THE REAL PIRATE STORY

MB and I went to see the new movie called Captain Phillips last night.  It's about the American commercial ship captain who was taken hostage for ransom by Somali pirates.  The movie was well done and the acting quite superb, especially the Somali actors, but the film was rather slim on telling the real story why the people of Somalia have been reduced to acts of piracy in order to survive.

When I got home I watched several videos to find out more about the situation.  I've previously posted some videos about this but it is a good time to do it again.  Because there has been virtually no government in Somalia for years fishing trawlers from around the world took advantage and came right up along the coastline and fished out the waters off the African nation.  Then foreign ships dumped toxic, and quite possibly radioactive waste, into the fish depleted Somali waters.  The people are now desperate.

In the end the Captain Phillips movie turns into a recruitment film for the US Navy as they use warships and Navy Seals to kill the pirates and rescue Phillips.  The film is based on a true story so you can imagine the massive cost of bringing in all these gas guzzling warships, helicopters, and the like.  My first question was "how much did this rescue cost"?  They might have come out better just paying the ransom to the pirates.

Now fast forward to the current moment as US-NATO have set up a naval operation in the waters off Somalia.  The video just below shows how they use satellite and drone technology to track and monitor the pirates.  But then you see them talking about land operations (conveniently noting that on land they are protecting 'humanitarian relief' convoys) but clearly this whole pirate operation has given the US-NATO a major excuse to militarize the hell out of the region.

Captain Phillips is the contemporary version of the 7th Cavalry rescuing the white settlers from Indian attacks out west.  Except this time it's a high-tech version set on the African continent where lots of oil and precious minerals for cell phones and computers are under the ground just waiting for western corporations to grab them.