Daily Archives: April 22, 2009

The Economics of a Career in Piracy (Peterson Institute)

This entry was posted in RichardH's Posts on by

On 15 April 2009, Jacob Kirkegaard of the Peterson Institute wrote The Economics of a Career in Piracy. The current benefits to the pirates far outweigh the current costs to the pirates.

Kirkegaard then concludes:

In the end, the only way to reduce the expected rate of return from piracy is to increase the punishment meted out to captured pirates. As in all instances of limited government resources, the law must rely on deterrence. It is not a coincidence that piracy was historically a capital offence, and that the corpses of executed pirates were frequently displayed in harbors as a warning.

Less draconian punishments are surely warranted today. But swift, predictable, and sizable sanctioning for acts of piracy will nonetheless be required for careers in piracy to no longer make economic sense. The option to simply return to your pirate career even after capture must be ended.

The same economic logic suggests that any international legal framework for trying and sanctioning captured pirates must be complemented by armed rescue operations in which at least some pirates are killed rather than captured. President Obama’s order to use force if given the opportunity, followed by the swift execution of that order, made economic sense while serving the cause of justice and the interests of the hostages.

Torture Techniques Yielded ‘High Value Information,’

This entry was posted in SteveG's Posts on by

Follow this link to the New York Tmies story about President Obama’s national intelligence director telling colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.

Admiral Dennis C. Blair said, “…there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means …”

It makes no difference whether or not any of these assessments are true.  Torture is still illegal and should not be used.

As President Obama said at his appearance at the C.I.A, “What makes the United States special, and what makes you special, is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy.”

Laws are not needed when you have no intention of committing the proscribed act.  They are only needed to prevent the act when you might be tempted to do it.

Article III Part 17 of the Geneva Convention states in part:

No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.

The authors of this section knew what captors would want to do with prisoners.  How much more specific could they have made it to ban what Bush/Cheney wanted to do?  In the infamous words of Bill Clinton does it matter “what the definition of is is?”

What part of this Geneva Convention paragraph is it hard for a lawyer to interpret?