Respect Authority

So here’s a shocker: pirates are fairly badass.

Less than a week after the U.S. gave itself a massive pat on the back for thwarting Somalian pirates’ efforts to kidnap but one American citizen, those damn scallwags are at it again. NATO said Tuesday that Somali pirates have hijacked another cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden, their fourth ship in the last two days. If anything, our heroic efforts seem to have yielded little more than a case of Pirate’s Revenge — which, consequently, also sounds like an excellent name for a barbecue sauce. 

In fact, despite the fact that no less than five Somali pirates have been killed by recent efforts to quell the pillaging and plundering, the group of bandits are undeterred, saying little except that they plan to retaliate for the assassination of their colleagues. 

Perhaps more significant than the day-to-day developments in the pirate world is the nation’s sudden preoccupation with pirate goings-on. Although piracy appears to have been the Somalian pastime of choice (or perhaps national career) for years upon years, only recently has America woken up with a sort of bleary-eyed declaration of “Wha? Pirates?” — basically as soon as they started kidnapping our bearded sea captains. 

The real question is where this all ends - we’ve seen from countless media depictions — and most recently a series of highly produced Johnny Depp films — that piracy is no joke: it tends to start with floppy hats and end with giant squids and half-man/half-ocean people in ships that can disappear into the ocean. I’d say the odds are against us.