hangtennow wrote:
Kael,
Quote:
Somalians are Islamic, hence, they are radical.
These pirates are muslims. The simple fact is we are cowering before muslim radicals (notice I said radicals, not every muslim is one).
And the reason I mentioned Thomas Jefferson is because he had to deal with this exact same situation and had a very successful outcome.
These are Somali criminals, who happen to be Muslim. They aren't doing any of this hijacking and stealing in the name of their faith, nor to spread Islam, nor as a political statement.
These people have turned to crime because of two reasons. Firstly, they used to be small scale subsistence fishermen, but large industrial fishing vessels from wealthier nations have overfished the waters to the point where there's no fish for these guys to catch any more. Secondly, their government has collapsed on them, so that there are no organisations they can fall back on, to survive or retrain or get work assistance while they find a new job. So they've taken their only assets, their little boats and ropes and guns, and instead of accepting starvation to death, are now stealing. They just happen to have moved up to very LARGE thefts, with a lucrative side dish of ransoms. By the way, while I in absolute no way condone either the hijacking, theft, or kidknapping, at least one thing can be said for them, and that is that they treat their kidnap victims extremely well. A sort of "no long term harm, no foul" attitude to it all.
None of this process has to do with their religious beliefs. Any one of them might be very lax and secular mulims, or fundamentalist Muslim, or anything in between. These are NOT Religious Radicals. They are Criminals.
And just in case you missed it, these are criminal individuals and families and small communities. This is NOT Somalia as a whole engaging in this Piracy. We are not at war. We haven't been attacked by a sovereign nation.
Oh dear God, I've just read down more of the thread. NO the money they collect isn't going to fund ANY terrorist or other organisations around the world. Everything those pirates take, they are keeping and spending on themselves, and their families and friends. They are instant third world millionaires. And their local communities can't help but give in and love them, because they're spending most of their money on goods and services within their own villages. Apart from the foreign luxuries they're importing in.
This has NOTHING to do with religion. This is POOR PEOPLE losing their livlihood, and turning to THEFT.
Edited, Apr 10th 2009 11:54am by Aripyanfar
