Somalian Piracy

Short Version

When you screw over the poor people long enough, they eventually turn to what's initially called "crime" and later move onto something called "revolution".

Long Version:

Do I believe we should be sending the military down to crush the pirates? Absolutely. Kill them all. They crossed a line. However, with justice must come compassion.

If there wasn't such abject poverty in Somalia, there would not be such piracy. While mercilessly capturing and executing pirates, we should also be doing something to ease the situation which guaranteed the people would have to turn to piracy. If you are downtrodden and poor long enough it makes sense to develop hatred. After all, the spoiled rich lazy people have the spare money to be taking luxury cruises while the people in your town can't even feed themselves. Their greed, decadence, and unwillingness to share murders people in your neighborhood every day.

What we call "innocent people" they call "inhuman monsters willfully ignoring the plight of their fellow men". It's all a matter of perspective. And you know what? They're not that far from wrong, either. You don't exactly make yacht money by being fair and generous with your fellow man. Speaking as a citizen of the US, I've yet to meet a single wealthy person who has not made significant moral compromises that the Jesus they follow would not approve of to get where they are.

Does this mean they are evil persons? Not necessarily, but they're certainly not "innocent". When the family is captured and executed as a whole, did some innocent people get harmed? Quite likely. When a corporate exec cuts jobs but wouldn't even consider taking a 5% pay cut to save dozens of those jobs a whole lot of innocent persons are harmed as well. From the Somali pirates' point of view, NOT killing these folks will bring even more hardship on their friends and families. Ransom schemes are a lot harder to get away with than killing someone and pawning their stuff.

It's childish to draw the world as black and white as most do.

There is more than enough in the way of resources in this world for everyone, absolutely everyone alive today, to have a house and enough food to eat, but instead there's a constant worldwide vacuum from those who have the least to those who have the most.

Only a few hundred years ago, some folks left countries to found new ones, yet found themselves being strangled by taxes. The first actions in response to that were referred to as "crimes" as well. Rather than address the actual issues at hand, those with the wealth simply said "fuck it, kill anyone who disobeys", and so what's now referred to as the "American Revolution" happened. Our forefathers absolutely engaged in highjacking, terrorism, piracy, and yes even murder of "innocents" to make this country what it is today.

Why can't people learn from history? I have heard folks say "they LIKE being poor."

When all you have is the culture you find in poor neighborhoods, you will show pride in your culture. It's human nature to want to feel good about your tribe. Statements like "they WANT to be poor" only exacerbate that situation. At absolutely no point should one ever turn their back on the poor. At absolutely every point you should give them the resources to become sufficient, and if they take advantage of you give again. And again and again until there remains nothing left but for them to realize everything's gonna be okay, and then help them work to better everyone. Will there be parasites still? Always. As parasites continue to take advantage of you on the low end of the economic scale as there are parasites on the high end.

There will always be greed. That's part of human nature. The question is, are you man enough to rise above it?