Karma in Somalia

Sounds like bad joo joo, according to the AP.

Five of the Somali pirates who released a hijacked oil-laden Saudi supertanker drowned with their share of a reported $3 million ransom after their small boat capsized, a pirate and a relative of one of the dead men said Saturday.

Pirate Daud Nure said the boat with eight people on board overturned in a storm after dozens of pirates left the Sirius Star following a two-month standoff in the Gulf of Aden that ended Friday.

He said five people died and three people reached shore after swimming for several hours. Daud Nure was not part of the pirate operation but knew those involved.

Abukar Haji, the uncle of one of the dead men, said the deaths were an accident.

"The boat the pirates were traveling in capsized because it was running at high speed because the pirates were afraid of an attack from the warships patrolling around," he said.

If the last sentence is true, then CTF-151 has successfully eliminated 5 pirates by apparently scaring them to death. The MV Sirius Star $3 million ransom was one of the largest to date. It is unlikely the survivors were able to bring much to shore.

Considering all the pictures of the money drop on the US Navy website, what are the odds that we were watching the pirates flee the tanker? Pretty good I'd bet.

In other words, the coalition forces were almost certainly watching the pirates and saw the accident occur, then intentionally decided for whatever reason not to offer any assistance. Is it inhumane to let pirates drown? Did we intentionally not help them knowing that we would end up with pirate prisoners? Don't dismiss that last part, the political and legal framework is so confusing it is probably an easy decision for a Naval officer to let pirates drown and die than rescue them and put them in jail.

Should we send a submarine with some divers and look around for the money? There could be quite a bit of money down there. I'm sure we watched the accident via UAV, so we followed the money right? Things that make you go hmm....