Yar! Now We're In the Pirate Business

The anti-pirate business, to be clear.

The pirates of the country of Somalia (whose tourism slogan is "Government-free since 1991"), who have reaped a bountiful harvest robbing ships and kidnapping the ships' crews, have some new boat pals to play with as the United States Navy is in the house.

By the way, Mr. and Ms.American taxpayer, can you hear the chorus of thank-you's from the nations whose cargo you are paying to protect? Anyway...

The 2008 numbers are in from the Pirate Statistics Bureau, Johnny Depp, President, and there were 49 ships hijacked last year and 889 crewmembers taken hostage. In response, the USA has sent warships, as have the navies of India, Britain, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Korea.

I never imagined that Saudi Arabia had a navy, they having been blessed with such an abundance of sand. The vessel pictured here is a Saudi frigate, the Al Riyadh, that is one of three that the Royal Saudi Navy had built for them. Frigate, by the way, is an encompassing term that can refer to a variety of warships, so you may now confidently toss about nautical terms with your friends from the yacht club.

The week of January 22 appears to have been the kickoff of the '09 Pirate season (thanks to the NFL playoffs, we missed all the pre-season shows on ESPN Pirate Channel), as 22 ship attacks resulting in 3 hijackings have been recorded since then. Nice weather in the area was given credit for the early flurry of activity.

There ae some carry-over storylines from last season, too. The owners of the MV Faina paid a $3 million ransom to get their Ukranian crew released after four months. Oh, yes, lest we be misled into thinking there was an overriding humanitarian motive, the ransom also secured the return of the cargo: 33 Russian tanks and crates of small arms that were headed for Kenya.

The Russian navy has a fun toy in the area: the nuclear powered heavy missile cruiser Peter the Great. The ship had "detained" ten pirates in an action the other day. If the contemporary Russian definition of detained is similar to the old Russian definition of detained, the detainees won't be a problem for quite some time.

I have detected a hint of the problem in the language that is being used to describe these police actions taken in response to the pirates. There are words of" arrests", people are "detained", they are "held for questioning", etc.

I propose that all the joint naval forces agree that the new course of action, as commissioned by PFOS, American Blogger, is that heretofore all Somalia pirates or scumbags who look like Somali pirates or any dumbass who wanders into the area with his rocket launcher that he uses for recreational purposes, all of those people be blown right off the face of the planet. The winning navy, the one with the most confirmed pirate eradications each year, gets a handsome gift pack at the World Anti-Pirate Banquet that will be held in Champaign, Illinois, the weekend after the state high school football championships.

It's such a feel good story, eh?