Like the stories of pirate-hood in Pirates of the Carribean, recent boaters in the Atlantic have come upon violent men with money symbols in their eyes. Recently, Colin Darch was faced with such a problem. "With boats on each flank and almost 20 pirates armed with AK-47s, he and his five crew members would not escape. The pirates rushed aboard, firing their weapons into the air and ordering the crew to lie down". This mariner and his crew were quite lucky, it only took them six weeks to come up with $700,000. Unlike the 1700s, these modern-day pirates are now holding men for ransoms as large as 1.2 million dollars for a small crew. Maybe it's just me, but I always thought that this pirate idea was a crime of 3 centuries ago when people still believed the world was flat and had an end! Little did I know, the navy has been monitoring the waters off the East Coast of Africa for the five past years because of the increase in such water-crime. "The Navy works with France, the Netherlands, Britain and Pakistan in what is known as Combined Task Force 150, a maritime coalition that has taken on additional anti-piracy roles around Somalia" and keeps a warship present! Especially living where we're blessed to live, it's funny to think that such primitive ways of life still exist at all. Maybe I live in some cardboard box, but who knew Johnny Depp could have actually done a true-life interview to get to the core of his gold-loving, boat-taking character over the past two years. How else should the U.S. be involved in this open water crime? Or should we be involved at all when we have a war-focus elsewhere?
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6 comments:
Primitive? Piracy (through ransoming) is a very effective method of getting money. Id highly suggest it to anyone considering alternatives to the joining the United States Military. Very high profit margin (infinitely higher than being a foot soldier), and very similar chances of death.
Seriously though, modern piracy is very cool.
http://cristgaming.com/pirate.swf
while these "pirates" call themselves pirates, they're not really pirates. Pirates, such as the ones that are depicted in Pirates of the Carribbean are cool. Captain Kidd was awesome. Blackbeard was a total badass. These modern-day "pirates" are not cool, nor are they pirates. They're sea-terrorists, and being a solely for-profit sea-terrorist is like one step above nothing, because, not only are they killing people and holding hostages, they're also besmirching the good name of pirates everywhere.
although benji has a point, he is inherently wrong.
if modern restrictions on piracy were more lenient we would still have real pirates like blackbeard and kidd. these "sea-terrorists", as benji puts it, want desperately to be like the pirates of old, but they are forced into less accepted methods in times like these.
it is truly sad.
i'm going to have to disagree with david.
there is just as much buried treasure in secret islands today as there was 1000 years ago, if not more. these "pirates" could invest in shovels, compasses, and sextants instead of AK-47s, rocket launchers, and wireless internet to make their hostage demands. they could save money on supplies, while potentially making billions in old spanish pieces o' eight. while i did not know him personally, i'm sure blackbeard, were he alive today, would not stoop to such a low level as to only take hostages, and neglect the necessity of digging up, then reburying treasure.
but i agree, the situation today truly is sad.
I fear that i'm going to have to concede to benji's point regarding the fact that modern pirates do neglect their responsibilities of burying and reburying treasure...
However, there is some argument to made regarding the amount of treasure that is actually hidden in the secret isles. If there was that much available treasure why would the pirates bother with hostages? "Spanish pieces o' eight" would be worth far more than even a large hostage ransom. Despite benji's excellent points i must maintain that modern day pirates WANT to be like the pirates of old.
MR. Thurtle anyone? Just this semester we had a display of the modern day pirate in the 7th period class! Pretty bad in my opinion! But at least it is not like back in the day because then they did not know of ransom? Or did they? Not a joke, but besides that I think something should/could be down pretty easily to monitor all boat activity on the coast and then set up fake helpless boats full of the navy and try and trick pirates to come and try and capture them!
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