‘Once You Have a Ship, It’s a Win-Win Situation’

You’re not going to believe this, but Scott Carney’s got a post up at Danger Room interviewing Somali pirates on their strategies for hijacking cargo ships, complete with video a pirate crew provided him. I hesitate to even describe this because it’s such a great get and you should just click through the link, but check out this wise management-technique tip from a pirate:

From what I’ve seen, initial demands tend to be about 10 times the previous publicized ransom, is this a rule of thumb?

We know that we won’t get our initial demands, but we use it as a starting point and negotiate downwards to our eventual target.  But as a rule, yes, that’s about right.

It works well, except when Navy SEALs shoot your face off. Here’s a cool-looking picture from the U.S. Naval Institute’s blog of Gen. David Petraeus visiting the crew of the USS Bainbridge, which helped free Capt. Richard Philips earlier this year.