Or draft Johnny Depp

[hendo]

5. Yes. Lets train them in the fine art of...

Ninjitsu

[Squatch]

6. Let me get this right...they're training the Navy to combat pirates in fishing boats?

I think they've already got an effective tool to deal with those dudes:

[IDemo]

7. No, they're training "merchant seamen"

The crew members of the cargo vessels and tankers which could be potential targets.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. Great, but there are hardly any US flag...

bluewater ships any more.

(Do they expect pirates around Hawaii, or down the ICW?)

[Ex Lurker]

9. Heres an idea: we could deal with the issues that made them turn to piracy

but that would never work :sarcasm:

[tomreedtoon]

10. You mean human greed? Insane racism and religious intolerance?

Yes, I'm sure you would have a lot of fun trying to stop piracy that way.

I think all they need to do is teach sailors how to fire wire-guided LAW rockets. That would end piracy really quickly.

[Ex Lurker]

11. Corporate greed and western imperialism

causing grinding poverty and loss of their fishing livelihood.