Pirates...damn

 

I guess I’ve been avoiding writing about the biggest news story over the past few days (except maybe the $3billion in profit that’s being reported by wells fargo) the pirate capture of the maersk Alabama. This news story is so just so chock full of drama and politics I think its about as close to media gold as one can get. Let me lay it out for you in case you haven’t been paying attention. First, pirates have been causing havoc in the gulf of aden and off the coast of Somalia for decades. They work from well armed speed boats and take over oil tankers and hold hostages for ransom. It usually works…really well. Most shipping companies are willing to pay out a few million dollars in ransom money for the safe return of their hundreds of millions in cargo. Its been 200 years since a US ship was taken by pirates (mostly because most ships fly flags of other nations for tax and treaty reasons). Now, we get a US ship that is taken over by Somali pirates. What is the ship carrying??? Perhaps oil drills for haliburton? Maybe terror suspects being shipped from Guantanamo? Iraqi children forced into slave labor? Nope…food aid to Africa. Starving Somalis hijacked a ship of food aid. We were just going to give it to them anyways and they go off and hijack the ship. Perfect…just perfect, this is US PR gold. Of course, this ship has government purchased supplies on it and you can bet your ass we aren’t going to paying any ransom to these thugs. What do we do instead…we send a guided missile destroyer. Imagine you’re a pirate and you spot a big American ship to take over. You think to yourself, “we have totally hit the lottery here…they’re gonna have hotdogs (all beef hopefully…these folks are muslim), Budweiser, HBO, and probably some hookers on board.” Of course then you meet the unarmed American crew who eventually take the ship back before you get anything and relegates you to a lifeboat that’s out of gas. Bad day for the pirates. Of course you think…well not all hope is lost, “we have the captain still.” Then you see, at first, a navy plane…followed by a destroyer sitting and waiting. Then a couple of navy seal teams…they must be shitting themselves. Of course, the real problem here is that these people have nothing to lose now. They can do whatever they want and nothing looks good. And now we get escalation…more pirate held ships coming to the area, pirate mother ships coming in too, and a couple more navy destroyers en route. Its time for a showdown. Patrick OUT!!!