The Number 1 Threat to Middle East Stability is..... Pirates!

Arrrrrrrr.... Ye Mate, come a board mi vessel and yo ho ho ho... Ok i'm done with that. Pirates are pretty cool, I guess. The American preception of pirates are guys with eye patches and a wooden peg or it's Jonny Depp swinging across his vessel. However, the problem with pirates today is they like to take over oil tankers. Somalian pirates have a nasty habit of taking over ships with in Pirate Alley (Southern portion of Gulf of Aden).

While the world is looking at this problem in economic terms, we need to look at this at this through a humanitarian lens. People are dwelling on the fact that the pirates took over a ship with reportedly 100 million dollars worth of oil, but how bout focusing on why they did that. Time magizine has ranked Somaila as the worst country in the world. In order to see why the pirates are such a nuisance today, we have to go back some years. Once Somalia gained their independence civil war broke out between Christians and Muslims. Fast foward 30 years to the late 80's and 90's, Muslim factions began all out war on the public. Shelling cities, stockpiles of weapons, and a weak government became the norm in Somalia. Then comes Black Hawk down. American intervention in a gang run nation fails. And terrorist organizations gain a foothold in the country including Osama Bin Laden in the 90's. They instill a very anti-American/development mentality. With this mentality the social dynamics collapse, and violence erupted. Fast forward to now, and the whole world has given up on this country. Somalia is overshadowed by the Darfur crisis, the Iraq situation, and even to some extent the destabilizaiton of Saudi Arabia. Somalia has one of the lowest GDP's and have tons of weapons. Hm... What are we gonna do with weapons and no money? How bout holding parts of the developed world hostage! This can be seen with the acts of piracy. However, the pirates are only the tip of the iceberg. In Mogidishu alone, it is run by drug, religious, and other types of gangs. There is no real industry in Somalia, and no real hope. The first thing that the U.S. and world can do for this coutry is give it aid in the form of food. More importantly make sure this food is getting to the people and not to the gangs. If this occurs, the citizens of Somalia will have enough food and water to survive without the help of the government. Additionally, the U.S. needs to either help or even (cough cough Guatamala, Bolivia, 1960-80's) install a pro-U.S./pro-World governemnt. The people of Somalia need help, and as global citizens it's our duty to help them. Piracy must be taken seriously and needs to be stopped, but once we look at the reason why the piracy started, we can clearly see that this country needs help, food, and hope.