Hey! Stop making the West ransom it’s ships as they pass your coast.
By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, April 8, 2009
With the typical hypocrisy of the Western developed world, we are aghast at the piracy off the coast of Somalia. Today a tanker with 21 Americans is being held for ransom, probably $1 million. The ransom will be paid, and the ship released almost in a business-like way, except the Somalis use rocket propelled grenades. Torn by decades of civil war, we consider Somalia a lawless country, unfit for our support or assistance.
As Joe Schlesinger reported last night our moral outrage is misplaced. Western countries are dumping chemical and nuclear wastes on the shores of Somalia and creating unimaginable human and environmental damage. The nuclear wastes have been traced back to Canada. We do it because it’s cheaper and they cannot protect themselves. Somalia has no navy to patrol it’s waters. Foreign fishing fleets steal, according to CBC, thousands of times more economic value from Somalia than the ransoms paid by shipping companies.
Why do we consider the lives of the Somalians less valuable? Do we care more for the 19 Americans killed in the Battle of Mogadishu (Black Hawk Down) or for the up-to 10,000 Somalis who died in the same battle? Is it because they’re black? Poor? Or just because they can’t protect themselves.
Joseph
When people are oppressed there is always a resistance. These “pirates” are the equivalent of the Somali navy. When someone comes into our water and pollutes or steals, we arrest them. The Somali pirates are just doing they same, unfortunately they have to target relatively innocent people operating a valuable ship to make a difference. It’s too bad that it has to happen, but unfortunately our culture feels like it can do no wrong and then paints a horrible picture of anyone opposing them. It makes me feel like I’m in ancient Rome hearing tales of the “Barbarians” from the north while I’m watching “civilized” people slaughter each other in the arena.
Vanessa
hey joe, when you were born, your mother should have been arrested for smuggling dope. Seriously, were you born that stupid or did you acquire it later? You are a laughing stock of inconsistency and a model of failure in both logic and reason. You can’t even craft a valid argument. To say that the Somali pirates are FORCED to attack innocent ships and people is totally laughable. Are you serious? You would have made a fine KKK klansman back in its heyday. I can just hear you: “Us white people were FORCED to lynch a few innocent blacks today because ONE of them (we dont know which one) may have committed a crime against on of our white women.” God you’re a joke of man. I should call you a half-man, but you’re not even that because you cannot form a cogent argument, so you’re more akin to a great ape, e.g. a silverback gorilla.
“Our culture feels it can do no wrong?” – wtf? So if a company that operates within the boundaries of a nation does something unethical, the entire culture, i.e. nation, is to blame and all should bear the consequences of being held hostage? Does that include the infants in their bassinets? Perhaps they are also culpable. Maybe they are the real culprits, right? Hey, let’s get a posse together and go round up some infants and hang em! That will atone for their wickedness! You fukcing piece of shit!