Tuesday 7 April 2009

Proper Piracy: A Proper Threat

Not "pirate" DVDs.

Not "pirate" radio at the pictures.

Proper pirates.

Who have now captured a British-owned, if Italian-run, ship.

When did Saddam Hussein ever do that? When has the Taliban? When has "al-Qaeda"? When has Iran (that dinghy carry-on was something else entirely)? When has North Korea? When has China? When has Russia? When has Venezuela? And so on.

But what are we doing about piracy in the Indian Ocean? Absolutely nothing.

13 comments:

  1. One might almost imagine that:

    a) you consider threats to people who are not British to be beneath consideration and

    b) that only threats to British shipping are worth dealing with

    c) you are completely unaware that the HMSs Northumberland and Cumberland are currently deployed in the region to fight piracy (and pirates).

    Surely not?

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  2. "a) you consider threats to people who are not British to be beneath consideration"

    They are of, at most, secondary or tertiary importance to British policy, as such. Or, at least, they should be. Self-evidently.

    "b) that only threats to British shipping are worth dealing with"

    By Britain, yes. It depends how you define "British shipping", of course. But, in principle, yes. Of course. Who else's shipping are we supposed to protect, and why?

    "c) you are completely unaware that the HMSs Northumberland and Cumberland are currently deployed in the region to fight piracy (and pirates)"

    Compare and contrast the mass deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan for no reason at all. And the hysterical demands for pointless wars against all the other countries that I list (and the non-existent "al-Qaeda"), plus others besides.

    Though never against Saudi Arabia, whence came the 9/11 attack, and when comes the Bushes' and the Clintons' money. Funny, that.

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  3. A lot of good Northumberland and Cumberland are doing.

    And are you sure that Pugwash isn't making this up in view of the allusions to the Wars of the Roses in another post today?

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  4. Is that a reference to 'So That's The Way You Like It' from 'Beyond The Fringe'? I assume so. The early Sixties "satire boom" will have to wait for another time, although you can no doubt guess what I think of it.

    Anyway, the Navy's lack of success against the real threat that is Indian Ocean piracy is due to the diversion of military resources to ridiculous and criminal enterprises elsewhere, and the closely related low political (including media) priority of this problem.

    An earthquake in Italy, tragic though that is, matters more than the capture of an Anglo-Italian ship by our enemies.

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  5. I leave it to your readers to decide whether the phrase "absolutely nothing" is an accurate way to describe the deployment of two warships. I will ask you, however, what you think the correct deployment of forces is, two warships evidently being too little.

    You might also be interested to learn that hte Northumberland and Cumberland are deployed not by themselves but in international squadrons, and were so deployed before the attack on the British ship. Can you really not see the benefits to nations helping to protect all shipping, not merely their own?

    Finally, it is not self-evident to me that British policy should be to leave non-Britons to, for example, be stoned to death for reading a book - why do you think so, and how does this relate to your claim to Christian principles?

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  6. It might help to read this. Knowledge is power.

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  7. Don't be cheap.

    And don't you think that the idea of invading every country of whose policies in such an area we happen to disapprove would lead to ... oh, what's the point? If you still can't see it even now, then you never will.

    Making the world anew to some sort of academic blueprint, and that by armed force, has nothing whatever to do with Christianity. In country after country, it has in fact supplanted historically Christian but now totally secular political movements.

    The move to "interventionism" is the mark of a party's, and a country's, secularisation. No one who really believed in Original Sin, in fundamental human fraility and limitedness, could ever entertain such a notion. Why do you think that no one has been more opposed to the Iraq War than the churches?

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  8. Jake, I doubt that those presently under capture are too impressed.

    I don't blame the Navy. Imagine what they could be doing if they, and the Army, and the RAF, were not under orders to act out not one but two (interrelated) bad undergraduate fantasies at once: European federalism in the Indian Ocean, and "spreading freedom and democracy blah blah blah" in certain other places.

    But of course the Armed Forces should be under democratic political control. So the responsibility is ours: to remove the bad undergraduates and replace them with proper politicians.

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  9. So we're all just weak and flawed and our only response to evil should be to bar the door on the unfortunate wretches not lucky enough to be in our club?

    "Only British interests" is the international version of "I'm alright Jack".

    Just to clarify:

    Should Britain have declared war on Germany in Sept 39?
    Should Britain have continued trading with apartheid South Africa?
    Should Britain have attempted to stop the massacres in Rwanda?

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  10. So, again, what forces should have been deployed to the Indian Ocean?

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  11. The Naval ones, at least, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most obviously.

    I wouldn't ordinarily put up drivel such as that from Sam, but I have done so because it is a useful illustratration of the mentality of people who support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, neither of which, it should be noted, was originally started, or is officially being fought even today, for the reasons that Sam, Roger et al favour.

    Don't you have any revision to do, Sam? Probably not, since the SATs at 14 have been abolished. You'll learn, dear boy, you'll learn. Or you'll end up as Foreign Secretary or something, having learned nothing at all.

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  12. I wouldn't worry, David. Sam can't possibly be for real after that comment.

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  13. Oh, but he can, Jeff.

    Oh, but he can...

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