Pirates and Travelers

The Associated Press reported yesterday that a German military helicopter saved an Egyptian ship off the coast of Somali from being boarded by pirates. We’re getting used to it by now—a couple of weeks ago the pirates took an oil tanker. And before that, and before that .. . It’s become the national industry of poor Somalia. (They haven’t got anything else; no government since 1991.)
The AP reports that there were 110 pirate attacks in 2008, 42 ships were hijacked and held for ransom. $30 million have been collected as ransom by the pirates; 14 ships (with over two hundred crewmen) are still being held hostage.
Piracy occurs elsewhere—in the Caribbean and the Malay Straits, for example—but the Somali attacks catch everyone’s attention. Piracy in the Gulf of Aden means much of the planet’s oil supply must risk its way through pirate infested waters –as must much of what passes through the Suez Canal. Should things get completely out of hand, gas prices would reach the stratosphere as unhappy insurers reacted to gunfire being directed against their clients.
An international flotilla of warships now patrols the oil lanes. Britain, the US, France, Germany, Iran and India all have gunboats on duty. China and Japan have contingents enroute. Not since World War II has such a conglomeration of armed ships worked together in any one sea.
But, as the AP reports, these gunboats cannot be everywhere at once. Successful pirates continue to evade them. Even as the helicopter drove them away from the Egyptian vessel, a lucky shot from a pirate wounded a seaman on the target ship. He had to be airlifted to the German boat for medical treatment. There’s likely to be another report tomorrow, or next week, or whenever.
No, boys and girls, pirates didn’t go away when they hanged Captain Kidd. For over two hundred years a confederation of naval forces from Europe (and eventually America) kept them at bay. One thing that effectively stops piracy is the colonization of their home bases.
What happened to piracy in the Mediterranean Sea is instructive. The Romans stopped piracy for much of their ascendancy—but not before Julius Caesar was captured by Balkan pirates. As the Empire declined piracy rose. When Islam conquered North Africa, Muslim corsairs used ports in North Africa and Spain to attack Christian positions all across the Western Mediterranean.
When the Muslims were thrown out of Spain (1492) they retaliated with a series of raids up and down Christian coasts. In 1575 an alliance of Christian navies wrested control of the Western Mediterranean from Islam—leaving as the only effective Muslim military force in that part of the world the Barbary Pirates (named after “Red Beard” the last successful Muslim Admiral to hold sway in the west).
They were cruel and they were skilled! Over a million Christians were captured and sold into slavery during the next few centuries. Barbary pirate raiders attacked as far west as Iceland and Ireland, capturing ports in southern France and northern Italy.
Eventually the Christian nations of western and southern Europe worked out a system whereby they paid tribute to keep the pirates from attacking their ships (while, admittedly, encouraging them to attack those of Christian rivals). But the pirates weren’t out of business.
Occasionally ships of this or that Christian nation would slip in and bombard Algiers, the major pirate port. This would calm things down for an historical moment, then back at it would go the pirates. When the United States won its war for independence from England, she lost the protection of the British Navy and British bribes.
Immediately, the Americans began losing ships to piracy. By 1800, 20% of the federal budget was being paid out as bribes and ransom for captives. But we couldn’t afford to pay enough, and many Americans remained in slavery to Muslim masters. In 1805 we sent the marines on their first foreign venture to burn an American warship that had been seized near Tripoli.
Our squadron stayed in the Mediterranean until 1830. That year the French had finally had enough. Centuries of pirate raiding were long enough (even though the French had spent long periods working as allies with these pirates and their Turkish masters). The French captured Algiers and took over all of Algeria, beginning the French Empire in North Africa. The Americans went home (for 115 years).
In 1961, the French pulled out of Algeria and it became independent. Tripoli threw American bases out in 1962. It would be nice to say that Muslim piracy in the Mediterranean was forever a thing of the past.
In 1973, an acquaintance of mine was camping along the Majorca coast (a Spanish island in the Mediterranean—and a favorite spot for pirate raids in centuries past). In the morning, she learned that Muslim pirates had come ashore and kidnapped several female European and American campers a mile or so down the beach from where she had slept.
They, like the European victims of old, would be sold into slavery, often for Muslim harems where fair haired Europeans are highly prized. The Sixth Fleet and its Christian and Jewish allies keep that sort of thing checked and very low key—for now.
Face it, boys and girls, piracy is an ancient and honorable trade among many Muslim cultures. As is slavery. The French policy of occupying pirate strongholds is the only strategy ever proven to work –and only for as long as the occupying army stayed in place.
That’s not encouraging—considering the luck we’re having in Iraq, Afghanistan—and had ten years ago in Somalia when we sent in troops.
Pulling out the troops may leave us with no alternative to paying much, much, much higher prices than we’ve ever dreamt of—far beyond the horrific vision of T. Boone Pickens.
Remember the old board game? “Pirates and Travelers.” In that part of the world, we are doomed to be forever the travelers.