News Gloss

Pirates and Emperors

Certainly any chest-beating speeches about Somali Pirates will bring to mind St. Augustine's story of "Pirates and Emperors". Somalia has been accused of being a "failed state", and having "no government", but every well-organized western democracy, especially the US, has been seizing ships, attacking ships, seizing land, occupying territory, stealing resources, and attacking countries, whenever it's convenient.

Luckily, because of the movies, pirates have such good street credibility, that these Somalis almost look like Robin Hoods. I'm sure they're not, but it's going to be very hard for the general public to get riled about a few ships, while US jets are actively bombing nearly a dozen countries, and have over 1,000 military bases overseas.

posted by Greg Bryant @ 7:46 PM