Piracy remains a huge problem along the coasts of Africa, particularly the east coast. During the last week of Dec alone four vessels were sezed off the Somalia coast. The pirates makes millions in ransom, this despite increased safety measures. Last month our navy deployed three P-3 Orion aircraft from their Maine-based squadron. The planes will be depoloyed to the Seychelles to patrol the waters off of East Africa. With their 8-hour loiter ability, this is a very suitable platform for anti-piracy patrol but there are only 3 of them and they’ve got a whole lot of water to cover. US Africa Command said there are no plans to arm the aircraft that are there to provide onlybr /intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support. I’m glad that we’re providing this support– but why can’t they shoot when they find bad guys–you can count on the fact that the bad guys will shoot. This is all part of making our military more likeable, and it’s baloney.
