Let Me Tell You Something About Pirates

Ok, new rule. We can’t call what’s happening off the coast of Somalia and the Straights of Malacca as ‘pirate activity’ anymore. They are armed robbers. Pirates not only robbed people at sea who also usually had guns, swards and means to protect themselves but they sacked cities, raped, pillaged and plundered those on land when they had to port. You really can’t compare a bunch of gun toting fools on a go-fast boat who commandeer a defenseless oil tanker with the maneuverability of a floating corpse, as pirates. The Vikings would be insulted. I was on a boat once that went around the world and late at night we would have “pirate watch”. It consisted of men standing on the back of the boat with flashlights and fire hoses. That’s not “pirate watch”, that’s trying not to get robbed. “Pirate watch” would be having guns, cannons and hidden rooms to hide the women and children.