On the high seas.

The pirates, like most working class Americans, have the most powerful people in the world arrayed against them. Like most Americans, they watch the powerful and wealthy cruise on by, living it up.

But unlike most Americans, the pirates motor out and get theirs.

The media has it wrong. These pirates, with their written rules and business-like deal-making and relatively tiny fire-power, look like freaking heros compared to the corrupt and heavily-armed Geithners and Summers and congressmen and bankers and AIG execs that we're told to revere.

Who would you choose to walk the plank? Some skinny teenage Somali?

Arrgh.

You have a point there.

Everybody

Is a wanna be

Original G

Of the High seas...

How can we resist kicking their asses?

We certainly cannot do that to the Pirates on Wall Street, or the Pirates in the Defense Industry, or the Pirates in Congress, or the Pirates in the MSM.

We wouldn't want to walk the plank now, would we.

Let's make these poor fishermen who have had their livelyhood stolen from them into the greatest evil and threat to the world since Saddam Hussein.

The public is stupid enough to buy that for a dollar.

It is not some glorified, abstract, hazy thing, such as spreading democracy or killing for world peace. Fighting pirates is exactly the thing we should be doing, as opposed to our deep doo-doo abstract situations in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan.

That's what piracy is. Do they have a legitimate beef about others fishing in their coastal waters? Maybe. Does it justify attacking people who have nothing whatever to do with that? Hardly. Cry me a freakin' river...

Convoy the merchantmen, and send the pirate motherships to the bottom without hesitation. Repeat as necessary.

and JACK SPARROW.

would make a great Disney documentary.

rational discussion on an american site? let's hope it catches on, but history against.

Ohhh so WE have to supply $ to Somolia and improve the economic situation. That's the solution to everything, throw money at it and it will imporve.

And I am stupid I know but I though the old BIN Laden WAS in Somolia during the black hawk down murder, was he not? But dumb to think that Bin wouldn't even think of going there to help the pirates capture a American ship's crew and hold them hostage...no that will never happen.

With all due respect Mr. Fedder, can you bet your left nut on this, that no Islamo's will help the pirates take ships hostage, especially American ships?

I'm sorry, Mr. Feffer, but you can't have it both ways. Either the pirates are agenda-less kids out to make a fast and easy buck, or they have a problem with how they were treated by waste-dumping Europeans and are out to do something about it. Which one is it?

Look. If you ran the risk of being hijacked in your car and held for million dollar ransom every time you drove down the highway - let's say there was a 93 out of 23,000 chance - you would, like any sensible citizen, cry bloody murder. You'd demand more protection from the police, and it wouldn't matter that the carjackers were down-and-out black kids from the projects. So why is it so different when the victims are merchant vessels and the highway is the shipping lane near Somalia?

In both cases, we (our government) should pay more attention to the root causes of the problems (urban poverty and anarchy in Somalia) and try to do something about them - you're right about that. (And certainly, if there is no link between Islamic terrorists and Somali pirates, then the nattering classes should stop suggesting there is one.) But in the meantime, the pirates' thuggery is completely unacceptable, and I, for one, fully support more naval activity in the area - both our own navy and that of every other nation that sends merchant vessels past Somalia for legitimate trade.

What's an Islamo?

Abdul IS a serf, for cryin' out loud. Convoy, as Poster Alan Lloyd said. The USA can have a victory here. Wouldn't a victory be great, in the context of all our other no-win situations?

Lloyds Shipping Insurance will pay a ransom rather than risk a gun fight aboard ship and the flight of shippers to odd little countries to secure "flags of convenience" to avoid unions and pesky regulations make the whole issue of legality of arrest suspect thus make the issue of piracy much murkier than just good bad black white

And of course what teenager with an AK no job and no prospects will be deterred by the death or imprisonment in the wake of multi-million dollare ransom payouts..

Like a wall street trader the somali pirate is hardly risk averse chasing a million dollar payday

The Continental Marines existed from 1775 to 1783. The present Marine Corp was formed in 1798. A full 3 years before the Barbary War of 1801-1805.

The key is in their being teenagers, sadly enough. The military is composed of people who view teenage presumption as the worst of trespasses; and, as punishing them means punishing the presumption they had as adolescents to live waywardly independently, which lead to parental disapproval/discord they are forever unconsciously driven to try and amend, going after them very effectively helps ease psychic distress--which I think is what the military is really mostly all about.

In this article you wrote:

Unlike al-Qaida, the Somali pirates have no grand desire to bring down the United States and the entire Western world.

Well, here's some news for you: Al-Qaeda also has "no grand desire to bring down the United States and the entire Western world." In fact, Al-Qaeda, as we know it, is a myth.

Please find and watch a copy of the BBC program, "The Power of Nightmares." It deals specifically with the lies we have been sold concerning the mysterious (and largely mythical) al-Qaida.

Links to the BBC writeup and to all three parts of the video of "The Power of Nightmares" can be found at this link:

http://tabletalk.salon.com/webx?14@@.773dbcf4/2947

(Or just click my sig)