“Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding the Greek ship anchored in the Somali town of Gaan, said: ‘Every country will be treated the way it treats us. In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying,’ he told The Associated Press. ‘We will retaliate (for) the killings of our men.'”
Taken from here. This is an interesting quotation to me as it relays the pirate’s sense of entitlement. For some reason, he thinks that they have a right to seize property and detain foreign citizens. The man quoted above seems to be as sure of his right to rob as we are sure of our right to freedom on the high seas. I wonder what led him to think this? Perhaps they’ve been conditioned to consider it a right given that payment of ransom is the standard procedure of dealing with pirates.
Anyway, we seem to be dealing with an ideology and not just a criminal enterprise. They truly think they have a right to rob, and it will take force to convince them that it is not in their interests to keep pursuing this “right.”
