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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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 Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 9:40 pm Post subject: |
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Bacasper: "kidnapping," I understand, consists of the following elements: you must seize someone, move them into a different place (could be merely a different room in the same building), and hold them there, all against their will. It compounds homicide. For example, if you kill someone, but you did not mean to kill them, merely kidnap them, and they resisted, and this resulted in an escalation of force that killed them, then you are in more trouble than you would have been had you merely decided to kill them.
Whether you like it or not, as a citizen, you must obey the law, Bacasper. You can get into the legal system, challenge the law or what-have-you. But you may not simply decide to disregard those laws that fail your ideology tests.
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Big_Bird: your latest post suggests to me that this thread may have something to do with an ongoing religious "discussion." So let me clarify my position here: you should read all I have written here outside of that argument. I do not, moreover, support anyone's gloating or moralizing when moving against these pirates. We should continue to move against them in any case, as a matter of law-and-order in dangerous international waters. But no one ought to take any pleasure in doing so. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 9:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Big_Bird: your latest post suggests to me that this thread may have something to do with an ongoing religious "discussion." So let me clarify my position here: you should read all I have written here outside of that argument. I do not, moreover, support anyone's gloating or moralizing when moving against these pirates. We should continue to move against them in any case, as a matter of law-and-order in dangerous international waters. But no one ought to take any pleasure in doing so. |
This thread is not really about religion. That was a side topic introduced by blade, but one that seemed relevant when one of the offenders piped up and got noisy.
This thread is basically a discussion on why we love to hate pirates. As advertised in the title. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 10:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Sorry, I just cannot take Counterpunch seriously on anything at all after this. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 12:20 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Sorry, I just cannot take Counterpunch seriously on anything at all after this. |
Just for you |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 7:13 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Big_Bird: swarming into the high seas, seizing merchant ships, and holding human beings prisoner, hostage, against their will, through force, is not the same thing as mere theft, as you seem to want to establish here. |
| In You are being lied to about pirates, Johann Hari wrote: |
| The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor." Once again, our great imperial fleets sail � but who is the robber? |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Bacasper: "kidnapping," I understand, consists of the following elements: you must seize someone, move them into a different place (could be merely a different room in the same building), and hold them there, all against their will. It compounds homicide. For example, if you kill someone, but you did not mean to kill them, merely kidnap them, and they resisted, and this resulted in an escalation of force that killed them, then you are in more trouble than you would have been had you merely decided to kill them. |
While I agree with your legal formulation of kidnapping, the allusion to homicide is not relevant here as none of these accused Somalis has killed anyone.
Last edited by bacasper on Sun May 24, 2009 7:22 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 7:21 am Post subject: |
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Thank you for citing that mythical story with a nice, convenient moral from Alexander's time, Bacasper. It is all so clear to me now. This story -- as well as the Subaltern Studies Group's approach to law-and-order -- clears everything up for me:
Those who create and enforce laws are actually evil, and acting to steal from and harm "the people." And those who break said laws and commit "crimes" are actually the noble ones. Any reporting or analysis that fails to grasp this fundamental spin is "a lie."
Understood. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 7:27 am Post subject: |
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Gopher: Apparently you are the one who believes that those who illegally dump nuclear waste and violate territorial waters are the noble ones.
Why doesn't that law-breaking bother you? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 8:54 am Post subject: |
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Nice strawman, Bacasper. By the way, do you notice how the pirates become Greenpeace-like environmental activists in this configuration? Nice touch.
What exactly are the facts, as presented here, that illuminate the pirates' motives again? |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 9:49 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Nice strawman, Bacasper. By the way, do you notice how the pirates become Greenpeace-like environmental activists in this configuration? Nice touch. |
70% of Somalis think so.
| Quote: |
| What exactly are the facts, as presented here, that illuminate the pirates' motives again? |
In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since � and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.
Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury � you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."
At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation � and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."
This is the context in which the "pirates" have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a "tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia � and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence".
No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters � especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But in a telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali: "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas." William Scott would understand.
Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won't act on those crimes � the only sane solution to this problem � but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world's oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 12:50 pm Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since �- and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas. |
Does not respond to the issue I raised, above.
| bacasper wrote: |
| Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. |
Does not respond to the issue I rasied, above.
| bacasper wrote: |
| Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury �- you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention." |
Does not respond to the issue I rasied, above. This merely lists A. Ould-Abdallah's apparently outraged impressions.
| bacasper wrote: |
| At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation -� and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters." |
Here we finally see something: M. Hussein, one local fisherman. One guy, not even a pirate's voice. So what?
| bacasper wrote: |
| This is the context in which the "pirates" have emerged... |
Or so this apparently outraged leftist Western writer wants to impose upon us in his "journalism." I am going to skip the next few sentences. They remain entirely unresponsive to the issue I raised, above, Bacasper.
| bacasper wrote: |
| ...one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali: "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas." |
Here is something that responds to the issue I raised, above. But I find it extremely weak, if not outright apologetic for piracy. Are you honestly telling me that you are going to take someone's -- and this remains merely one voice, I remind you -- self-characterization, in the newsmedia, at face-value and uncritically, Bacasper?
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This is boring, predictable, and standard sensationalist journalism. We have the violins. We have the usual selective quoting. Blah, blah, blah.
Your source, frankly, sucks. |
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djsmnc
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Dave's ESL Cafe
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| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 4:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Come on guys, they are just teenagers with little rocket launchers, assault weapons and GPS devices. They want to get a little money so they join their little version of a gaming club in the desert where they do war simulations. Then they dress like terrorists for their trick or treat with American ships. WHO ON EARTH WOULD KILL THESE CHILDREN? THE HUMANITY!! |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 4:50 pm Post subject: Re: Why We Love to Hate Pirates |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
I thought about posting this on the existing pirate thread - but that's getting quite long....
[
I found it very ugly that certain posters were gloating over the deaths of 3 teenagers. The mob baying for blood and all that. If they were killers, that's one thing. But pirates in that area had not been killing. Just going after wealth. 3 lads dead - I can't see anything to be gleeful about. |
You should have posted this on the existing pirate thread...you might have seen the link I provided which shows the bolded part in your quote above to be untrue.
Might want to do a bit of Googling there next time before posting... |
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RJjr
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Location: Turning on a Lamp
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| Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 8:09 pm Post subject: |
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| It must tough being Dick "Head" Cheney these days now that he's unemployed. Since he and Bush crashed the global economy, the only people hiring now are the Somalian pirates and ole Head is overqualified for the job. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 9:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Does not respond to the issue I raised, above. |
I have given the recent historical context for the "pirates'" motives. I place "pirate" in quotes because they might also be called "Coast Guard.") I am sorry if you fail to grasp how it illuminates them.
| Quote: |
| Your source, frankly, sucks. |
Marcus Rediker has a Ph.D. in History from Penn and chairs the Department at U. of Pittsburgh. |
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Leslie Cheswyck
Joined: 31 May 2003
Location: University of Western Chile
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| Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 11:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Yea, like how the "Coast Guard" seized that Saudi tanker. (It wasn't dumping nuclear waste, was it?) Or should I place a few eye-roll emoticons here? |
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