PIRATES! Hunt 'em Down and Destroy Them!

Hunt Down and Destroy the Pirates!

I reside just minutes from the Atlantic Ocean and the coast of North Carolina and those barrier Islands along our coast which made for wonderful hiding places for the Pirates of yesteryear. The Coast of North Carolina is drenched in folklore about Pirates.

That was then. This is now.

Again the high seas are infested with pirates. Their aim is the same… to rob and steal, and rape, and pillage.

Recently we heard of the ocean liner being attacked, but managing to speed away. A few days later, in the same waters, a freighter was attacked. It, too, managed to get away.

Our own Caribbean is littered with modern day pirates. Yachts disappear to show up at some other location, with a different registration, and different name. Sometimes passengers disappear, too.

Once before, in our history, the US Navy, and Marines, had to rid the coast of Africa of pirates. The Barbary Coast Pirates.

I bring up these particular pirates because they were based along the African coast, mainly the North African coast. The pirates we seem to be having the most trouble with today are also on the African coast, but the east African coast…the coast of Somalia to be more exact.

Somalia still has no functioning government and it is a breeding ground for this type of activity.

Teddy Roosevelt, the President of the United States at the time of the Barbary Pirates, had the opportunity to use the big stick he carried and, he did just that. He sent seven battleships from the Atlantic Fleet to the North African Coast. His threat worked and the Pirates backed down.

Now, it is time again for the Navies of the free world to joint together and sail the globe destroying these modern day pirates where they find them. No arrests, no trials, just eradicate them on the spot. It’s time, again, to use Teddy’s Big Stick.

This blight on the oceans will not go away if we turn a blind eye. It will get worse. Eventually they will manage to stop and board a passenger liner and death and destruction will be the result.

Now is the time to hunt them down and destroy them.

“Longstreet”