Comments on: Somalis speak out: Why we don’t condemn our pirates

By: rashiim

rashiim — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:30:46 +0000

what goes round comes back around. you can not keep doing africa to whatever you like god will be the judge of that.

By: Chuck Rupert

Chuck Rupert — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 19:08:12 +0000

Well, it seems like Somali pirates are the Somali government. Like most governments, they really don't give a crap about their countrymen–just keeping themselves in power. Any efforts they make to win the hearts and minds of the locals are short term bandaids to keep themselves in power. Soon, they will piss off enough other countries and when they are dealt with harshly, so will the already impoverished Somalians who surround them. These 'pirates" are basically thugs with no vision of the future…the Somalians themselves have no vision and no leaders so they will continue to be taken advantage of by one side or the other. That's why they are hesitant to speak out against piracy…they have no vision and no one to lead them out of their misery. That is THEIR Karma, K'naan.

By: Kate

Kate — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 11:38:11 +0000

Honey, if you want to talk rapes, why don’t we talk about big businesses raping the environment, in the name of profit? Plundering resources for their own greedy gain. Creating man-made diseases so they can sell us thier drugs to “cure” us. These are the real rapes going on in our world, and on massive scale, too.

It is a sad state of affairs, when stories such as this, are really only the tip of the iceberg.

How much of this is really going on, completely ignored by mainstream media?

By: George Burburan

George Burburan — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 06:07:38 +0000

Oh I see Davey. I speak out against piracy and in your mind that makes me a Nazi and a Klansman.

Yes you sound real intelligent.LOL

By: Davey

Davey — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:40:18 +0000

George Burburan & Honey are spokespersons for the Klu Klux Klan, National Socialism and Neocon Imperialism. What a pair of gits!! Lets see what happens when foreigners invade your land and take everything off your plate and out of your house.

By: samia

samia — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:55:22 +0000

this is a reply to honey
who r u 2 critisize their means of protecting their land? what do u know bout hunger n poverty nothin is what. how can u jucge them u’ve never seen hungry u’ve never felt helpless n seen ur kids die of hunger or pety ilnesses this is a daily thing for these people n who says they’ve been raping somalians don’t rape why would they when they can have upto 4 wifes all that is bullhit u need to check ur sources. so what do u suggest they give up n wait 2 die n why do they need white men they’re better of fighting n killing themselves coz the white men would do much worse 2 them. i reckon if someone is dumping waste on your country n killing ur livelyhood don’t necessarily kill them but fight back. how do they fight nobody listens to them they don’t have any weapons this piracy started later coz there was no more fish to eat as they were all dying n there was an easy way to makae money n anyways they aint killed not one person what does that tell you they are not cruel people but just want money for their families. n they may live in fear but at the end of the dady its not the somalies that hurt them but the foriegn people. i hear stories bout how my granma used to get stopped in somali streets n told 2 hand over her things but not once did she get beaten up they don’t beat women much less rape them n i have spent most of my life in somalia so i should know. soamlians are not cruel they are just hungry n want food for their families n the american gov having metings bout pirates n military ways 2 solve it when they know the origins of the problem n how easily to solve it. but they don’t why i don’t know but its not good.

By: Jerry Baker

Jerry Baker — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:40:59 +0000

I remember the day I turned age 8, on August 8, 1932. My mother was cooking a big meal, that day, for a threshing crew, that were threshing oats at our farm.

I listened to the radio that day, and heard the news that the Italians had invaded “British Somaliland.” I wondered where that was. It sounded like it was a “small land.”

Somaliland, I think, was divided among 3 European colonial empires. There was another country that occupied part of it, besides Britain and Italy, but I forgot which it was.

Jerry Baker

By: Honey

Honey — Tue, 26 May 2009 10:33:32 +0000

This somalian situation really bothers me. Not only because they rape, murder and steal on an everyday basis but they get support from a lot of ppl in Somalia, like this idiot looking punk. I have a friend (along with his sister) from Somalia living in Europe, he has no intentions whatsoever in returning to his country, as a matter of fact he became a citizen of a country in Europe so quickly, which he calls home. Anyway, I do not support rape, murder, human suffering and cruelty even if they dump waste in my country. Are u guys really protecting your homeland? Sorry to be mean but for what? You live in fear, suffering and cruelty and u have no idea what it feels like to walk in the street happily and safely. U would be so better off under white rule, it has proved so many times in the history of Africa…

By: James

James — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:24:00 +0000

Keep it up, you’re going to get blow out of the water, 2-3 4 at time!

By: Jerry Baker

Jerry Baker — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:52:20 +0000

This is from a web site of Jules Verne’s ideas related to piracy, published by Indian science fiction writer Anil Menon.

http://yet.typepad.com/round_dice/2006/09/like_many_curre.html

These are comments about “piracy,” by Tom Engelhardt, of The Nation magazine

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175062/john_feffer_the_piracy_problem

By: Jerry Baker

Jerry Baker — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:12:23 +0000

That picture of the crew of the hijacked Ukranian ship MV Faina, standing on board and looking like “one happy family” with their captors, remind me of similar piracy episodes, one fictional and one real.

The fictional one was that of Captain Nemo and his his huge
electric submarine, “The Nautilus,” in Jules Verne’s science fiction novel “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea.” Verne published that book around 1870.

Nemo, the chief character in the book, and a hero to most
of its readers, was Prince Dakar, an Indian who was fighting against the “evil empire” of the British, who ruled India at that time.

Verne had originally planned to make Nemo a Polish person, who was fighting against the “evil empire” of the Czar of Russia. However, Verne was French, and France decided to be on good terms with Russia, so he changed the script.

Nemo treated his captives as guests, and let them have the run of the ship.

Count Von Luckner, a German pirate in World War I, also treated his captives as guests.

Not all pirates made their captives “walk the plank.”

By: DW

DW — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:28:14 +0000

Why don’t you enable sharing of these stories via digg, reddit, and most importantly facebook. It will give them a much much wider distribution?

Great writing and coverage… keep it up

By: george burburan

george burburan — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:49:14 +0000

Painting these pirates as environmental wariors is an insult to those who truly attemtpt to protect the environment. Wake up you’re being conned by the thugs doing the plundering of legitimate commercial vessels and the holding of innocent hostages.

If their real concern was overfishing why is it that over 90% of the vessels seized happen to cargo ships and tankers. Could the answer be money. Why with all this alledged ilegal fishing being done are not fishing boats the targets?

Somalia is a country where human trafficking is rampant. Perhaps people should look more closely at the source of this information.

By: Jerry Baker

Jerry Baker — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:44:07 +0000

I wonder what Robert Louis Stevenson, were he alive today, might have to say about this.