The War On Whatever

I grew up with the War on Drugs. Not that sobriety resulted.

When the Twin Towers fell (despite the legitimate questions about whether they should have been built), I felt violated.

Thomas Jefferson is cited by the likes of Hitch as being a 'nation builder' (something no President in my lifetime can claim), and specifically is lauded for his willingness to fight Barbary Coast piracy.

What were the Barbary Coast pirates after? Spanish gold from Central America was centuries depleted to a great extent, and the Barbary pirates had basically setup a tax system where it was understood that a certain percentage of gold stolen from Indians would be diverted to North Africa.

So what was Jefferson worked up about? He clearly gave fuck-all for liberty or he wouldn't have been riding one of his female slaves under his wife's nose instead of actually 'freeing' thse slaves. But white-folks, that's a special case for Jefferson: he was willing to extend the U.S. naval resources to fight Barbary Coast piracy because...brace yourself...those pirates traded in slaves. And they were colorblind, willing to enslave Spaniards, Americans, Irish, Whatever. Put it on a boat, it was fair game as far as they were concerned.

So America waged war on 'white' slavery while still embracing the pigmented version in huge regions.

When 9/11 happened, and they started talking about a war on 'terror,' I likened it to the war on piracy. I had no idea how apt the comparison was.

I might as well have referred to the Moorish Wars, the French Resistance to them, or later, to the Crusades. In any case, piracy is still a very real thing.

This came up on an NPR blurb today, 'Talk of the Nation.' Appaarently a cruise ship mistook a war zone for he high seas, and was attacked by a pair of cigarette boates nar Somalia. They shook the attack off, but here's what stopped me:

The expert on high-seas piracy they had on spoke of specific areas of the ocean that no cruise line should touch. This isn't a signle opinion, this is a U.N. edict.

Worse, the 'expert,' was able to speak of the percentage of piracy that is committed against oil tankers. Just what we need is an Al Queda-guided Valdeez-Replay.