There Be Pirates Here

This morning, I was listening to a brand new news story about the Somali pirates who have been overtaking cargo ships off the coast of Africa. Today, they took a supertanker. The tanker is from Saudi Arabia and is holding about $100,000,000 worth of oil that was heading to the U.S. The pirates are holding it for ransom.

I'm kinda having a hard time getting my head around the idea that there are pirates about these days. One can't help but to think about Pirates of the Caribbean and how Johnny Depp has changed the image from a pegged-leg, parrot toting, hedonist into a fey drunk with some kind of personal honor code. Both are ludicrous myths, but leave it to Disney to make pirates laughable and sweet. These pirates, of course, are real. And very much like the pirates of ye olden days, it's political and profitable. And I'm finding it amazingly interesting. While they are not hoisting the jolly roger over their rubber dinghies or attacking ships with canons ablaze, they are no less dangerous, racing after cargo ships with a minimum number of unarmed sailors carrying nothing but hand guns. According to the story, these pirates are desperate and have no real idea of what is on-board the ships when they overtake them. All they know is that some rich country owns them, and that rich country is willing to pay. Coming from war torn Somalia, they have no agricultural business, no oil of their own, and no GDP. Therefore, they've been ignored by the greater world at large. Well, we're not ignoring them now. Not when they're asking for $30,000,000 for the return of the tanker. Screw with our commerce and you've got our attention.

The Australian says that this is the largest the ship the pirates have seized so far. And I don't think it's going to stop any time soon. According to an New York Times, the men only want money and for the illegal dumping to stop so that they can fish again. (Most of these pirates were fisherman. On a PBS show I watched, the fishing industry -- mostly first world countries -- illegally harvests fish off the coast of Africa, making it difficult for these men to make a working wage or even provide enough protein for their own families to eat. That special was how we're raping the ocean, but it all ties together. It always does. The world is like one big jigsaw puzzle, and you have to have enough distance to see the picture.)

On this morning's NPR story, the Somali men were saying that their women are not interested in them unless they've got cash, and all the young boys stated that they wanted to grow up to be pirates. I don't think they're talking about the Johnny Depp kind. The problem is, of course, now that they've had a taste of the glamorous life, will these people ever be able to go back to fishing for a living even if we do pull Japan out of their waters and assist them in their genocides? I leave that up to you to decide.

In a related aside, I'd fill up at the gas pump today. Someone's going to have to pay that $30,000,000 ransom...