Nov 18 2008
Pirates 2 — Definition of “Privateer”
On Cap’n Richard Rodriguez’s superlative Bitter End blog, we find this:
http://captrichardrodriguez.blogspot.com/2008/11/more-piracy-news.html
A hijacked supertanker with two British crew members was being taken to a Somali port this afternoon after pirates seized their biggest vessel yet off the African coast. Acts of piracy in the shipping lanes of the Arabian Sea have become increasingly violent and commonplace in recent months, but this is the first time hijackers have seized an oil tanker.
The 1,000 ft-long Sirius Star was seized on Saturday around 450 nautical miles from Mombasa on the Kenyan coast. The supertanker, which can hold up to two million barrels of crude oil, is owned by Aramco, a Saudi company, but was sailing under a Liberian flag.
The original piece is here.
Somehow, I don’t think folks with this magnitude of daring are the least bit interested in my puny vessel. I really liked this observation:
They are typically well armed, well funded and well organised. Those who are attacked report gangs dressed in military fatigues and using satellite phones, GPS equipment, automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and grenades.
So it seems we have two flavors of pirate; the desperately poor and the thoroughly backed. I wonder when the media will figure out that these people are privateers, not pirates?
Hasn’t it always been that way? Clearly the gear and clothes aren’t as fun as the old days, but in the old days, the queens and kings often hired pirates to raid the booty of other countries. Back then there were also the desperately poor and the thoroughly backed. Nothin’s changed but the look of them, and more powerful weapons.