Seriously?
I had another topic to write about, but it will have to wait until later in the week. At the moment, my mind is boggled. I try to avoid waxing political, as it has a nasty habit of making enemies, but this one is unavoidable.
Islamic fighters (read: Somali junior terrorists) have vowed to fight the pirates in the Horn of Africa because they captured a Saudi Arabian flagged vessel.
Let me figure out everything that is strange about this. Maybe not everything, because that might take too long, but at least a few things.
First, the oil tanker was captured getting up on a week ago. It took these crazies a week to figure out that their Muslim bretheren were upset because their ship was taken. Off their coast. By people who came out of their country. Who presumably are not representative of the Somali government and, by terror affiliation, therefore most likely affiliated with these second-rate terrorists hanging around in Moghadishu. So much for situational awareness and figuring out what your people are up to in a timely manner.
Second, they seem to have ignored that an Iranian vessel was captured not too long ago. Now, true, the Iranian vessel was under Chinese flag at the time, so those zany pirates must have gotten confused, but nevertheless the owners were Muslim brothers. So much for Sunni or Shi’a, Arab or Persian, everyone join the Jihad. I believe the ransom was paid on that one.
Third, as alluded to, the money the pirates have been getting hasn’t exactly been sitting in a Swiss bank somewhere or in an offshore account in the Caymans. It goes to weapons and equipment, and not just for pirating. It goes to terror operations. Coincidentally, as I have pointed out, the extremists holding tight in Somalia’s capital are conducting some of these operations. Now, sure, some of that money probably goes to the Sudan and the Congo and Waziristan, but somehow I doubt that the pseudo-government of extremists is not getting any of the profits from this. They are cut of the same cloth.
Which brings me to my final rant, the comment that the fighters said that they are going to fight for this one because this Saudi vessel in particular should never have been attacked because they are Muslim brothers. Seriously? Nothing wrong with them violently taking anyone else’s stuff? Nothing wrong with them holding nationalities of all types hostage? There have been Muslims on other boats, my friends, and really why does it matter? Is pirating wrong, or is just pirating against Muslims wrong? Is this not the very discrimination that you are fighting against in Western states?
A word to extremists, not just Muslim but any flavor: the world will not convert to one religion. Sorry. Faith just can’t be manipulated that way. But I have just as much of a right to fish off the horn of Africa without my boat being invaded by a band of thieves as much as someone flying the crescent moon. And my hope would be that were I to be taken, my flag wouldn’t matter when it came to someone coming to my rescue.
Key difference, though, is that I would be carrying a weapon. Probably more than one were I so silly to be fishing in that region. So bring it on, Captain Blackdishdasha, because I would rather stick up for myself than have hypocrites such as these Islamic Fundamentalists come to my aid anyway.