Maersk = "longtime Pentagon contractor" with "top security clearance"

"The ship's owner, Norfolk, Va.-based Maersk Line Ltd., is a U.S. subsidiary of Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk. The shipping giant is a longtime Pentagon contractor, according to security analyst firm Globalsecurity.org, operating vessels with "top security clearance." But the Maersk Alabama was not sailing under a Defense Department contract at the time of the attack, according to company and U.S. military officials."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/iphone/la-fg-somali-pirates9-2009apr09,0,7513957,iphone.story


Shipping firm lobbies for more arms deals

Maersk launched an "aggressive" lobbying effort in 2003 in an attempt to gain access to millions of dollars in public funds set aside by the Maritime Security Programme. Under the program, subsidies are made available to shipping companies transporting weapons and supplies for the US military during times of war. The Danish shipper was blocked from receiving subsidies as the funds could go to American owned, American crewed ships only. <3>

3 = copenhagen post, dead link, directing link is dead too, only cache remains:

http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:9epSdBca0WgJ:www.knowmore.org/wiki/index.php%3Ftitle%3DA.P._Moller-Maersk_Group+Maersk+launched+an+%22aggressive%22+lobbying+effort+in+2003+to+gain+access+to+millions+of+dollars&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us


Significance: Maersk carries arms & wanted to get US subsidies for doing so.

In this case, this company and ship was under a different contract and mission. It's just like truckers who may one week deliver supplies to a US base, then deliver goods to a US chain store the next week.

"The United States Merchant Marine refers to the fleet of U.S. civilian-owned merchant ships, operated by either the government or the private sector, that are engaged in commerce or transportation of goods and services in and out of the navigable waters of the United States."


It's a Pentagon contractor that ships arms.

From the same Wiki as yours:

Today's merchant fleet

The commercial fleet

As of 2006, the United States merchant fleet had 465 privately-owned ships of 1,000 gross register tons or over. Two hundred ninety-one (291) of these were dry cargo ships, 97 were tankers, and 77 passenger ships. Of those American-flagged ships, 51 were foreign owned. Seven hundred American-owned ships are flagged in other nations.

2005 statistics from the United States Maritime Administration focus on the larger segment of the fleet: ships of 10,000 metric tons deadweight (DWT) and over. 245 privately owned American-flagged ships are of this size, and 153 of those meet the Jones Act criteria.<21>

The use of merchant ships to ship supplies during wartime is rather obvious to those of us living in port cities. That said, these same companies also ship civilian goods. In wartime, such as WWII, if didn't matter what they shipped, as submarines sank them regardless of cargo.

The "war" you keep talking about is, I suppose, our phoney war on iraq - or afghanistan - or terror.

Slapping the label "merchant marine" on a Pentagon contractor doesn't make it nicer.

Actually, any generic war, or no war. In wartime the Military Sealift Command uses private ships to move supplies. An example was Operation Desert Storm. In peace time, private contractors my supply troops at bases with supplies, or move legal purchased weapons like planes to a country that ordered them.

You seem to think there is something here, but there is not. This is absolutely no different than a trucking company moving goods under a pentagon contract and the next week moving food to a Food lion or TVs to a Best Buy. You Pay - They Ship!.

contracts, & they're based in the virginia defense "triangle" or whatever you call it.

A shipping company ships for a client. And this justifies something bad happening to them or what? Why don't you lay it out.

Pentagon contractor. And I'm sure you believe that Captain Phillips is an imperialist capitalist pig CIA henchman who deliberately lured the pirates to the ship.

Post, trustworthy capitalist newspapers.

Don't you want people to have *all* the facts?

relevant to the facts in the attempted hijacking and the hostage taking of the Captain, that the Maersk Line is a contractor with the Defense Dept. Really, what does that have to do with what happened?

it's a fact about Maersk, but what role does that fact play in the hijacking and hostage taking?

not predigested.

but you're the one that claimed significance re the info you presented. You seem unable to explain the significance.

Which was the last US-owned major cargo shipping company. Maersk inherited the defense job because Sealand used to do it. It was a condition of the purchase.

What Maersk's defense contracts has to do with piracy is beyond me.

Maersk Line, Limited's primary business is defense contracts.


Maersk Line, Limited, is a US-based subsidiary of A. P. Moller-Maersk Group which manages a fleet of US-flag vessels and provides U.S. government agencies and their contractors with transportation and logistics services. Headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia,<8> It manages the world's largest fleet of US-flag vessels. Beginning with a relatively small number of vessels focused on handling commercial and US Government-subsidised cargoes, MLL's fleet of vessels engaged in commercial liner services grew significantly with the acquisition of Sea-Land Service, Inc. in 1999 and P&O Nedlloyd and Farrell Lines in 2005.

The A. P. Moller-Maersk Group (Danish: A.P. Møller-Mærsk Gruppen) is a Danish business conglomerate more commonly known simply as Maersk.<3> Maersk has activities in a variety of business sectors, primarily transportation (container shipping fleet) and energy (offshore oil exploration and transportation). It is the largest container ship operator and supply vessel operator in the world.<4>

Maersk is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has subsidiaries and offices in more than 130 countries worldwide.<5> The group has around 117,000 employees. It was number 131 on the Fortune Global 500 list for 2008, up from 138 in 2007. <6>.

that Maersk's primary business is defense contracts.

I spent 29 years as an engineering officer in the merchant marine. I've worked just about every segment of shipping; tankers, container ships, break-bulk ships, roll on/roll off ships and pure bulk carriers.

I'd say that just about every voyage on a container ship had some containers being carried for some government agency, usually defense. It was by no means anywhere close to a majority of the cargo. It's really nothing more than the government taking advantage of scheduled liner service to carry their stuff-not much different than your commercial flight carrying mail bags. You seem to be looking for a deeper story, but it's just commerce. We're not all ex-SEALs living in some shady secretive world. We're just trying to make a buck and support our families in an unconventional career.

I worked on a couple of break-bulk ships that were time chartered by the Navy. We'd carry pretty much anything over to Europe or the Far East and would bring back household goods for service members returning from their foreign deployments. The company (United States Lines) was mostly engaged in container trade, though, purely in the commercial sector.

Only rarely on tankers would we carry anything for the government, and then only on a spot basis where something had to be carried ASAP. Generally that would be jet fuel or diesel fuel. Otherwise it was either carrying crude oil or refined products for a long term or voyage charterer.

The pure bulk carriers were all engaged in carrying aid cargo, generally wheat, corn, etc. to lesser developed countries. I guess you could say we were government contractors.

The DoD does have established shipping companies run some of thier prepositioned ships for the Military Sealift Command. The commercial operators can do the job for considerably less than the Navy could. That's a win-win for the government, taxpayer, shipping company and, of course, my fellow seafarers.

Significance: Maersk carries arms & wanted to get US subsidies for doing so.

significance = significance of the article.

at least according to NPR. Maybe those controlling the message, consider weapons "humanitarian" :mad:

In fact, that's probably what they were carrying. You do realize that tons and tons of aid are actually shipped to Africa every month, right? And you do know that that aid is normally sent by sea, right? Occam's razor; a nifty tool.

was carrying relief supplies including food stuffs from several NCOs including the U.N. Not one of those organizations has spoken out and said differently. In your world, they're either lying or some shadowy cabal of gov't and private industry were using those goods as a pretext to ship arms. Extraordinary claims (or insinuations) demand some evidence. But you, who claim to want to deal in facts, let slip that you really don't You truck in unsubstantiated rumor and insinuation.

Despite all evidence to the contrary.

incomprehensible that people still starve & fight wars every couple of years.

just ignorant savages i suppose, they don't know how to feed themselves & can't get along with each other.

there are no fundamentalists and even if there are everything would be edenistic if not for the evil forces of the west.

and b) what does that have to do with anything?