http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates-1225817.html

Huh.

Do we buy it?

The Somali situation sounds like every other major news story any more - unless you personally were there to verify facts, the truth about what happens on the opposite side of the world is always questionable.

Do we buy it?

Depends on who is sponsoring it, I suppose...

The piracy is taking place well outside Somali territorial waters and started by targeting food aid ships for loot, not suspicious trawlers or freighters dumping waste. Someone in Somalia is trying to spin the story, presumably to let the pirates operate unhindered a while longer.

This whole story is a crock of shit. *Every* vessel successfully taken over has been held for ransom or converted to pirate mother ships, not just vessels with questionable reasons for being in the area. Its a new growth industry for people who can't make anywhere near as much money in legitimate enterprise.

Easy enough to check the veracity of the "crock of shit"; radiation is fairly easy to check for in the area, as are the other metals the individual claimed were present in high levels.

There very well may have been illegal dumping by the Italian mafia as claimed, and certainly local fishermen chased away illegal fishing trawlers. But the Somali warlords that moved in and took over once they realized money could be made couldn't care less about illegal fishing or dumping. They are the ones committing the vast majority of pirate attacks, including attacks hundreds of miles away deep in international waters against anything that floats (including cruise liners). That is what is the crock of shit. It is a business, not a defensive organization.

There very well may have been illegal dumping by the Italian mafia as claimed, and certainly local fishermen chased away illegal fishing trawlers. But the Somali warlords that moved in and took over once they realized money could be made couldn't care less about illegal fishing or dumping. They are the ones committing the vast majority of pirate attacks, including attacks hundreds of miles away deep in international waters against anything that floats (including cruise liners). That is what is the crock of shit. It is a business, not a defensive organization.

It is because of those thugs and warlords that I earlier in another thread regarding these pirates advocated the use of a 20mm mini-gun as a deterrent. A burst into one of those speed boats from a mini-gun would result in a blue-plate special for any sharks in the area, and that much less of a threat to shipping.

Remember how they were talking about the freighter that they captured a month or two ago giving everyone on board radiation poisoning? We talked about that on a thread here that Nydia started, I think.

Could be...though I would find it surprising the crew of the ship would not have become ill hauling such waste before it even got to the area if it was so toxic.

It would be interesting to check on where that freighter was hijacked, where it came from and where it was headed.

Well that Saudi Tanker was sold back for 3 million dollars via air drop....

Kind of ironic:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090110/ap_on_bi_ge/piracy

5 Somali pirates drown with ransom share.