Hostage-taking is NEVER ethical

I was listening to On Point yesterday. They had an excellent show describing the situation with the Pirates of Aden.

Unfortunately, I read the following comments on their website:

As a Somali hailing from the regions where the pirates are from, I express
dismay and yet sympathy for these pirates. There is deep poverty in the central
Somali regions especially the Hobyo region has been politically blacklisted from
receiving any significant international aid resulting in people turning to
piracy and any other enterprise to survive. The coastal waters were illegal
fished and became dumping grounds for foreign vessels before the rise of the
pirates who began off as a volunteer force of frustrated Somali fishermen
fighting these foreign vessels.

My dismay lies in the environment it creates: criminality, excessive inflation, the deaths of foreign sailors, and negative attention.

But a $5 million dollar ransom exceeds all international funding given to the entire region. So what other livelihood can a poverty stricken Somali turn to ?

So, let me get this straight -- it's OKAY for Pirates to kidnap sailors from poor countries? I suppose it would be okay for a poor blogger from Alabama to kidnap someone from Manhattan for similar reasons? The sailors on those ships are WORKING -- the Pirates are STEALING and TAKING HOSTAGES.

I have zero empathy for kidnappers.

As far as the $5 million dollar ransom that exceeds all international funding -- what are these "Benevolent" Pirates doing with the money? From what I've read, they're WASTING the money on expensive cars, Satellite phones, and weapons to increase their Piracy. That doesn't sound like foreign aid to me.

And, as another sock-puppet wrote on that website:

Blacklisted by whom? How?

“Neglected”?!

Aid agencies operated there until criminal gangs and violent warlords made it impossible to help the Somali people safely.

Is the world responsible for making the Somali’s behave peacefully first
before trying to help them with food and medicine?

If people think Iraq was a quagmire, they've got nothing on Somalia. Bill Clinton didn't want to deal with it after "Blackhawk Down" happened. Considering war protesters and controversy, why would any country want to get involved there, knowing there men and women would get killed performing a thankless task? Why would any politician want to spend all their political capital freeing a poor, hapless nation with the blood of their soldiers?

It's obvious, given the Iraqi experience, that world does not want the U.S. or any international grouping like NATO to play the role of liberators. You can blame George W. Bush for poisoning that well ... the bottom line is Somalia will not be liberated by the U.S., U.N., or anyone else.

Russia and China certainly won't do it -- they remember Afghanistan and the Korean war.

"It is what it is."

I'd be happy to field solutions to this problem ... perhaps some historical references to similar situations from the past.

If (Or what the Bear Stearns deal reveals about our nation)

If a middle-class person files for bankruptcy, his credit is wrecked ... no credit cards, living paycheck to paycheck.

If a small company runs out of work, they close their doors. They sell off their equipment at pennies on the dollar.

If a large institutional bank makes risky investments, and the market collapses, that company is sold at pennies on the dollar to the next biggest bank. The economic food chain continues.

The whispers on Wall Street prior to the Bear Stearns collapse ... J.P. Morgan buying their competitor at an extreme discount, including a Manhattan building worth over a billion dollars ... executives for Bear Stearns selling their shares a couple of months before the ultimate collapse, the iceberg clearly in site as the U.S.S. Titanic rode full steam ahead, the hopes and dreams of the American homeowner riding in the hull.

The geniuses on Wall Street have played the system like a fiddle. Their MBA served them well. The ethics training they received at school was nodded and winked at.

The business schools will take the lessons learned and indoctrinate future MBAs with the political wisdom imparted by Henry Paulson and J.P. Morgan ... they will learn that the former head of Goldman Sachs can drive the Treasury to give taxpayer dollars to risk-taking banks in exchange for worthless paper ... they will learn that the link between government and Wall Street will protect them when they make mistakes ... "So, go ahead," the professor will say. "Take a risk. You won't pay if you fail."

Such a corrupt system, where ethics is replaced by a mix of laziness and fortune at all costs, leaves our nation open to outside influence.