Political shill William Kristol declares that we should go to war against the pirates. (The man apparently doesn't realize what a caricature he's become.)
Let's go through the chrology of events, as we've so diligently followed them here.
--Somali pirates hijack ships for several years, without drawing extensive media coverage.
--A couple of weeks ago, Somali pirates sieze a Saudi oil supertanker. GREASY RIDER BLOG then sagely predicts world outrage, media coverage, and threats of military action. GREASY RIDER BLOG also sagely predicts that oil will barely be mentioned, if at all. It's never about oil. It's always about freedom.
--GREASY RIDER BLOG, so aware of his own knowlege and wisdom, then wonders aloud why he's not running the world, or at least given some powerful job in the government.
--India's Navy then says that it has sunk a Somali pirate mother ship, and unfortunately no survivors are found. (But it turns out that there actually was one survivor, who clung to a metal barrel for several days at sea before being rescued. And he and his shipmates actually weren't pirates. They were fishermen from Thailand. Ah well.)
--Rhetoric and media coverage ratchet up on piracy, and Kenya prepares for the inevitable ecological catastrophe that will come when the oil tanker is siezed back from the pirates by special forces and tons of black gold spill into the sea.
--Political hack William Kristol, starts the drumbeat for American military action against Somali pirates in a Weekly Standard Column. Oil is never mentioned. It never is.
Kristol's words:
"Perhaps (President Bush) could tell various admirals to stop moaning about how difficult it would be to deal with the pirates off the coast of Somalia (isn't keeping the shipping lanes open a core mission of the Navy?) and order the Navy to clobber them. If need be, the Marines would no doubt be glad to recapitulate their origins and join in by going ashore in Africa to destroy the pirates' safe havens."
The Marines would be glad? Is he sure? Maybe he should talk to a Marine general about that. (Yet one more reason why Bill Kristol's relevance and influence as a political thinker has sunk to somewhere just below Geraldo Rivera's.)
Check back here for future pirate updates...
