When one hears of a “pirate attack”, we automatically envision Johnny Depp in all of his glory boarding a wooden ship and taking the “booty” and the beauty hostage. Her lover plans an audacious rescue to save her honor, an exhilarating sword fight ensues with the hero winning (of course) and everyone lives happily ever after. We think it’s romantic and daring. Unfortunately, there is nothing romantic about modern day piracy. Through movies, such as “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Captain Ron”, we are led to believe the life of a pirate is somewhat glamorous, dangerous and exciting. However, modern day pirates are nothing more than terrorists, albeit not as high on the terrorist food chain as those who blow themselves up for the love of Allah and the 72 virgins they will receive upon entering Heaven, but terrorists nonetheless. They hold people and ships hostage to extort money out of other countries. Yes, I realize this is what Captain Jack Sparrow did as well, but it didn’t seem all that bad on screen! However, we know that in real life it is a nasty situation.
I was shocked to find out that the Prime Minister of Somalia is barely able to govern the country and he has little to no power. He stated the government barely had control of a few square miles inside the capital of Mogadishu. Several countries, including the United States, are making valiant efforts to put an end to piracy in the Horn of Africa, which is one of the busiest and most precarious sea lanes in the world. The United States brought their captured pirate to New York to stand trial, while the Netherlands and France are prosecuting suspects in their own courts. Other countries feel that a special court should be established for trying pirate suspects because normal court procedures won’t apply. I think a punishment other than “life in prison without parole” should be inflicted, as I do not want to support these people the rest of their lives. Maybe they could be sentenced to something like, I don’t know, being tied to the mast of a ship for the rest of their days and fed raw squid until they throw up? OR walking the plank – from a submarine? OR made to clean toilets that only men use? That’s a good punishment!
What shocked me even more was to find out that these pirates are not just “plundering” for the sake of “plundering” but they are actually being sponsored by powerful businessmen and politicians all over the world! WHY?? Doesn’t Ted Kennedy have enough to do with chemo treatments and ruining other people’s lives?
And for my final question: the pirates arrive in small speedboats….SMALL SPEEDBOATS! Will someone PLEASE explain to me how 5 smelly men and a small speedboat can capture an entire ship??? I know they are armed……but
I’m just sayin’,
--Margo
I was shocked to find out that the Prime Minister of Somalia is barely able to govern the country and he has little to no power. He stated the government barely had control of a few square miles inside the capital of Mogadishu. Several countries, including the United States, are making valiant efforts to put an end to piracy in the Horn of Africa, which is one of the busiest and most precarious sea lanes in the world. The United States brought their captured pirate to New York to stand trial, while the Netherlands and France are prosecuting suspects in their own courts. Other countries feel that a special court should be established for trying pirate suspects because normal court procedures won’t apply. I think a punishment other than “life in prison without parole” should be inflicted, as I do not want to support these people the rest of their lives. Maybe they could be sentenced to something like, I don’t know, being tied to the mast of a ship for the rest of their days and fed raw squid until they throw up? OR walking the plank – from a submarine? OR made to clean toilets that only men use? That’s a good punishment!
What shocked me even more was to find out that these pirates are not just “plundering” for the sake of “plundering” but they are actually being sponsored by powerful businessmen and politicians all over the world! WHY?? Doesn’t Ted Kennedy have enough to do with chemo treatments and ruining other people’s lives?
And for my final question: the pirates arrive in small speedboats….SMALL SPEEDBOATS! Will someone PLEASE explain to me how 5 smelly men and a small speedboat can capture an entire ship??? I know they are armed……but
I’m just sayin’,
--Margo
Your favorite pirate -- Captain Jack Sparrow aka Johnny Depp!
Comments
But getting back to Somalia, we should have taken care of them when we had the chance. Instead a few of our boys were killed and we ran out of there with our tails between our legs. Just like the first Iraq war. It doesn’t matter who we call the leader over there, the War Lords are still running the place.
The main reason we are having these problems with the pirates is these other weak liberal countries like France are negotiating with these thugs and paying the ransoms. That’s why the United States has (and hopefully will keep) its policy on not negotiating with these terrorist (can we still call them that?) I heard that might change as well.
But getting back to your question about how they do it, it’s easy they just sneak up on the boats and pull out their guns and take over. I am sure there are ladders on the side they use to climb up. You would also be amazed at how well the element of surprise works, the crews are also pretty small on these ships and are not trained to handle weapons or security.
If you ask me we just need to blow them out of the water before they get to the ships. I am not a supporter of capital punishment due to flaws in our legal system but I strongly support using deadly force when needed to protect our interest.
I know we have some Obama supporters out there and that’s fine, but if we want to keep our country safe we need to keep the defense polices the Bush administration established to do so. Good post..I hope I didn’t step on any toes..
BTW I like the reference to cleaning the toilets that only men use. Not sure why the average guy doesn’t like to sit when using the toilet but thats another blog in itself.
And since I don't write about politics on my own blog (to avoid such headaches) I will only say one incendiary thing here: there's a few more than "some" Obama supporters out there. :-)