You’ve heard about the take over of a Ukrainian warship carrying massive amounts of Russian weapons to Sudan by now, right? Another in a long line of ships preyed upon in that area. I wonder what religion the pirates are, considering the area? Never mind, not that important at the moment.
Well, this ship that is now surrounded by American warships(liberals will probably say the US is being “provocative”) is the subject of interest for the New York Times, which felt that, like with Islamic terrorists, they just needed to talk one on one: Somali Pirates Tell All: They’re In It For The Money
The Somali pirates who hijacked a Ukrainian freighter loaded with tanks, artillery, grenade launchers and ammunition said in an interview Tuesday that they had no idea that the ship was carrying arms when they seized it on the high seas.
“We just saw a big ship,†the pirates’ spokesman, Sugule Ali, told The New York Times. “So we stopped it.â€
The pirates quickly learned, though, that their booty was an estimated $30 million worth of heavy weaponry, heading for Kenya or Sudan, depending on who you ask.
In a 45-minute-long interview, Mr. Sugule expounded on everything from what the pirates want — “just money†— to why they were doing this — “to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters†— to what they eat — rice, meat, bread, spaghetti, “you know, normal human being food.â€
He said that so far, in the eyes of the world, the pirates had been misunderstood. “We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits,†he said. “We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard.â€
Nothing about anthropogenic climate change and the need to redistribute funds from the rich to the poor?
The pirates who answered the phone call on Tuesday morning from The New York Times said they were speaking by satellite phone from the bridge of the Faina, the Ukrainian cargo ship that was hijacked about 200 miles off the coast of Somalia on Thursday.
Interesting. They called the pirates, talked with them for 45 minutes, and the above quotes are pretty much all the Times is willing to print. I wonder why? Anyhow, that seems to be about 40 minutes longer then the NY TImes is willing to spend talking to Republicans.
On the plus side for the Times, they do explain that the pirating did start out as a means to stop illegal fishing with the collapse of the Somali government, but, soon went much farther. I think it would have been worthwhile to at least expand a paragraph on just how far and bad, but, it was something.
PS: no real surprise that they are adherents to the religion of Mohammed (via Jihad Watch)
“We are happy on the ship and we are celebrating Eid,” Ali said. “Nothing has changed.”
The Islamic feast marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
