Yesterday, in the World section of the Arizona Republic, one of the top stories spoke of the Somalian coast and how, over the years, the pirate attacks have been brutal. They have 147 men held hostage on other ships commandeered by the pirates. The U.S. Navy, along with the help of several other countries' battalions such as India, Britain, and Germany, managed to let the pirates take $3,200,000 and all the weapons they could carry.
The first comical aspect of the story was the article itself. It used words such as 'booty' to describe the loot the pirates obtained and used the phrase 'anti-piracy' to describe the reactions of neighboring countries. Seeing as how the subject is pirates, as a writer, I would steer clear of any arbitrary vocabulary pertaining to stereotypical pirates. (No pun intended.)
Second of all, are we being serious about the whole pirates thing? Pirates? Do we seriously have a pirate problem still? Didn't they learn from 'Ye Be Warned' and all other threatening slogans from the early 19th century? They aren't even creative. They held hostages on other ships and stole money and cargo. That's already been done in Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2, and 3. What next? Will you pillage our farms and take advantage of our women too? Maybe you have to wait until the 4th one to plan your next big attack. Hopefully Barbosa can help you out of your next shenanigans. Oh, pirates. Perhaps they should be charged for piracy, on many levels.
Next, the article makes it clear that the U.S. Navy sent its 5th Fleet and surrounded the ship quickly after it was hijacked to make sure the arms on board did not fall into the hands of any Somali insurgents, believed to be linked to al-Qaida. Oh, good. So, we guarded the ship, with our 5th Fleet no less, and made sure that no insurgents got their hands on any dangerous weapons, did the pirates sneak up on us? Now the pirates have these weapons. At least it's not anyone linked to al-Qaida.
After the incident, the pirate ship's captain, Aden Abdi Omar, oh, sorry, Captain Aden Abdi Omar, was interviewed. I'm no expert, but instead of giving him a microphone, shouldn't we have put cuffs on him? Reporters say they used motorboats to get away. Don't we have something better than that? I know I've seen Jack Bauer on a speedboat one time or another.
I find it hard to believe that pirates are making front page stories in our newspapers. They're getting more coverage than Angelina's next adopted baby. I have yet to hear what they're calling this one; they must be running out of names by now.
Finally, the article left the reader with a nice chart to represent the increase in pirate attacks from last year. Swell. It's hard now a days. We have people getting fired, an overall raise in prices, and pirates.
Extra Postage Required: Use a bit more sense next time.
I agree with you but, keep in mind they're really nothing but a bunch of terrorists and opportunistic criminals. They do, alas, deserve the news coverage they're getting because they're causing real harm to real people, but, yeah, really, enough with the weird 19th-century pirate terms already... They are simply bad guys, not deserving of the hero worship and prominence they're garnering in the media.
ReplyDeleteCompanies from various nations are only encouraging the behavior of these "pirates" by actually paying the ransoms. Most of that money is, quite likely, finding its way into the hands of real terrorists, who are getting both money and public recognition for their trouble.
I'm not really sure what I'd do if push came to shove, especially if women and children were involved as hostages. I guess I'd pay, too, but then I'd want to arrange for some sort of trap on the payment. You bet, if my wife, other relatives or friends were ever to become hostages, I'd do absolutely anything and stop at nothing to see their release.
I think it is all about good intelligence work combined with ultra-small, special forces type maneuvers to get rid of these idiots once and for all. As soon as a couple of these gangs met a terrible end, I think the behavior would slow down quite dramatically in short order.