Pirates, pirates and more pirates; there is a new pirate story in the headlines every day now, so, for those who want a chuckle and don’t mind a bit of crude humor, watch last night’s South Park episode. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone send the boys to Somalia in hopes of leaving their “meaningless lives behind” to become pirates. Cartman promises the boys treasure, waterfalls and jewels, all the “booty and plunder a pirate could want.”
Who imagined that in 2009, the world’s governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy - backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the U.S. to China - is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth.
But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labeling as “one of the great menaces of our times” have an extraordinary story to tell - and some justice on their side.
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