After the recent failed hijacking of the Maersk Alabama, an unlikely drama consumed the national media — piracy.Curious landlubbers have been treated to high drama on the high seas. With deadly efficiency, U.S. seals helped Capt. Phillips and his hearties hornswaggle Davy Jones’ locker and safely return to port. The survivors were draped in an American flag, and news outlets declared the event an “Easter Miracle.”Unfortunately, understanding the cause of the uptick in piracy transforms the story from an all-American drama into just another intersection of violence and injustice.Since 1991, Somalia has existed without an effective government. Despite interventions by foreign militaries — often funded by the U.S. government — the country has done surprisingly well for itself.”On nearly all of 18 key indicators that allow pre- and post-stateless welfare comparisons, Somalis are better off under anarchy than they were under government,” economist Peter Leeson said in a case study.Unfortunately, the Somali coastline — without the protection of either private ownership or a functioning government — became a dumping ground for hazardous material.”European companies found it to be very cheap to get rid of the waste, costing as little as $2.50 a ton, where waste disposal costs in Europe are something like $250 a ton,” said Nick Nuttall of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) in a March 2005 “Environment in the News” UNEP report.After the 2004 tsunami, the waste washed ashore and caused skin and respiratory infections, abdominal hemorrhaging and other symptoms of radiation sickness.Meanwhile, in other sectors of Somalia’s massive coastline, local fishermen were driven to starvation by overfishing from foreign boats.Somali piracy was born of these injustices. Their volunteer coast guard acted in exactly the same way ours would if foreign boats had dumped nuclear waste into Lake Pontchartrain.”We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish and dump in our seas,” pirate leader Sugule Ali said in an interview.Somali piracy expert Peter Lehr summed up the situation in an October 2008 interview with the Chicago Tribune. “It’s almost like a resource swap, Somalis collect up to $100 million a year from pirate ransoms off their coasts and the Europeans and Asians poach around $300 million a year in fish from Somali waters.”As Somali singer K’naan put it, “If getting rid of the pirates only means the continuous rape of our coast by unmonitored western vessels, and the producing of a new cancerous generation, we would all fly our pirate flags high.”That is not to say the pirates are the good guys.
Often, the victims of the hijackings are innocent bystanders. Somali rage may be justified, but there is no justice in taking innocent lives.The Somalis sometimes cross the line between self-defense and thuggery, and, for that, they deserve condemnation.But the high seas exist without clear property rights, so the line blurs. Unless decisions are made on moral principles, we can only expect to find national interests. Almost as a rule, when it comes to foreign policy there are no good guys.Somali pirates set sail for the same reason the CIA overthrew a democratic government in Iran, the U.S. Air Force killed hundreds of thousands of Cambodian civilians in the Vietnam War, and America invaded Iraq in 2003 — morally questionable national interests.When an individual boat uses violence to pursue self-interest at sea, the sailors are called pirates.But when a thousand boats set sail under a similar flag — national interests — we call them a navy.Gar.Daniel Morgan is a 21-year-old economics junior from Baton Rouge.–Contact Daniel Morgan at [email protected]