Per Yahoo, those two American evangelists and their unfortunate crew members have been killed by their Somali captors:
NAIROBI, Kenya – Four Americans taken hostage by Somali pirates off East Africa were shot and killed by their captors Tuesday, the U.S. military said, marking the first time U.S. citizens have been killed in a wave of pirate attacks plaguing the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean for years.
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U.S. naval forces who were trailing the Americans’ captured yacht with four warships quickly boarded the vessel after hearing the gunfire. They tried to provide lifesaving care to the Americans, but they died of their wounds, U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida said in a statement…
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[Vice Adm. Mark Fox, commander of U.S. naval forces for Central Command] said in a televised briefing that the violence on Tuesday started when a rocket-propelled grenade was fired from the yacht at the USS Sterett, a guided-missile destroyer 600 yards (meters) away. The RPG missed and almost immediately afterward small arms fire was heard coming from the yacht, Fox said…
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He identified the slain Americans as Jean and Scott Adam, of Marina del Rey near Los Angeles, and Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle, of Seattle, Washington. The Quest was the home of the Adams who had been sailing around the world since December 2004 with a yacht full of Bibles.
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Pirates hijacked the Quest on Friday several hundred miles south of Oman. Fox said mariners are warned about traveling through the area because of the dangers of pirate attacks…
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Two days before the attack, a New York court had sentenced a pirate to 33 years in prison for the 2009 hijacking of the Maersk Alabama, a U.S. cargo vessel. That hijacking ended when Navy sharpshooters killed two pirates holding the ship’s captain. A pirate in Somalia told the AP last week that pirates were more likely to attack Americans because of the verdict….
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Omar Jamal, first secretary at Somalia’s mission at the U.N., sent his condolences to the families of the four Americans and called the deaths a tragic loss of life. Jamal said there is an urgent need to address the piracy problem.
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“This incident is a clear message and alarm that it’s time the world community quickly steps up to stop these pirate criminal activities. They should be treated mercilessly,” said Gen. Yusuf Ahmed Khayr, the security minister in the northern Somalia region of Puntland, a pirate haven.
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The Adams ran a Bible ministry and have been distributing Bibles to schools and churches in remote villages in areas including the Fiji Islands, Alaska, New Zealand, Central America and French Polynesia.
I realize that America is a center-right Judeo-Christian nation, and that our precious First Amendment freedoms include the freedom to yacht around pirate-infested waters evangelizing for our religion of choice. It just irks me that, if we’re gonna achieve Karl Rove’s wet dream of a 21st-century McKinley Administration, the measure of our national prestige has been reduced from a warship “protecting U.S. interests” to a couple of well-meaning retirees hoping to bring the Wurd of Gawd to the heatherns. And it’s almost too narratively neat that the commander shoved out in front of the cameras to explain this little contretemps should share a surname with our very own modern inheritor of the William Randolph Hearst tradition of yelllow journalism…
Nate
This really is one of the worst posts I’ve seen here.
Tonal Crow
Stop the pirates? Are you kidding? They’re a legitimate business operating from the Republican mecca of AynRandLand, previously known as Somalia. Why do you hate freedom?
4tehlulz
This thread is going places.
Dusty
Isn’t this victim-blaming? I assume they weren’t hijacked because they were missionaries. They were hijacked for profit and our naval forces responded to try to secure the safety of those traveling in international waters. The reason these particular individuals were in those waters is sort of irrelevant.
Campionrules
Wow.
The U.S. warship was dispatched there after they were hijacked.
Victim blaming indeed.
A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum)
My condolences to the the friends and family of these folks.
New wingnut talking point: Once again Obama’s big government fails to allow the invisible hand of the free market sort this out!
Campionrules
I’m glad that you feel that U.S. citizens don’t deserve any help or assistance from their own tax-payer funded, volunteer military.
Doug Hill
Count me out of anything that smacks of blaming the victims here.
Michael
Whooptie shit. Maybe the Talibornagain will start staying home more often.
Campionrules
Wait, wait
I apologize, this entire post was snark right?
Cause if it’s not, I can’t believe I reading this shit here. Is it opposite day? Did I really land on redstate?
Violet
If you’re going to sail in pirate infested waters, you have to know there are some risks. I’m sorry for the families and friends of those who were lost. It’s a terrible loss for them. But honestly, WTF were they doing there? Not exactly the smartest place to sail.
joes527
Wow. Just wow.
I’d class the bibles in the hold to be about as relevant to this act of violence as the color of Lara Logan’s hair.
But WTF. They are Christians so they obviously were asking for it.
cleek
i’d like to put my name in the “WTF does partisan politics have to do with this?” column, if possible.
not cool
Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)
Are you freaking kidding me?? You want to be snarky about four people being murdered?
What a ghoulish and insensitive post…it’s like something the Red Staters would imagine we’d say about the situation, except in this case they’d be right.
You should apologize, Anna Laurie. Ugh.
General Stuck
Count me with Joe Hill.
Dennis SGMM
“I broke my leg in three places.”
“What did your doctor say?”
“He said to stay out of those three places.”
It’s sad that these people were killed. NPR news reported that they left a flotilla of similar vessels and set off on their own. Sailing in waters known to be infested with pirates, when you could sail anywhere else, seems foolish to me. Leaving a flotilla of other vessels under those conditions seems downright suicidal.
Morbo
It’s not like they were in a shack on solid ground and we could send a humvee and a lieutenant colonel over to negotiate. If there are American hostages on the ocean, how the hell else would we negotiate their release than on a warship?
hilts
Anne, why couldn’t you have followed the example of A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum) with the sentence cited above? Your descent into tasteless, nauseating snark after this horrible crime is incredibly offensive and flat out disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself. Cole should ban you from posting for the rest of the week.
Mike in NC
I found out last week that a guy I served with on active duty back in the 80s later left the Navy and joined the Merchant Marine. He was captain of the Maersk Alabama until shortly before it was hijacked by the pirates. Talk about lucky timing…
freelancer
@Campionrules:
I don’t think it’s snark the way you mean it to be. AL doesn’t have the habit of trolling her readers like Doug or John.
cleek
Somalia is practically begging to be invaded.
fasteddie9318
I get as irritated by evangelists as anybody, but, sorry, this post reads like something I’d expect to see at Redstate.
Silver
I’d be pissed if I hijacked a boat and found nothing but Bibles on it too.
Also, I’d like to thank our Lord Jesus Christ for his most gracious intervention here, preventing horrible events from happening. Praise his holy name.
Campionrules
@freelancer:
Yeah I don’t think so either. I was just grasping for a possible explanation to explain what is clearly a nominee for the ‘Moore Award’ (I do not endorse the craziness that is Andrew Sullivan – I just think this would a prime example)
Zifnab
Give it some time. Iraq was just the first salvo in the Glorious American Crusade to Liberate Non-Christians from Themselves. As soon as someone can find a way to make it profitable, we’ll be shuttling Evangelicals over Africa by the bible-thumping gun-toting boat load.
Perhaps what the continent really needs is an old time religion style colonization.
mistermix a.k.a. mastermix
I don’t understand the point of this post – is there some evidence that these folks wanted to provoke an incident by getting hijacked? Sounds like they were victims here.
Pococurante
How is this different than publically blaming Lara Logan?
Nir Rosen lost his fellowship and is now working off his sins by supporting women’s rights in the middle east.
I wonder what Anne Laurie will do.
matoko_chan
meh
the missionaries were executed because the US was mounting a rescue attempt.
they were valuable hostages, the Somalis wouldnt have killed them if they could have redeemed them for cash.
capitialisma si!
Nate
I can’t even tell if it’s victim-blaming. There so much snark here that the point of the post is impossible to determine.
jrg
Tooling around in a sailboat off the east African coast, for any reason, is very, very stupid. I don’t think it’s blaming the victim to point that out.
That said, I don’t think you have a winner here, A.L. Snark over Grandma and Grampa getting murdered will never fly well anywhere.
joes527
@Dennis SGMM: OK. News reports are liable to be incomplete and inaccurate at this point, but from what I had read, they had assessed the danger, and thought that they were staying far enough offshore.
Tragically, they were wrong.
matoko_chan
@mistermix a.k.a. mastermix: its darwinian selection.
winnowing the stupid.
the Somalis were teaching the US a simple lesson, rescue attempts result in dead missionaries.
pay up next time.
ppcli
I can imagine there is a post to be made of the “will the people who blamed Lara Logan blame these missionaries too?” variety. But in the face of the deaths of several innocent, well-meaning people, posts of that type have to be crafted with care. This one should have been edited several times before it was put up.
Mr. Blink
I have mixed feelings about this post. Yes, it was insensitive, and the kind of shit I hate reading about on right-leaning sites. I think the point could have been made using different word choices.
On the other hand, I agree that those people should not have been there in the first place, unless their boat died and they accidentally drifted there. I would not expect instant police protection if I was wandering around a known bad neighborhood in the middle of the night. Nor would I be surprised if something bad were to happen to me. It’s called common sense.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
They bought their yacht…they knew they were entering pirate-infested waters…I say let them get hijacked.
Southern Beale
You know, this might not be the right time to point this out, but whenever American social justice crusaders get into trouble trying to stop the slaughter of whales, or blocking Israeli bulldozers in contested Left Bank lands, and tragedy strikes, we hear lots of yammering from the right about “well they asked for it” and “they shouldn’t have been there to begin with” and “how much of mah tax dollars did it cost to send in the Coast Guard to save those stooopid Greenpeace people” etc. etc.
And I’m just thinking we won’t be hearing such things now.
markg
a really offensive, heartless post.
hilts
@ppcli:
This post should not have been put up in the first place.
Dennis SGMM
@joes527:
Considering that the Somali pirates have for some time been making use of mother ships to move their operations out to sea I don’t see how you could be far enough off shore to be safe.
Tsulagi
@Campionrules: Exactly.
And I’d like to think that if a similar situation arises again American warships in the vicinity would again respond. Don’t care that one couple in the crew were Bible thumpers, they were Americans.
Joe from Reality
Of course Americans only care about one type of victim–Americans.
Americans have erased from their memory the tens of thousands of Somalis (victims) they helped kill in the last few years. American used Ethiopia to wage war on that country and has helped to create a lawless area where corporate polluters have ruined the fishing waters off of Somalia.
The U.S. military is using fear of Somalia pirates to justify it’s military presence in the region. In fact, Obama got his first taste of blood by sniper executing the teenage pirates (former fishermen). Of course this was wildly popular in America and most Americans have forgotten about the slaughter they supported and now only focus on the extrajudicial killing of pirates.
And btw, the pirate that was sentenced was a 15 year old boy at the time. There are lots of victims–not the least of them are the Somali people themselves.
MikeF
Embarrassing to read. Victim blaming is always ugly even with a veneer of snark.
soonergrunt
@Anne Laurie
Are you on drugs?
I mean really, are you on something that distorts reality and if so, why are you posting without external editing (like maybe a significant other to read over your shoulder and say “what the fuck is this steaming pile of blather”) and more importantly, why aren’t you sharing? Or have you recently decided to drop your old shtick of being the smart, reasonable one who posted the nice community-building stuff that made people think without pissing them off and now you’re going for the exact opposite these days?
Seriously, WHAT. THE. FUCK?
Silver
@Tsulagi:
Really? If I was in that situation, I wouldn’t want a US warship anywhere near me. It appears you’re going to end up dead that way.
SiubhanDuinne
Gotta go with the consensus. I wouldn’t want to see Anne Laurie banned, but I do think a thoughtful apology should be forthcoming. AL is a fine writer and I hope she’s working on a statement right now that will walk back the (rare and surprising) insensitivity of this post.
Joe from Reality
How many of these people that are offended by this post are offended at the tens of thousands of victims that the U.S. has created in Somalia?
How many are even aware of their government’s support of Ethiopian death squads?
Is the Obama administration now pursuing a policy of not negotiating? Seems to me the U.S. is more interested in shooting it out to justify its military presence rather than negotiating a peaceful resolution.
joes527
@Dennis SGMM: Well you are right and they were wrong. No argument. I’m glad that makes everyone happy.
Fuckity-fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck.
Sometime I think we should all DIAF.
Dennis SGMM
Just received a much-forwarded email from an old Navy buddy who is now a hard core right winger. It calls for the “disinfecting” of Somalia by aerial bombardment.
daveNYC
@ppcli:
The editing steps should have been hitting CTRL-A, then hitting the Delete button.
R-Jud
@soonergrunt: Seconded.
Tim
Awesome. Any FP post that pisses off and confuses this many BJ Kool Kids is a very good thing.
Two things are true:
1. The pirates are vicious criminals who should be brought to justice for this heinous crime.
2. The apparent victims were stupid to be where they were.
These two true things do not cancel each other out.
cleek
@Joe from Reality:
with damn good reason, too. because when you don’t kill the pirates first, they might just kill their hostages.
Laertes
Four of your countrymen have been murdered by criminal thugs. The thing about this post that creeps me out is that it suggests that your gut reaction is to identify the victims as Red Americans and this tribal identification has short-circuited your basic human decency.
The culture war may be damaging your soul.
Lavocat
Well, that’s one way to stop religion from being rammed down your throat and those of your countrymen.
A bit extreme, but …
Tim
I have a question for you delicate flowers who are offended by offensive posts offensively posted at RedState:
Why do you go there?
ACS
I’m largely a lurker here, and was content to ignore Anne’s largely vapid posts since they were mostly harmless, but this is fucking classless and reads like something Pam Atlas would post about teh moooslims. Anne needs to stick to posting dumb webcomics and stories about puppies.
soonergrunt
@Southern Beale:
Whenever you feel the need to start a post with that sentence, or a variation on it–you really ought not to continue the thought, because it just makes it look like you realized that what you wanted to say would make you look like an asshole if you didn’t include it, and then maybe even realized that you’d look like an asshole even if you did include it with the rest of the post, but then posted it anyway in the full knowledge that you look like an asshole.
In the future, don’t be an asshole. Let someone else have the gig.
Silver
@Joe from Reality:
You’re playing an Abraham bargaining with God game over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, there. Two posts under you from Dennis SGMM:
Just received a much-forwarded email from an old Navy buddy who is now a hard core right winger. It calls for the “disinfecting” of Somalia by aerial bombardment.
I suspect every one here has one or two or twenty friends like that. I know I do.
Tim
@soonergrunt:
You frequently look like an asshole to me here, but I don’t write hysterical posts tell you to STFU.
Free Anne Laurie!
Dennis SGMM
@Silver:
What’s weird is that when we served together he was one of the most liberal people whom you’d ever meet. Most of his emails infuriate me and I rarely reply. It’s just been so very strange over the years to see him slowly morph into someone so different from the person I knew.
Joe from Reality
Dennis,
That’s exactly the intention of the military propaganda–to stir up the endless blood lust of the American people to justify the further terrorizing of the Somalia people. The military propaganda and the media have erased from American consciousness the very real and recent blood on its hands through the American-supported slaughter of tens of thousands of Somali victims. Now, because of these high profile incidents, all that death and destruction is justified after the fact. I guess these Somalia rats deserve to be disinfected by American military power–they are evil pirates and there is no explanation for their actions other than they are rats. Four American souls are clearly more important than tens of thousand of black, Muslim rats–even to so-called “progressives”.
Ash Can
This is just a tragedy all around. Nothing snarkable here.
ACS
@ACS: OK, on second thought, maybe that was a bit harsh, but seriously, wtf is up with this post?
Victor
There is I suppose a point in time after somebody has been murdered to point out that their actions may have increased the chance of getting murdered, but immediately afterwards is not that time.
And “Wurd of Gawd”? What actual point is there to the snark other than implying these deaths are discountable because the victims were evangelical christians?
And yes it is possible to point out when a BJ poster is off course while at the same time knowing that American policy in Ethiopia/Somalia over the past years has facilitated warfare and chaos.
matoko_chan
i think Anne Lauries point is that the missionaries were frivolously endangering themselves and endangering our armed forces by involving them.
its a valid point.
they were not humanitarian aid workers, they were missionaries.
they werent bringing food and medicine, they were transhipping bibles.
Big White Christian Bwana go home.
From a darwinian standpoint, they got exactly what they asked for.
they are martyrs.
:)
soonergrunt
@Tim: I also don’t sit here writing things that telegraph to everyone “hey, I’m about to say something truly assinine, and I know it. I don’t want to get flamed for it, so I’ll put a little disclaimer at the beginning to show that I’m aware that it’s assinine and I’m doing it anyway.”
Here’s an idea–if whatever disclaimer you use wouldn’t excuse taking a shit on the alter during church services, you probably shouldn’t either use the disclaimer because it’s not strong enough, or do the thing that needed the disclaiming in the first place.
Lastly, I don’t care if you think I’m an asshole. Hence, no disclaimer.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Do the folks wringing their hands over the original post write in to protest the Darwin Awards? Steering your yacht into pirate-infested waters is just as cringe-worthy as anything a Darwin Award nominee would do.
soonergrunt
@Dennis SGMM: So send him an email requesting details on when and why he decided to go full-metal fuckwit.
Laertes
This post is going to be the first impression of Balloon Juice to a great many readers. Sullivan will have a link to it within a couple hours, I expect. Murdered Christian missionaries will be near to his heart, and this blog has directed a lot of fire in the direction of his lately. Highlighting this regrettable lapse in judgment by way of a little payback will be tasty for him.
Maude
@Doug Hill:
Thank you. I read the headline when the 4 were first taken by the pirates and an American warship was following.
Now that they were killed in cold blood, I want those pirates brought to court.
The last pirate recently convicted in the US was told by the judge that the pirate, and I am paraphrasing here, enjoyed doing harm to people. It was a lot harsher than that.
No one should be subjected to pirates on the high seas. It was a huge danger when this country was first started and now it is back.
Dennis SGMM
@soonergrunt:
I tried, with no real success, over the years to draw him out a bit. It could have been the failed marriages, failed businesses, heavy drinking, and the fact that he retired from the USN as a Lt. Cmdr (And thus has just enough money to be comfortable as he stews) – or it could just be that some of us become mentally calcified as we age. Whatever, it is a sorrow and something that I, as an Old Guy, am trying to avoid.
soonergrunt
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: No. I would imagine the folks protesting the original post are also the same types of people who wring their hands about the Westboro Baptist Church shenanigans at servicemembers’ and childrens’ funerals.
Tonal Crow
@Dennis SGMM: I don’t get it. Why would a right-winger want to “disinfect” the glibertarian paradise that is AynRandLand (formerly Somalia)? I mean this seriously. The place has no government — and thus no interference in business — which is just what glibertarians always tell us they want. Plus, damn near everyone has a gun. What’s not for glibertarians/Republicans to like?
Tim
@soonergrunt:
You are hilariously arrogant, bossy, pissy, prissy, and know-it-all, regardless what you are posting about. There is simply no other valid point of view but that of Soonergrunt, ever.
With that in mind as a backdrop, your comments are entertaining, if not enlightening.
hilts
Anne,
Would it kill you to own up to your jaw-dropping stupidity and offer a sincere apology for this putrid, sickening post?
Pococurante
@Laertes: I’ve already posted it to the viral feeds. I believe in shaming stupid public statements regardless partisan affiliation or source.
Tim
@Laertes:
“This post is going to be the first impression of Balloon Juice to a great many readers. Sullivan will have a link to it within a couple hours, I expect. Murdered Christian missionaries will be near to his heart, and this blog has directed a lot of fire in the direction of his lately. Highlighting this regrettable lapse in judgment by way of a little payback will be tasty for him.”
So let the fireworks begin…what? Are you the self appointed BJ spokesmodel?
I swear…far too many of you identify with this blog as a major part of your life to a degree that is unhealthy.
Dennis SGMM
@Tonal Crow:
I think that they would have been held up as a shining example had the pirates not interfered with the commerce of world’s “makers.”
Tim
@hilts:
This is the thread’s leading Pearl Clutch Award winner so far.
hilts
@Pococurante:
Right on
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@soonergrunt:
So your saying leaving a protective flotilla and steering your yacht into pirate-infested waters is on par with dying for your country…that saying “that was stupid” is similar to protesting a fallen soldier’s funeral?
Tonybrown74
@Laertes:
So, what?
Are you advocating censorship now?
Me? I see nothing wrong with the post. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I was born in another country and can view the situation from a culture that is not “American”.
Yes, their deaths were tragic. But, really WTF were they doing in pirate infested waters?
Mattminus
If we’re going to make a rape analogy, this is like dressing like a slut, getting blind drunk and then hanging out in Rape Alley.
Sometimes people make themselves victims.
Stefan
If you’re going to sail in pirate infested waters, you have to know there are some risks. I’m sorry for the families and friends of those who were lost. It’s a terrible loss for them. But honestly, WTF were they doing there? Not exactly the smartest place to sail.
If you’re a woman and you’re going to go out at night, you have to know there are some risks. I’m sorry she got raped. It’s a terrible loss for her. But honestly, WTF was she doing out at night? Not exactly the smartest place to be….
Tonal Crow
@Dennis SGMM:
True. But making your fortune by interfering with others’ ships and shipments is just another business, right? Why should the overbearing liberal state interfere? Really, we should hammer this at every opportunity, because the public needs to learn where glibertarianism really leads. Since history is dead, the public needs a current example, and there could hardly be a better one.
Huego
As someone who is presently sailing around the world and is too rapidly approaching this area, it’s truly impressive to watch all the armchair experts on the incidence and recent patterns of Somali piracy who presume that being where they were was per se idiocy.
Many, many boats sail through the area of this incident every year. The very few incidents in the last few years involving private, non-commercial boats have not been anywhere near this area. This is a massive geographical outlier. That’s just a stone-cold fact.
That said, there have been an usual number of ominous (and till now unsubstantiated) rumors making their way around the docks this year concerning pirate motherships extending their reach eastward and northward. A fair number of people have decided not to make the crossing this year. They are probably feeling rather smart/relieved.
Also, as much as I hate the evangelical angle to these folks’ trip, that has absolutely nothing to do with this incident. From what I’ve seen, they were following a bog-standard circumnavigation plan, not seeking out areas full of Mooslim heathens to convert.
This is a pretty disgusting post for these reasons and plenty of others. This is the type of thing David Brooks might write a couple of days after the Haiti earthquake.
Maude
@Dennis SGMM:
That happened to a close relative of mine. I never understood it. He became meaner than a snake.
Judas Escargot
I forget her name… few years back, some young woman was ‘accidentally’ crushed by a bulldozer as she protested the Israeli settlement construction. RW response was, roughly, ‘heh, serves you right, teh stoopid liberalz.’
Didn’t like that tone coming from them, either.
We’re better than this.
Paul in KY
@matoko_chan: It wouldn’t have anything to do with the noted Islamic distaste for ‘proslytizing’ would it? (I know I spelled it wrong, but that’s a hard one to get right).
As for the captured pirates, they should be hung.
gnomedad
@Dennis SGMM:
My brother has made this transition in a somewhat different context (actually calls himself “saved” from teh librul). Apart from the actual beliefs, what amazes me is the persistence of the format: anonymous, large fonts, the “forward this to everyone you know” straight out of 1993; in short, what you see at My Right-Wing Dad. I’m tempted to refer my brother to that site. Would it provoke any cognitive dissonance? Do they have the slightest idea how absurd they look to non-true believers?
FWIW, thumbs down on this post.
hilts
@Tim:
I don’t find anything redeeming or illuminating in a post dripping with snark in the aftermath of brutal, senseless murders.
If you can call out your political opponents when they flagrantly cross the line, you have to be willing to do the same thing with members of your own team.
soonergrunt
@Tim: All of which is probably true.
I just don’t give a fuck, and it also doesn’t make the putrescense at the top of this page stink any less.
soonergrunt
@Huego:
Now that’s just mean.
nancydarling
Anne, I have read your post 3 times and not taken offense. I don’t understand what the todo is all about. Maybe if we make sailors post a bond to pay for naval warships coming to the rescue before they head into pirate infested waters, they would think twice. Alaska finally did that with Denali climbers because the rescues were getting so expensive. I am sorry for the loss of these people and the anguish of their families, but fail to see all the offense taken here.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Huego:
Husband: What do you say to sailing north near the horn of Africa and maybe even the Gulf of Aden?
Wife: I don’t know, I don’t think we should sail those waters. I’ve heard that there is pirate activity in the area.
Husband: Pshaw, those are unsubstantiated rumors. I mean, besides our lives, what do we have to lose?
Wife: Good point dear. Full steam ahead!
Mary G
I originally read the post, said “Huh, I don’t get it,” and moved on. Then when I read some of the first comments I went back and read Anne Laurie’s links. They are Wiki entries on the Spanish-American war, the blowing up of the battleship “Maine” in Havana Harbor, and Hearst’s using the Fox News 1.0 playbook to inflame the public’s appetite for the war. This all happened under President McKinley.
So I am guessing that AL was saying that the right wing through its master Fox News is going to use this episode as an excuse to demand that President Obama send the military into Somalia “to clean it out” and thus involve us in another endless morass providing more opportunity for Haliburton, etc to make more billions now that the public is sick of Iraq and Afghanistan.
I don’t think she meant to mock or blame the victims, really, just to say that a yacht with four missionaries is even more feeble an excuse to warmonger than the battleship Maine was. At least that’s how I’ve decided to interpret it and I am not demanding an apology. Reading things over a little more before hitting submit has helped me a lot, but the nature of a blog is that you don’t really have time for that.
jenn
Ugh, bad post all around, for reasons noted above. I think it’s fair to discuss the fact that traveling through pirate-infested waters is not smart, and that there were 4 Navy warships out there after things went south, but I’d suggest that’s a future discussion, and that now is a time for sadness and condolences. And their religion is utterly irrelevant to the conversation.
Now that the pirates have demonstrated that they are eager to kill their hostages, though, there’s going to be a lot fewer companies/individuals willing to continue the policy of just paying ransoms and hoping it all goes well.
soonergrunt
@Laertes: It won’t really work, because this comment thread isn’t exactly supportive of the post.
Besides, the only opinion that matters is John’s and I don’t think he gives a rat’s ass what Sully thinks about BJ itself.
Stefan
Considering that the Somali pirates have for some time been making use of mother ships to move their operations out to sea I don’t see how you could be far enough off shore to be safe.
Very true. Take a look at a map — they can strike out into a third of the Indian Ocean and half the Arabian Sea.
Socraticsilence
@Dusty:
I think the point is that using random American deaths abroad as a measure of American prestige is stupid- I mean if I go to the Sudan and start evangelizing and I’m killed that’s not a black mark on the US its an indictment of my common sense.
HyperIon
@Nate:
That’s what happens when snark is prized for itself.
It’s just that different people have different limits.
soonergrunt
@Mary G: I think you read it correctly. That’s pretty much what I read from it.
It’s dripping with paranoid delusion to the point of being a prototypical left-wing nutcase example, which is why it’s sad.
Socraticsilence
@Campionrules: Um, wow Big Government much- seriously, no military in human history and as great a reach and speed of response as the US Military currently does- but guess what they’re not magic.
Tonybrown74
@Stefan:
Ah, the fake piety of the Rape analogy. It was only a matter of time.
Let me simplify what I took from the post and maybe you will ponder the use of your rape analogy, which, in my mind at least, trivializes rape and sexual assaults.
It is foolish, as well as dangerous, to expect American freedoms and protections when not in America.
Dennis SGMM
@Huego:
Thanks for your on-scene report. I’ll take your word for it that the number of pirate encounters is small in comparison to the number of vessels which transit those waters. On the other hand, for someone in a sailboat it only has to happen once.
Huego
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Actually, the conversation goes something more along the lines of:
Husband: I can’t believe that the Chandlers were dumb enough to sail by themselves off of Southern Somalia
Wife: Wait, what? We’re they going to the Red Sea?
Husband: No, they were going towards Mogadishu.
Wife: By themselves?
Husband: Yep.
Wife: Well that’s dumb. So when was the last time a private sailboat was attacked on the conventional Red Sea route?
Husband: Six years ago.
Wife: So, many, many hundreds of boats have done with no problem since then?
Husband: Yes.
celticdragonchick
@matoko_chan:
This is beyond vile even by your dubious standards.
Laertes
@Mary G:
That’s a reasonable reaction, and I don’t think she meant to mock or blame the victims either. When I first read the piece I just didn’t get it (the point is kind of obscure) and I moved on.
But as I thought about it a bit, it struck me that it was kind of creepy, the way A.L.’s ordinary human empathy was knocked offline, apparently because the victims were Americans of the reddish rather than the bluish variety.
One suspects she’d have struck a different tone had the victims been four peace corps volunteers.
This culture war rots souls on both sides. We should call out the rot when we see it.
campionrules
@Socraticsilence:
No…..that wasn’t my point. I was responding to the point that somehow protecting a couple of u.s. citizen is somehow worth less to the U.S. military. You know, the military should only be used for things worthwhile – like bombing Al Qaeda loving Iraqis into the ground.
Joe from Reality
Mary G.
Good analysis. It’s very similar to what’s going on in Yemen. The U.S. has secretly (and not so secretly) waged illegal war on the people of Somalia and Yemen (killing tens of thousands of people) and the media (not just Fox) uses incidents like this to justify the further illegal slaughter of those people (usually poste hac).
It’s very effective propaganda as the comments to this post indicate. Even “progressives” who claim to be against illegal wars get more riled up at the loss of four American souls than the literally thousands of times more souls that were killed by America’s influence, but happen to be black Muslims. Plus, America is responsible for creating the conditions where Somalis have nowhere to turn but to piracy–just like they were responsible when it occurred in Iraq. That’s what happens when the shock doctrine is imposed on a country.
I can’t help but wonder if the piracy propaganda is being picked up again because America was caught supporting the Ethiopian death squads in Somalia.
celticdragonchick
@Tonybrown74:
The people being analogized were machine gunned to death.
What exactly are you claiming is being trivialized?
You seem to think that the “They were stupid and got what comes with being stupid” theme applied to them is not at all similar to the “they were stupid and got what comes with being stupid” theme applied to women who are raped after being dressed in attractive clothes or being out after dark.
I would like to see the explanation.
Triassic Sands
Stories like this inevitably make me wonder if somewhere down the road we won’t discover that the hostages were killed by friendly fire (or in the crossfire between pirates and friendlies). Not that the US military doesn’t have a perfect record in reporting on these kinds of events.
Is yachting through pirate-infested waters really a good idea? Apparently, the boat had been traveling in the company of other boats, but for some reason left them. It’s difficult to imagine what was going through the minds of these Americans when they sailed alone into an area known to be infested with pirates. Did they think the Baby J was going to protect them? Was there a compelling reason why they had to sail where they did?
cyntax
@Mary G:
Yep, I also read it as preemptive media critique of Rushbo et al, and how they’re going to try to conflate our national prestige with this event, and from there it’s just a hop skip and a jump for the demand that we defend our national prestige with extreme prejudice.
ETA:The standard wingnut fantasy of action movie as foreign policy.
HyperIon
@Tonybrown74 wrote:
True dat.
But I’d add that it is getting to be foolish to expect American freedoms and protections when IN America.
Mary G
@Joe from Reality: I appreciate your comments, but I cannot agree that Somalian pirates are somehow justified because they have nowhere else to turn. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
cleek
@Joe from Reality:
so, is mind-reading common in your reality ?
fascinating, if so.
Tonybrown74
@HyperIon:
Indeed.
eemom
I think it is possible to dislike proselytizers in general, and recognize that these people did something stupid, without “blaming” them for what happened. And I think other folks above are right about what actual point of the post is.
You all should apologize for YOUR torrent of abuse at AL based on a knee jerk reaction to a piece of what she said.
Tsulagi
@Huego:
Yeah, those Haitians were living and openly walking around in a known area where earthquakes could happen. Dumbasses.
Maybe you might know from cruising nets in your area. First thing I read about this mentioned the Quest put out a distress call that unfortunately the pirates heard. Maybe the Quest was taking on water, broken rudder, whatever. Just curious if that was the case. If you’re going to sail through that area might be a reason to pick up or rent a satphone in case that happens rather than put out an emergency call over radio.
Joe from Reality
Mary,
I do not think the pirates are justified. It’s wrong to take another human hostage and certainly to kill them (I wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. killed them though or came in with guns blazing–which is an aggressive approach and not the universal response to piracy).
I’m simply pointing to the fact that desperate people do desperate things. And when a foreign government causes tens of thousands of deaths in one’s country it is understandable that one would harbor a hatred toward that country and target its citizens (although who knows if that’s why they were targeted–it probably was simply done to get money).
The same thing happened in Iraq and it also happens in this country when we ghettoized and criminalized a whole race and class of people who think they have nowhere else to turn but violence.
J sub D
@Violet:
Mary G
@Joe from Reality: Well, when you put it like that, of course. It’s ironic that America’s best influence lately has come from not trying, from as they tell writers, from showing not telling. The demonstrations in Tunisia, Eqypt, etc. came out of Facebook and Twitter, not our ham-fisted interventions like Iraq. Once people get a look at our ability to bitch and moan about the government as much as we want, and no one is killed, and we vote parties in and out peacefully, they want that, not “democracy” at the point of a gun.
joe from Lowell
This was a really disgusting post, Anne Laurie.
And if the victims hadn’t been Christians, I don’t think you would have written it.
Joe from Reality
Yes J sub D,
Americans should be able to wage war on a country, kill 20,000 people and displace 2 million more, and demolish the country so the people can’t feed or govern themselves, and then when an American strolls into their part of the world, if he or she is attacked, it’s downright condescending to question the sanity of them going there.
What’s condescending is Americans being more outraged at this individual act of piracy than they are at their own government’s support of a massive illegal war that killed tens of thousands of people.
Sure, it’s bad that these people were killed. I would feel similarly if it was a left-winger that was going to Somalia to be in solidarity with the people and to oppose our government’s illegal wars there. I would actually think that left-winger was more noble than someone spreading the Christian message, and I would think that harming him or her would be wrong, but it would be understandable under the circumstances. How many innocent Muslims were killed or roughed up in this country in the last 10 years? Are Muslim countries justified in attacking America because of individual acts of violence against Muslims here?
Huego
@Tsulagi: I cannot imagine sailing anywhere well offshore without a Satphone — unless you forget to charge it, it is infinitely more reliable than any radio. I’ve never heard any boat near the size of Quest that doesn’t have one. I’d bet they had one but decided that the situation (assuming there was one) was grave enough to get on the radio and see who was nearby. But that’s assuming the rumor is true. I’m not a big participant in the radio net chatter that goes on among the boats (and I’m off the boat at the moment) so I don’t know any particulars beyond anyone else. But this distress call rumor might tend to explain why they broke off from the rally (their only action in all of this that seems unusual to me).
Beyond that…
Can we all please get off the notion that they did something “stupid”? Being where they were was in no way stupid. There are risks inherent in sailing around the world — accidentally falling off the boat while everyone else is asleep is a far, far more likely way to go. Getting hit by a car trying to cross the street in Cairo while off the boat trying to visit the Pyramids is a far, far more likely way to go. As is suffering a heart attack far from medical attention. As is sinking in a sudden, massive storm that the weather services have failed to predict. It’s a more risky activity than sitting on the couch, but pirates wouldn’t be among the top 10 risks.
celticdragonchick
@Joe from Reality:
They turned to violence when a UN mission to help provide food was rebuffed at the behest of criminal warlords who wanted food and profit for their private armies.
Prior to that, the US had nothing at all to do with Somalia. Before the breakdown in civil order, the country had loosely been in the sphere of Soviet aligned African nations.
We did not break Somalia, so to speak. They destroyed their country quite well enough on their own. Blaming us for Somalia’s problems is about as nonsensical as blaming us for what Mugabe does in Zimbebwe.
joe from Lowell
@Tim:
You have the mentality of a Limbaugh fan.
celticdragonchick
We engaged in a United Nations mission to protect UN food aid workers and services that were being pillaged by warlords. Almost all US operations were conducted under the authority of a popular democratic president.
Combat operations in Somalia included representatives from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Belgium and other countries. When it became apparent that the mission to provide food and stop criminal gangs was going nowhere, the UN packed up and left the country to enjoy its Hobbesian nightmare.
By all means, don’t let history get in the way of a good rant.
Joe from Reality
celticdragonchick,
Did you get those talking points from Fox News? The U.S. is a benevolent force for freedom in the region that simply wants to provide food? Just like the U.S. sanctions against Iraq, huh? The U.S. was feeding the Iraqi people, not starving them.
Apart from the longer term history of that country, which you get wrong, let’s just focus on the last few years.
Do you disagree that the U.S. has been waging war in Somalia directly and through its proxy, Ethiopia, as the wikileaks documents confirm (and which was evident even before the documents were released).
The U.S. has no responsibility for the conditions of that country after it displaces 2 million people? Kind of like Iraq, eh? Those Iraqi rats weren’t ready for democracy despite the “gift” the U.S. gave them, huh?
That’s the American Exceptionalism argument and it’s bullshit.
celticdragonchick
@Huego:
Considering the pirates are now ranging from the coast of Madagascar to the coast of India, the entire Indian Ocean is now a “no go” zone it would seem for shipping if you want to avoid being called “stupid”.
It really has gotten out of hand.
matoko_chan
wallah, juicers are morons.
what dont you understand about the world?
the world is not america.
proselytization is ILLEGAL in many other cultures.
its open season on white christian missionaries, especially after HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of muslims have been killed in America’s Global War on
TerrorIslam.those people were stupid.
natural selection in action.
they were asking for it.
AND the somali pirates offed them because they could see the rescue effort underway.
not because they were WECs. They were just piles of dollah bill to the pirates.
the missionaries got KIDNAPPED because they were missionaries, that is why they were there to BE KIDNAPPED.
darwinian selection.
joe from Lowell
@Tonybrown74: Comparing rape to murder trivializes it?
That. Does. Not. Make. Any. Sense.
Nylund
@Maude:
I think its very tragic that people are subjected to pirates, but bad things happen to decent people. I feel that no one should be raped either, but they are, and rape will never go away, no matter how hard people try to prevent it. Although I think the gov’t should do its best to maintain a certain level of law and order in my life, my expectations of how well they fulfill that (and what their responsibility for my safety is) drops of exponentially once I leave the US. I don’t expect the US to prevent me from getting mugged in Colombia.
I’m not blaming the victims, just as I would never blame some young woman who was raped on her morning jog. We can condemn how poorly that part of the ocean is protected, and maybe something should be done, but what sort of resources and money should the US dedicate to this issue? That’s a tough question. There are already a number of international task forces and patrols in the area. How much more should we add? If the answer is “until it stops,” then the question is “how much will it take, and are we willing to do that much?”
But, your comment strikes me as implying everyone has some inalienable right to a risk-free life, even when doing something as risky as sailing through pirate infested waters. That strikes me as an absurd expectation to have in this world. Its an expectation that can never be met, and to the extent that we can get as close as possible, I question if its really the best use of limited resources, money, and personnel. Put that same amount of time, money, equipment, and personnel in my city, and you’d save way more lives than it would there in the high seas. Way more people are murdered in my city than are killed by Somali pirates in any given year.
Joe from Reality
And celticdragonchick,
Ha. Ha. Ha. Combat operations included our puppets from Saudia Arabia and Pakistan! Now that’s rich.
And you nicely ignore the fact that the U.S. waged a war to demolish the only stable government in Somalia over the last 10 years–by illegally killing tens of thousands of people to impose the form of government we want on them–or lack thereof.
matoko_chan
@Mary G: they dont want christian democracy.
and they are not going to take it.
joe from Lowell
@Joe from Reality:
And your “evidence” for this slur is that we dared to express concern about the four murdered people at all.
That’s incredibly weak. You have absolutely no idea how anyone on this thread feels about Bush’s backing of the Ethiopian invasion. You just saw that someone dared to object to an American being murdered, and decided that that MUST NOT STAND!
How dare we express concern about the murder of Americans?!? HOW DARE WE?!?
matoko_chan
@Nylund:
but i am. they were stupid.
they got exactly what they asked for and should have expected.
martyrdom.
celticdragonchick
@Joe from Reality:
Unthinking idiocy from a an unthinking partisan.
There was no Fox news at the time. I was in the Army, and I knew many, many people in Mogadishu, including pilots and Rangers involved in the “black Hawk Down” incident.
Cite? Somalia had various Marxist leaning governments for decades before 1992. Although Soviet advisors were expelled in 1977, nominally Marxist ideology and politburo structures in the government persisted until the civil war when the country devolved wholesale into clan warfare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Somalia
We never waged war against Somalia. We fought against a specific warlord who engaged in criminal activities against UN personnel and UN missions. We gave support to Ethiopian (misguided, in my estimation) operation against an AQ aligned self styled government operating in part of the country.
No. They wrecked it, and they shot at the people who tried to help rebuild it. They made their own bed. They can lay in it. I would really like to see the bullshit source for your “ZOMG!!! The US diplaced a gazillion Somali people!!!11ty!!”
joe from Lowell
@celticdragonchick: We’re America, so obviously, we’re the bad guys.
Always.
And everywhere.
And anything that happens, we’ve got coming to us.
There, “Joe from Reality” doesn’t have to comment any more.
celticdragonchick
@matoko_chan:
You really are beneath contempt. You are no different in kind from the people at Redstate who crow when “some black librul” gets gunned down by police in Mobile or who jeered at Lara Logan.
Something in you is badly broken.
joe from Lowell
@celticdragonchick:
The “They got what they want, now they get to be martyrs” bit could have come directly from Red State.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Huego:
But you clipped off the end of the conversation.
Actually, the conversation goes something more along the lines of:
Husband: I can’t believe that the Chandlers were dumb enough to sail by themselves off of Southern Somalia
Wife: Wait, what? We’re they going to the Red Sea?
Husband: No, they were going towards Mogadishu.
Wife: By themselves?
Husband: Yep.
Wife: Well that’s dumb. So when was the last time a private sailboat was attacked on the conventional Red Sea route?
Husband: Six years ago.
Wife: So, many, many hundreds of boats have done with no problem since then?
Husband: Yes.
Wife: So you’re saying it’s completely safe?
Husband: Oh no, we can still be hijacked and killed but the odds of that happening are low…kind of like winning the lottery.
Wife: Good enough for me. Full steam ahead!
celticdragonchick
@joe from Lowell:
LOL.
Gotcha.
Have to run to my next class, so bbl.
The Moar You Know
Anne Laurie is dead on with this post. Do not recant.
Really, fuck all y’all. They fucking deserved it, stupid bunch of missionaries who through that their stupid book of myths would protect them against bullets fired out of an AK-47 from a distance of five feet. What the fuck did they think was going to happen? They deserved to die.
Same for that stupid bitch in Egypt who got raped. You want to keep your orifices intact, don’t go wandering into a mob full of people who have a habit of raping anything they can get their hands on (read the sexual assault percentages from Egypt – 91 percent of all women!).
It’s called “asking for it”, people. Fucking Americans have to be the dumbest people on the planet, wandering time after time into trouble and then looking to get bailed out. Just like the dumb bunnies in Wisconsin and Ohio who voted for guys who then proceeded to do exactly what they promised to do crying about how they’re losing their nice jobs and why can’t the darkies just suffer some more like we’ve always done in the past?
Don’t recant this one, Anne Laurie. Really, don’t. You are dead on right. A bunch of whiners here want to believe that the world should be a pretty place full of flowers and bunnies and no consequences for stupidity. That world does not exist, and the people who are insisting that it should need to have their faces shoved in a steaming pile of reality until they figure out that the best way to stay alive and prosperous is not to do stupid shit.
Joe from Reality
Fuck you Joe from Lowell. You could care less about the 20,000 victims in Somalia and your posts reek of American Exceptionalism. You are a cold-blooded supporter of empire.
celticdragonchick,
Did you click the links above? Do you really dispute that 2 million people were displaced in Somalia and 20,000 were killed at the hands and urging of America? I think you are focusing on the wrong decade. And talking to someone served during the more recent war he described a very active role for Americans and it was like shooting fish in a barrel. But in this case it was Somalis–not fish. Again, America waged an illegal war on Somalia in the last 5 years and killed tens of thousands of people and smashed the only stable government that country has known in decades. And the people are starving and suffering and turning to piracy. This doesn’t even address the pollution that American neocolonialism and neoliberalism have brought to the Somali waters.
Huego
@celticdragonchick:
I think it’s fair to say that for commercial shipping, it’s pretty bananas and things have been deteriorating. But this really is data point #1 (in a very long time, anyway) for private boats in the standard Sri Lanka to Djibouti channel.
In a way, it sort of reminds me of the “one-bite rule” in tort law. The dog has now bitten private boats that are by and large doing things “the way you’re supposed to.”
If my wife and I elect to go across next year (as we’ve previously planned), we’ll be a lot more susceptible to the accusation of idiocy than these folks were. I’d still put the odds of something bad happening at very remote.
Chris Gerrib
I usually agree with the posts here, but this one is just dead wrong. Somali pirates are holding over 30 ships and over 600 hostages, as per the article you link to. They have attacked ships 1500 miles off of their coast. Somali piracy is a real, serious and growing problem.
Somalia broke their own country in the early 1990s. We tried to help, and failed. Our failure does not excuse their piracy. Yes, the Bush Administration tried to use Ethiopia to pacify Somalia – after piracy got out of hand. Again, this does not excuse Somalis.
As they say, a stopped clock is right twice a day. I think this is one of those times.
Huego
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Yes, basically that’s right. Like almost everything in life, it’s not “completely safe.”
joe from Lowell
@Joe from Reality:
You’re a ‘bot, aren’t you? You keep using the same stock phrases – “You don’t care,” “20,000 victims in Somalia,” “American exceptionalism” – regardless of whether they make any contextual sense at all.
It’s either a ‘bot, or a college sophomore with four things written on note cards, that he just keeps saying over and over and over.
Oh, and Einstein? Arguing that the deaths of Americans are worthy of concern isn’t actually American exceptionalism. Words have meanings – since you’re so attached to those two, I recommend you go look them up.
Matt
I figure Jeebus just decided he needed them more in heaven. After all, according to the fundies, everything happens for a reason…
joe from Lowell
I’ve seen “Joe from Reality” before.
He’s the guy who goes into the comment threads of newspaper stories about lynchings of black people and posts links to stories about crimes involving a white victim and a black perp, just so everyone will keep in mind who the real bad guys are.
Joe from Reality
The Bush administration tried to use Ethiopia to “pacify” Somalia?
That’s a disgusting rewriting of history:
Shelling civilians is a heck of a way to “pacify” a people.
And the U.S. engaged in this war secretly and illegally.
You can’t wage an illegal war on a country and then disown the results and say the dirty brutes had it coming.
What a disgusting display of American exceptionalism. Not only does America brutalize the country it claims it’s the victims’ fault. It’s like the bully using his little brother’s hand to hit himself in the face while saying, “Why are you hitting yourself in the face?”
losingtehplot
@celticdragonchick: Just a bit of background, though things have moved on since then
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates-1225817.html
Joe from Reality
Fuck you Joe from Lowell you bloodthirsty fool.
I’m defending the “black” people here while you are dehumanizing them.
You are the imperialist pig that defends acts of brutality on a massive scale. I love how you claim to be concerned about innocent Somalis upthread and claimed that you support victims of all stripes yet I haven’t heard anything but excuses from you about the Somali victims of America’s illegal war there.
You are the one making excuses for the killing of 20,000 black Somalis, you fucking bloodthirsty pig. You’re the one that is justifying lynching.
Southern Beale
@soonergrunt:
I’m not sure how my pointing out right wing “blame the victim” hypocrisy makes ME the asshole but whatever.
joe from Lowell
@Joe from Reality:
Actually, you emotionally-overloaded youngster, I have written not a single word approving of or justifying a single drop of blood. You, on the other hand, have decided to devote your afternoon to justifying the murder of the four Americans.
So it’s pretty clear which of us is the bloodthirsty one.
Two points here:
1. I’m dehumanizing exactly no one. I defy you to either quote a statement I made dehumanizing anyone, or impersonate someone with a shred of honesty and apologize.
2. Thank you for demonstrating so clearly your shortcoming. I called you out for your reflexive, bizarre need to smear victims based on their nationality, in order to prevent anyone from having “wrong” sympathies and try to gin up support for one side in a white-vs-black conflict, and your response? Hey, I’m on the side of the black people! I could not have hoped for a more effective backup.
Yes, “Joe from Reality,” you’re on the side of the black people here. Sadly, that seems to be the only thing that matters to you – taking the side of non-Americans against Americans – and that is precisely what makes you so similar to those who feel the need to bring up examples of black-on-white crime in response to a story about a white-on-black crime. You don’t think the crime is the issue, you’ve just chosen a side.
That, btw, is what makes you bloodthirsty.
You poor, confused little dear. I haven’t written a single word defending a single act of brutality. Nor have I written a single word about this alleged “illegal war.” Like I said, you’re a ‘bot, or a good imitation of a ‘bot. You have some talking points, and you repeat them, even when they don’t make any sense.
This is the part where you either provide a quote, or STFU. Since there are no quotes, you should really go down to the student union and whine about your parents not understanding you now.
joe from Lowell
I eagerly await your explanation of how my last comment demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that I decorate my den with the heads of Somali children.
les
@Joe from Reality:
I’m not surprised at where you leap without knowledge. Do you have any information to contradict the reports (Navy negotiating, heard gunfire, boarded the yacht and found the hostages dead)?
Keith G
@Stefan:
Oh for gosh sakes Stefan (and others)this is more akin to saying:
So you decided to clean the baseboard behind the water heater with gasoline….
Not too unlike the idjits who went backpacking along the Iraq/Iran border, or a US reporter meandering along the perimeter of N. Korea.
Here is a idea: type “bear mauls in zoo” into your googles and see what you get.
These folks floated into a bear pond and now they can sail with Jesus.
The poutrage is silly.
Keith G
@joe from Lowell:
And if the victims hadn’t been Christians, I don’t think you might have read about it.
Smurfhole
Apparently, it’s only okay to cheer on deaths when the victims are Christians.
This post is absolutely despicable. And I hope the idiots joking about how the people deserved to die because of their religious beliefs remember that position the next time some hostages whose views they DON’T happen to disagree with get killed.
Joe from Reality
Joe from Lowell,
You are the bloodthirsty imperialist bastard because you clearly value American life more than non-American life. You’re outraged that someone could see this in a lens other than from American Exceptionalism. Like the author, I do not approve of violence, but I can see when an act of violence can be used to justify an even more violent response.
You are the one that justifies violence.
Read the article posted at 153. This violence does not occur in a vacuum. It’s very similar to the violence in Iraq after we destroyed that country in an illegal war.
You’re right. I”m on the side of the Somalis because my country is violating the laws of war by waging an illegal and brutal war on that country. Piracy is one of the results. When my country does wrong I have the courage to stand up and protest. You area mindless regime stooge that chooses your side whether its right or wrong–and when your “side” is killing tens of thousands of people that makes you a bloodthirsty pig.
Smurfhole
@Keith G:
Hundreds of non-Christians have also been taken hostage, and thousands and thousands of other ships travel annually through the area without incident. So maybe everyone who ships goods or travels across the Indian Ocean is a fucking idiot, and maybe you should also cheer and mock when some of the non-Christian hostages get their brain blown out.
Or you can just admit that it’s only okay to blame the victim when you don’t like the victim’s religious views.
General Stuck
Looks like wilfred has a new handle
Smurfhole
@Joe from Reality:
So Somalis can do absolutely anything to any American anywhere, because America is evil?
Are you an American? If a Somali blows your brains out, will you congratulate him as he kills you?
Keith G
@The Moar You Know: Now to fling poo at the other side:
Moar, that was as horrible and vile as anything I have read on line. Was that an attempt at ironic performanve art?
Joe from Reality
les,
I don’t have any information other than the fact that the U.S. has increasingly used aggressive tactics in these situations. When Obama got his first taste of blood by ordering the assassination of the teenage pirates it was the U.S. that shot first. Previously, most pirate incidents ended in the payment of ransoms. This was a break with previous practice so that the president had to okay the attack. I haven’t heard if this incident required the president’s say–maybe the can avoid that legal requirement by claiming to come under fire first.
Whatever the truth is, I don’t trust the military version of events. They have repeatedly lied about Somalia. In fact, as my link above shows, the government blatantly lied about the very existence of its war against the people of Somalia that killed tens of thousands of people. One would be a fool to take the military story at face value.
And btw, I also have suspicions about how Obama was presented with that first request to sniper assassinate the pirates. Bush, as my links above show, was more than willing to engage in a massive illegal war in Somalia and the military may have been very interested in finding other justifications that would suit Obama. Of course it’s worked. Even “liberals” have forgotten about the dirty illegal war and are now ready to sign up for more Somali adventures.
Joe from Reality
Smurfhole,
Fuck you. I explicitly said that kidnapping is wrong. I feel bad for these Christian missionaries. The Somalis that did this are personally responsible.
But, America is to blame to for creating the conditions that lead to piracy. America has brutally killed far more Somalis than Somalis have kidnapped or murdered Americans.
Can America do no wrong in your mind? Is an American life worth 5,000 or so Somali lives? Are they nothing but rats to be exterminated to you?
Smurfhole
God, fuck this blog. AL could write a snarky post every day about something horrible happening to someone, and as long as that someone was a Christian or a Republican at least 20% of the commenters would egg her on no matter what. It’s heartening to see a lot of commenters get it, but the rest are completely oblivious. I bet there’s a Christianist blog out there somewhere that writes mocking posts about how great it is when atheists die of bone cancer that’s sort of the moral-mirror-image of this blog. Something even worse than Red State, something that makes Red State look classy.
I don’t even know why I keep coming here, except that I remember 4 or 5 years ago this blog was a great place for lefties and I could read it without seeing some kind of anti-religious bigotry posted every couple days. Is there another blog like this out there that focuses a little bit more on politics and a little bit less on shit like pets and how great it is when Christians die?
Keith G
@Smurfhole: You are wrong. I care not about their religion or passport. They undertook a voyage of choice through dangerous waters. They left the relative safety of a floatilla and struck out on their own.
Sometimes folk do things they should not do(if safety is a priority).
Death Panel Truck
@Tim:
I’ve often wondered about that, and something else as well: Don’t any of you people work? I come here three or four times a week at various times of day, and the same people seem to be posting here all day long.
Smurfhole
@Joe from Reality:
Okay, we’re agreed, then. Sorry, you confused me when you endorsed Somali piracy in post 162. I kind of assumed that piracy was bad no matter what the root causes were. The one thing every nation has always agreed upon is that pirates (not privateers, but outright pirates) were the common enemies of mankind, to be hunted down and destroyed. That goes back to pre-Christian times, in fact. It’s one of the few points the Romans and the Carthaginians would’ve agreed upon while they were busy slaughtering one another. So cheering on Somali pirates because you don’t like the actions of one of their victim-nations would be in extremely short-sighted, poor taste.
What does that have to do with shit? If a black guy kills a white girl, is her funeral an appropriate time and place to talk about America’s legacy of slavery and racism?
Of course not. But I value life. I wish the same could be said for everyone around here.
Smurfhole
@Keith G:
Sure, I wouldn’t do that they did. I don’t share their religious views, either. There’s a time to say that people did something foolish that contribued to their deaths. The period immediately following their deaths is not that time. It’s what I would call “bad taste” in polite company, and “unspeakably fucking sadistic and deranged” on this blog. And I think the only reason it’s tolerated is because they were Christians; if they’d been militant atheists who’d strayed into dangerous waters and Red State had a post up about how great that was, I have a feeling Anne Laurie’s reaction would be just a little bit different.
Chris Gerrib
@Joe from Reality: Somali piracy started before Bush was President. Bush can be blamed for many things – this is not one of them.
joe from Lowell
@Keith G: I think we’d have read about four Americans being captured and killed by pirates, regardless of their religion.
That’s a pretty big story. It’s not like their lawn was turfed.
Chris Gerrib
@Joe from Reality: So we should pay three pirates in a lifeboat rather than shoot them?
stormhit
Anne Laurie is, and always has been, an obvious moron with absolutely nothing original to contribute.
That she’s also a total scumbag isn’t shocking.
joe from Lowell
@Joe from Reality:
…says the guy who just proudly acknowledged being on the side of the murderers, because their victims were the “wrong” nationality.
Smurfhole
@joe from Lowell:
I still want to find out if piracy’s okay if the pirate had a horrible enough childhood. If a serial killer had a traumatic upbringing, should we let them go because they’re just striking back at the society that turned a blind eye to their abuse?
Keith G
@joe from Lowell: Truthfully, I think the Christian missionary with Bible angle gives the story more zing and thus it might get more market penetration. Its a “missing white girl” thing.
Tonybrown74
@joe from Lowell:
No … comparing this situation- the fact that murdered individuals broke off from their convoy which would have protected them in pirate-infested waters to a woman wearing a short skirt getting raped, trivializes rape.
Whether a woman is in a mini-skirt or burkha, in a dark alley or on a date with a nice man, from a stranger or her husband, rape is an act of violence done by men who hate women.
The pirates, as vicious and brutal as they were, most likely hijacked that boat for ransom.
Joe from Reality
Joe from Lowell,
You’re a lying prick. I am on the Somali’s side, as in all the people of that country, not these specific pirates. You are intentionally misreading me. When my country illegally and immorally kills tens of thousands of people I am going to make sure that I do not lend my country support. My country is wrong for committing this crime and you are wrong for supporting it.
Smurf,
Surely you are familiar with the argument that conditions and experience can lead an otherwise good person to do something bad? I suggest you read “Native Son” for a good description of this phenomenon. And btw, it’s usually leftists that understand this better than conservatives, who often only think in black and white terms.
Plus, as explained in my response to Chris, below, one man’s “piracy” is another man’s freedom fighting.
Chris,
Yes. We should pay a ransom if that will save lives. We should avoid extra-judicial killings of all sorts (and even judicial killings–the death penalty is wrong). Plus, we should alleviate the conditions of these “pirates”. Read the link mentioned above, at 153. Many of these “pirates” are defending their country from the real pirates, western corporations that are stealing from the Somali people without paying royalties and are illegally dumping.
Plus, the U.S. has waged a massive war that has caused disruption and poverty, which creates the conditions for violence and crime.
I am not defending acts of violence. I am trying to put this act of violence in context with the more numerous and worse acts of violence that the U.S. has committed against Somalia. When we destroyed the last stable government and fomented a massive war that killed and displaced hundreds of thousands, lawlessness is to be expected. The United States is partly responsible for these crimes.
TheWatcher
You know what Ms. Laurie, politely and with all due respect, FU. There are four dead people and an unknown amount of devastated families out there because of it. Your little flippant missive is sickening to the extreme.
And I never thought I’d write a comment like this in my life on this great blog.
Asshole
So banditry, robbery, rape and murder are excusable on the grounds of shitty background facts. Got it, thanks.
Unless it’s under a national flag, piracy is piracy. If a nation-state does it to another nation-state it’s at war with, it’s called privateering. But the definition of piracy is pretty well set in stone. It’s been agreed upon by all nations for millenia before America even came along.
Disliking something the USA did to the people of Somalia doesn’t make a pirate a national hero anymore than a black guy pistol-whipping, raping, and murdering some random white girl makes him a hero rising up against the tyranny and oppression of America’s racist history. If you disagree, sail over to Somalia and offer yourself up as a sacrifice.
Tim
This thread is awesome. All the self righteous souls with bleeding fee-fee’s lashing out…
Free Anne Laurie!
Asshole
@Tim:
Fuck yourself, troll.
Chris Gerrib
@Joe from Reality: I’m not in favor of killing people, but when they are literally holding a gun to somebody else’s head, you may not have a choice.
Shelton Lankford
When did this group turn into teh kiddies from Lord of the Flies?
Jeebus!
kingtoots
@Tonybrown74:
so comparing kidnapping to rape trivializes it?
Again, Does.Not.Make.Any.Sense.
A couple of days ago, we heard that there was no exceptions to the rule that women were never at fault being raped.
Today sailors had it “coming to them”.
Both situations had conditions of personal responsibility, situational awareness and banditry.
I’m sorry but you can’t have it both ways and if you can’t see that then I’m at a loss.
Comrade Kevin
It’s nice how Anne dropped this turd, then ran away.
Luke Sense
They deserved it. They were missionary assholes who, not were not only stupid enough to travel through waters known to be extremely dangerous, but were going to the Middle East to hand out bibles there. They could have done some real good, helping out projects that are actually beneficial to people with funding and perhaps volunteering, but they believed it more important to be evangelists.
I have not one nano-drip of sympathy for them.
Smurfhole
They were captured on the high seas. They weren’t proselytizing to anyone.
Try not to let rampant anti-Christian bigotry cause you to side with murderous pirates next time. You do your own, anti-Christian perspective no credit.
Joe from Reality
Yes Smurf and all the others that are outraged . . . .
These are subhuman beasts. The U.S. righteously blew 20,000 souls into smithereens and sent 2 million more packing and let’s not even talk about that. It’s irrelevant. Just as the kidnappings and murders that happened in Iraq are irrelevant.
You turds only want justice . . . for Americans. The black beasts . . . you don’t want any excuses for. When America screws up it’s an honest mistake and few tens of thousands of eggs were broken and we meant well. When the Somalis engage in violence it is inexcusable. Let’s kill only focus on the blow-back and not what caused the blow-back. Same thin in Iraq. Those Arab rats hate life and when they kidnapped and murdered the American contractors they needed to be punished and any sort of explanation for why there was kidnapping and murder of Americans is just making excuses.
Liberals can be just as bloodthirsty as the neoconservatives, as this thread proves. Go ahead. Go kill tens of thousands more rats you fucking immoral evil bastards. You all can cheer as Obama sniper assassinates his way to freedom and peace on Earth.
Joe from Reality
Yes Smurf and all the others that are outraged . . . .
These Somalis are subhuman beasts. The U.S. righteously blew 20,000 souls into smithereens and sent 2 million more packing and let’s not even talk about that. It’s irrelevant. Just as the U.S. shock and awe and attack on Iraq is irrelevant to the kidnappings and murders that happened there.
Shit, half of you remain ignorant of the U.S. actions in the region and evidently think it’s totally okay for the U.S. to engage in illegal wars.
Sure, you turds only want justice . . . for Americans. The black beasts . . . you don’t want any excuses for. When America screws up it’s an honest mistake and few tens of thousands of eggs were broken and we meant well. When the Somalis engage in violence it is inexcusable. Let’s kill em! No mercy! Let’s only focus on the blow-back and not what caused the blow-back.
Same thing in Iraq. Those Arab rats hate life and when they kidnapped and murdered the American contractors they needed to be punished and any sort of explanation for why there was kidnapping and murder of Americans is just making excuses for rats that need to be exterminated.
Liberals can be just as bloodthirsty as the neoconservatives, as this thread proves. Go ahead. Go kill tens of thousands more rats you fucking immoral evil bastards. You all can cheer as Obama sniper assassinates his way to freedom and peace on Earth.
Asshole
@Joe from Reality:
Seek therapy. You’re the one cheering on murderers, not us.
Seriously, you need mental help.