OT In defense of pirates ...

On Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:13:16 -0700, "asadi"
wrote:

Maybe I have lost focus here....but these people are dirt floor poor, okay?

I did have have hopes that the Navy opened up with one of those mini-guns
where their tracers look like a torch light, but my greatest kick was
hearing the news media trying to dramatize this event by saying it was long
range sniper fire at 35 meters!

****, those boys can put a knife in your eye at that distance...hell, my
greatest fear is getting belligerant drunk and ****in' off a seal.

But back to the dirt floor poor, I wonder how many people here have ever
seen dirt floor poor....seen the people sorting through the garbage from a
US base just to get food....or seen a village downstream from where Vectren
was spraying Agent Orange to eradicate a cocoa crop. I have.

Hey, Africa is a **** hole and it's going to be a **** hole for years to
come....it takes an iron fisted tyrant like Sadam to create any sense of
stability....

No food, no water, no fish...Sorry boys, but if it was me and mine or
yours.....I'd steal from you to feed mine.

....and those 'pirates' well, google it up and tell me if they ever robbed
and raped tourists....molested the crew and stole the crew's
possesioins....or was it only holding the tanker so that the 'nameless' big
corporations would pay and not the family of the little man....

Ken, damned good link but I think maybe a little too much for some of the
little people here....you have to educate them little by little...

I don't stand, I beg to be corrected...

FWIW, it reminds me of a guy who gets caught robbing a jewelry store and claims
he did it to feed his family...if he had been caught breaking into a grocery
store, it might be a little easier to consider mitigating circumstances, if for
no other reason, it's the difference between armed robbery and simply burglary,
if you will. Moreover, if their demands were for food and medicine, or the
wanted international media coverage to shine a light on the alleged problem,
that too would tend to lend credence to the whole "po' folks trying to survive"
thing.

While no one, myself included, can say what motivates every single one of these
folks, I'd offer that given what goes on in many Somali camps mesh with
seemingly objective reports from many of these "pirates" camps - at least a
large portion of these pirates are in it for monetary gain well beyond feeding
staving families and they aren't sharing with those in need. But the simple
fact is that while one might favor the aforementioned mitigation in the case of
the starving trying to survive, if society allows lawlessness, lawlessness will
prevail.

IMO, poor starving fishermen from such a background don't resort to using
automatic weapons and RPGs to hold hostages. They, well, they pick through the
garbage at a base or similar - IOW, the desperate things honest people do are
just different from the things dishonest people do, and given what you've seen,
I'd guess that you've seen that, too.

TC,
R


....and on an off topic NOTE, the spring rains are in full tilt and I've
been to the shop getting ready for the sprin run of smallmouth!

john

Moreover, if their demands were for food and medicine, or the
wanted international media coverage to shine a light on the alleged
problem,
that too would tend to lend credence to the whole "po' folks trying to
survive"
thing.


TC,
R
....

Damned good point.....I've often thought that some of those we call
terrorists are not properly using the public relations media....

john

On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:34:45 -0700, "asadi"
wrote:




Moreover, if their demands were for food and medicine, or the
wanted international media coverage to shine a light on the alleged
problem,
that too would tend to lend credence to the whole "po' folks trying to
survive"
thing.


TC,
R
...

Damned good point.....I've often thought that some of those we call
terrorists are not properly using the public relations media....

john

A big reason is that because _most_ of those "we" (since I'm not sure who "we"
is, I'll take it from the context that you mean, generally, "westerners" with an
emphasis on those in the US) call terrorists are not really "terrorists," but
criminals, and it's pretty hard to do any effective PR for criminals (...it's
not particularly easy to do so for "terrorists," either...). When someone
tries, they wind up looking like, at best, a naive goofball - see Ken's article,
or at worst, a nutcase - see responses here putting a couple of mercs with
heavy machine guns and/or varmint rifles on merchant ships or listen to Rush or
other assorted loons.

IAC, while it can be argued that it is the job of the US military to protect
US-flagged vessels at sea, if such a mission is undertaken, it needs to be with
all necessary resources and some hard decisions about roles and goals. People
will get killed and the possibility for "collateral damage" is present and it
appears fairly high. Either accept the risks and get on with it or don't, but
pick an option and stick with it.

TC,
R

On Apr 15, 6:41*am, wrote:
On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:34:45 -0700, "asadi"
wrote:









Moreover, if their demands were for food and medicine, or the
wanted international media coverage to shine a light on the alleged
problem,
that too would tend to lend credence to the whole "po' folks trying to
survive"
thing.

TC,
R
...

Damned good point.....I've often thought that some of those we call
terrorists are not properly using the public relations media....

john

A big reason is that because _most_ of those "we" (since I'm not sure who "we"
is, I'll take it from the context that you mean, generally, "westerners" with an
emphasis on those in the US) call terrorists are not really "terrorists," but
criminals, and it's pretty hard to do any effective PR for criminals (...it's
not particularly easy to do so for "terrorists," either...). *When someone
tries, they wind up looking like, at best, a naive goofball - see Ken's article,
or at worst, a nutcase - see responses here putting a couple of mercs with
heavy machine guns and/or varmint rifles on merchant ships or listen to Rush or
other assorted loons.

IAC, while it can be argued that it is the job of the US military to protect
US-flagged vessels at sea, if such a mission is undertaken, it needs to be with
all necessary resources and some hard decisions about roles and goals. *People
will get killed and the possibility for "collateral damage" is present and it
appears fairly high. *Either accept the risks and get on with it or don't, but
pick an option and stick with it.

TC,
R- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

No one advocated arming merchant ships with varmint rifle toting
mercenaries. I don't know where you get some of this stuff.

Dave