George Bush (even to those suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome) has been a strong leader. Since September 11, 2001, the rogues of the world have been relatively quiet (at least for rogues), but now America is seen as in a time of transition--appearing to be vulnerable. Let's take a look at where we are.
Oil is hovering around $50 a barrel. In July, oil was at $147 a barrel. This is a serious problem for Russia, Venezuela, and various terrorists around the world. How can anyone expect to run a respectable third-world country or terrorist organization on $50 a barrel oil? They can't. So what happens next? Well, we seem to be having a problem with Somali pirates right now. These pirates have been wreaking havoc for a while, but they seem to have become more brazen of late. They also have had their challenges when they hijacked the wrong ship.
According to various sources, (the one I list here is BoingBoing.net), the pirates hijacked a ship in August of this year with a mysterious cargo that caused some of them to become ill and killed some of them. It was an Iranian ship and finding information on what the cargo was or what exactly happened is something of a challenge.
This week they hijacked a Saudi tanker carrying two million barrels of crude oil. This is a serious matter in terms of the basic lawlessness and the amount of oil involved. We've had problems with pirates before--the U. S. Marines dealt with them in the early days of our country (and won). It seems as if it may be time to deal with them again.
This is a matter that needs the cooperation of the entire world, but I am not sure we know how to come together to fight lawlessness anymore--it seems like too much of the world has been living in lawlessness and reaping some benefit. I hope this will be dealt with quickly, and those who would pirate be either jailed or executed. There is nothing worthwhile about piracy.
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