by Robert Mckenna

Created on: April 13, 2009   Last Updated: April 15, 2009

Pirates were not the swashbuckling characters that lived outside the social norms, they were ninety percent fantasy and ten percent hope. Romanticized by tales told around the dingy wharf bars by a collection of wharf rats, usually too drunk to resist social change, made up characters in their tall tales who would do for them what they could not do for themselves. In the early days when pirates were legitimized by various governments for financial gain, these countries had to hire some unscrupulous men. These men would bow to no flag, pay no taxes, and only take orders from the man holding the gun to their heads.

The facts then, and certainly the facts now are pirates are thieves, murderers, and black hearted men, who would think nothing of doing whatever necessary for money. Today there are groups, or maybe more accurately, pockets of pirate activity around the world. These areas of pirate strongholds are increasing in activity and violence around the world. There are as many solutions written about the pirate phenomenon, as there are pirates. As long as there is money to be made, with only minimal consequences to be faced, then pirates will continue their dirty business well into this twenty first century.

The pirates in Somalia are different then the more unorganized thugs, usually involved in drug running, which are prevalent in the Caribbean and on the Pacific coast of South and Central America. Since the country [Somalia] lost any semblance of government back in 1991, and in all the years since that date where at least fourteen attempts at re-establishing a centralized government in Somalia has failed, the country is perfect breading ground for the most ruthless to rule. Today the most ruthless have formed into a sort of coast guard militia, which by all apparent actions are pirates. These pirates in the year 2008 stole at least 42 ships. They stole these ships from private companies and other governments, and charged those governments and private companies from as little as $500,000.00 to as much as 2 million dollars per vessel for their ships' return.

The bottom line to the rest of the world, is if this action is left alone, in hopes by some miracle it will go away, it will only foster more men to seek their fortune on the high seas. These so-called pirates today are costing everyone in the world a price. These ships move cargo, food, and fuel around the world and if they have to change their routes to keep their crews and their shipments safe, then they will pass on additional expenses to the consumers, you and me.

However what concerns me the most about the pirates, especially those Somali Pirates, are the sums of money they are demanding. These same nefarious characters dragged dead American Soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu, made famous by the book Black Hawk Down, and wanted Americans dead. These people who think of themselves as pirates are in fact terrorists, and should be dealt with accordingly. The kinds of money these people are raising from their pirate activities are sums great enough to buy weapons of mass destruction, and use against the USA. Today our government in conjunction with all other civil governments of the world, should enforce law on the lawless, and order where there is chaos. It is time for the few dangerous elements in the world who think they can act with impunity; it is time they felt the power and might of a combined force representing people around the world, who just want a safer world for their children.

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