Shivver Me Timbers!

by pessimist

As an eerie echo of the exhausted patience of the poor as seen these days in France and in South America comes another 'terrist' attack against wealthy tourists on a cruise ship off the coast of Somalia. Such sea-going assaults are becoming more common:

There has been a steep rise in piracy this year along Somalia's nearly 2,000-mile coastline, with 15 violent incidents reported between March and August, compared with just two for all of 2004, according to the International Maritime Bureau, a division of the International Chamber of Commerce that tracks trends in piracy.

"These are very well-organized pirates," said Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers Assistance Program. "Somalia's coastline is the most dangerous place in the region in terms of maritime security."

But as bad as the incident off the coast of Somalia is, it isn't the worst area - nor is the piracy limited to the sea:

Complicating matters is an ongoing border row between Indonesia and Malaysia over two reputably oil-rich islands. Leaders on both sides play down the possibility this might impair joint efforts to monitor the strait, but both nations have become pronouncedly less hospitable toward one another of late.

The problems facing Indonesia of properly patrolling the Malacca Straits in particular parallel that of the BFEE/PNAC Petroleum Pirate Posse, whose wet-dreams of dominating the world through the creative extortion of mass quantities of petrodollars would require that no group or nation ever be in a position to threaten that dominance. It would take a military the size of America's WWII forces to even begin to take on that role.

Let's look at Indonesia's situation:

Iskandar Sazlan of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said the question is no longer whether the coordinated patrols are working - "clearly they're not" - but whether it is safe to sustain them. It is widely contended that the only way for coordinated patrols to be effective is if all parties involved are pulling their weight.

Indonesia, even by its leadership's admittance, is not. Of 325 reported pirate attacks worldwide in 2004, 93 occurred in Indonesian waters (compared with nine in Malaysia and eight in Singapore).

The country's defense capacity is spread thin, with the government trying to quell separatist movements in Aceh and maintain stability elsewhere across the sprawling archipelago.

Are not US forces spread thin occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, and maintaining a 'stabilizing' presense in 133 or so nations of the world? Anti-globalization movements could tenuously be presented as separatist movements, as the major Western countries are discovering that it isn't so easy anymore to just walk in and take over a country for economic colonialization - the natives are armed almost as well as the colonizers and are more motivated to oppose. In fact, they are believed ready to use a form of economic jiu-jitsu against the West:

One saw 35 armed pirates hijack a gas tanker, something that it has long been feared might be converted by terrorists into a floating bomb and spearheaded into a port, severely disrupting world trade. The 35 pirates who attacked the gas tanker were said to have been carrying machine-guns and rocket launchers.

The gunboat 'diplomacy' long practiced by the United States doesn't work so well anymore, and because of this failure, another regional leader has arisen:

Another helpful measure is a Japanese-sponsored regional cooperation agreement, which is "a first-of-its-kind legal framework to combat piracy". This agreement was endorsed in November by the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), along with China, Japan, South Korea, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, the maritime official said.

He pointed out that Japan, highly dependent on the strait, has been helping Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore secure the strait for the last 30 years. "But we haven't had a problem yet. Japan knows how to work well with local authorities. First, they recognize that they have a responsibility to the region. Secondly, they haven't stepped on anyone's toes."

The same could not be said last April, when US Admiral Thomas Fargo announced that the United States was considering deploying special forces on high-speed vessels along the Malacca Strait to compensate for some of the littoral states' seeming nonchalance toward safeguarding against a terrorist incident.

The Malaysian government vociferously rejected the offer.

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see. The handwriting is on the wall, and only those who are still fighting yesterday's economic wars aren't seeing that the world isn't the White Man's oyster anymore. The Great Profit Pearl isn't sitting there ready for the taking by the bold and adventurous. It has to be bought at a fair price from those who not only own the treasure - but have the means to defend it against the globalizationist pirates who seek to steal it.

As Kris Kristopherson once wrote, "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose." The people of the world who are rising up in opposition to globalization would beg to differ. They have everything to lose, and the freedom to decide for themselves whether - and by what means - they will defend their assets.

Taking up what weapons they have to use against the assets of a foreign invader, whether dressed in cammies or Brooks Brothers, is something Americans should understand. It's been the basis of the NRA's Second Amendment stance for many years. It's OK to shoot once the invader has crossed the threshhold of your home.

The only difference is that it is now being applied to the United States and its globalizationist allies by foreign lands. They are prepared to repel all boarders.

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