Weird But True: HuffPoster Offers Defense of Somali Pirates

Seems after the hostage standoff ended yesterday most of the civilized world is applauding the daring rescue of Captain Richard Phillips.

But leave it to the Huffington Post to give voice to a Somali defending piracy.

Seriously. You see, this piracy isn't about just robbing people to enrich themselves.

It's about the environment!

In 2004, after a tsunami washed ashore several leaking containers, thousand of locals in the Puntland region of Somalia started to complain of severe and previously unreported ailments, such as abdominal bleeding, skin melting off and a lot of immediate cancer-like symptoms. Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the United Nations Environmental Program, says that the containers had many different kinds of waste, including "Uranium, radioactive waste, lead, Cadmium, Mercury and chemical waste." But this wasn't just a passing evil from one or two groups taking advantage of our unprotected waters. The UN envoy for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, says that the practice still continues to this day. It was months after those initial reports that local fishermen mobilized themselves, along with street militias, to go into the waters and deter the Westerners from having a free pass at completely destroying Somalia's aquatic life. Now years later, the deterring has become less noble, and the ex-fishermen with their militias have begun to develop a taste for ransom at sea. This form of piracy is now a major contributor to the Somali economy, especially in the very region that private toxic waste companies first began to burry our nation's death trap.

Now Somalia has upped the world's pirate attacks by over 21 percent in one year, and while NATO and the EU are both sending forces to the Somali coast to try and slow down the attacks, Blackwater and all kinds of private security firms are intent on cashing in. But while Europeans are well in their right to protect their trade interest in the region, our pirates were the only deterrent we had from an externally imposed environmental disaster. No one can say for sure that some of the ships they are now holding for ransom were not involved in illegal activity in our waters. The truth is, if you ask any Somali, if getting rid of the pirates only means the continuous rape of our coast by unmonitored Western Vessels, and the producing of a new cancerous generation, we would all fly our pirate flags high.

It is time that the world gave the Somali people some assurance that these Western illegal activities will end, if our pirates are to seize their operations. We do not want the EU and NATO serving as a shield for these nuclear waste-dumping hoodlums. It seems to me that this new modern crisis is truly a question of justice, but also a question of whose justice.

As is apparent these days, one man's pirate is another man's coast guard.

Naturally, this kind of nuttery brings out the best in the HuffPost comments.

Helzapoppin

People need to be reminded that during the American Revolution, we hired pirates to attack and loot foreign ships along the coast because we had no Navy. Not so different.

Thank you very much for this article. I have been aghast at the adolescent, abominable cheering going on over the killing of some of the "pirates" in the recent hostage situation - as if each head shot were nothing more than of a 3-pointer from mid-court.

I'm glad someone is willing to explore and explain WHY this all started in the first place.

If I were forced into those conditions, I would likely resort to "piracy" as well.

ini

I'm glad someone is telling the truth about this situation. You'll never hear it from CNN and Faux News that's for sure.

Ace links. Thanks!