The NY Times has an opinion piece discussing the recent murder of the 4 Americans sailing near Somalia. As usual they are blaming the "pirates" for the "new violence." but the truth is actually far different. For those with short memories that one of Obama's early acts of president was to give the US Navy the go ahead to kill the pirates that had boarded a US vessel. Up to that point no act of piracy by the Somalis had involved actual killing. In fact as far as I've heard, up to that point the pirates were reported to have treated their captors well. As well as being a captive can be. I said then and I am proven now, that the decision would cause the Somalis to either enact revenge or step up to killing passengers themselves, particularly if they thought they would be caught like the one who was recently sentenced in NY.
The fact of the matter is that the US escalation to killing is why these four people are now dead and no amount of historical revisionism will change that fact.
(17 years of informed commentary)
