As any of you who have read more than one post by me know, I am a political info junkie.

Right now the high for the info junkies in the U.S. is the fascinating world of the Somali pirates. According to NPR the Somali pirates are disenfranchised fishermen who have lost their income to larger and larger multinational fishing operations off the coast of Somalia.

We all heard of these guys when they hijacked a Saudi oil tanker with about $110 million worth of oil on the ship.

There are more interesting factors coming out about the Somali pirates all the time. Among them is that NPR reported that the Somali pirates are relatively non-lethal compared to other modern pirates, especially south-east Asian pirates, who seem to kill a ship’s crew as a matter of protocol.

The most recent bit of info, which makes writing about the Somali pirates Edger-worthy, is their new enemy: Muslim fundamentalists.

Essentially groups of Muslim fundamentalists based in Somalia have declared piracy against Saudi Arabian financial interests to be anti-Islamic and have vowed to rescue the tanker from the Somali pirates. Both the Islamic Courts Union and a Muslim fundamentalist group called Al-Shabaab have treated the Somali pirates with varying levels of hostility.

I am a byproduct of pop-culture pirate worship.

I have fantasized about space pirates since I was a kid. I love the Pirates of the Carribean, and it is hard for me not to admire these guys on a certain level.

I do not have deontological ideas about theft. I don’t share my liberterian brother and sister’s consideration for property rights as the basis of all civic virtue.

Every now and then when someone gets their crap stolen, I cheer.

When Saudi Arabia gets their oil tanker stolen, and I find out that the thieves are poor people who are considerably non-violent compared to other pirates, I feel a slight sense of cheering for the underdog.

I also feel like these events have revealed a far more insidious piece of information, which is when Saudi Arabia is losing money, Muslim militants get involved.

I try not to give to much credence to conspiracy theories, but ignoring the link between the Saudi establishment and militant Islam is ignoring the obvious.

I wonder how the perceptions of the world will play out as we see the Somali pirates weather the storm that militant Islam threatens.

Last 5 posts by Rodrigo Neely

• Obama and Rick Warren: My Take - December 23rd, 2008
• Pat Buchanan’s Culture War Speech - December 20th, 2008
• So… How does one take over a culture? - December 16th, 2008
• Leaving College - December 15th, 2008
• The End of Privacy - December 6th, 2008

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