In Defense of Piracy

…Not by me, but by the Chicago Tribune, giving us the pirate IO message with a whopper of a news story with this title:

Off the lawless coast of Somalia, questions of who is pirating who

Off the lawless coast of Somalia, pirates say they are merely patriots protecting their shores, the Tribune’s Paul Salopek writes

Of Course! Patriots (“Somali” Patriots, if we can even call that a “country” anymore) are merely modern minutemen, ready at a moments notice to take up their AKs to repel foreign infiltrators from their shores! We need to understand the root causes of this… educate us, please, Tribune correspondent Paul Salopek:

JOHANNESBURG — Somalia’s pirates want the world to know they are regrettably misunderstood.

…

Or so said a rueful pirate who telephoned a Somali radio station earlier this year, complaining about all the negative publicity surrounding the epidemic of boat hijackings, hostage-takings and thuggish attacks on UN aid ships that have made Somalia’s coastline the most dangerous in the world.

Gosh, of all the problem pirates have to deal with *negative publicity* has got to be at the top of the list. The article continues, outlining the economics of piracy, and how foreign powers have ruthlessly exploited the pirates, and their criminality is merely the pirates’ “fair share”:

“It’s almost like a resource swap,” said Peter Lehr, a Somalia piracy expert at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and the editor of “Violence at Sea: Piracy in the Age of Global Terrorism.” “Somalis collect up to $100 million a year from pirate ransoms off their coasts. And the Europeans and Asians poach around $300 million a year in fish from Somali waters.”

Lehr said at least 700 Somalis go to sea as pirates, usually in small speedboats that operate from mother ships. He said the criminal activity is bolstered by a massive shore-based infrastructure —boat repairers, food suppliers, security guards—that directly involves 10,000 to 15,000 people.

Can you imagine something like this being written about the Barbary pirates in 1785? Ralph Peters said it best:

EXTERMINATE THAT PLAGUE OF PIRATES

Piracy must be exterminated. Pirates aren’t folk heroes or champions of the oppressed. They’re terrorists and violent criminals whose ransom demands start at a million bucks. And they’re not impressed by the prospect of trials in a velvet-gloved Western court.

…

The response to piracy must be the same as it was when the British brought an end to the profession’s “golden age:” Sink them or board them, kill them or hang them.

Seems simple enough to me…