Jacob's Soap Box

22 November, 2008.

ll tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

(Thomas Jefferson)

Finally! I was glad to see that notwithstanding of all impotent naval so-called powers, the Indian Navy has blown a Somali pirate mother-ship out of the water, literally that is. Good on you India, go after the bastards!

Gulf Of Aden

The area in the Indian Ocean between near the entrance to the Red Sea (also know as the Gulf of Aden) and the Somali and the Kenyan coasts are notorious in their sea pirates activities going back to the 1980’s, this is not a new phenomena.

We, in the shipping industry are well aware of it, so are the marine insurance companies who require that shipowners, pay additional insurance premium know as extra war insurance cover, for vessels passing through that area and other areas piracy infested areas to cover additional underwriting risks.

Whilst in early days the attacks were only on small and slow ship and were concentrated around the Island of Socotra, as no action has been taken over the years, the audacity of the Pirate increased to a point that they are now endanger the global oil supply as we have just seen with the hijacking of the 318,000 deadweight tonnes (DWT, about 2.3 million barrels) Saudi owned tanker Sirius Star about 450 nautical miles (520 statue miles) from the coast of East Africa.

Sirius Star

At US$55.00 per barrel, the Sirius Star cargo is valued at about $130 millions add to it the value of the ship at $120 million, that gives the pirates a “catch” of a quarter of a billion dollars, not bad for a day’s work

Apart from the historical event (can I say it?) of being the largest vessel ever hijacked, the Sirius Star hijacking represent a new level as she was hijacked in a position that until now was considered safe from piracy attacks. The vessel if far too large to transit the Suez Canal (or the Panama for that matter) thus must go around Africa. She was hijacked on the shipping route used by the thousands of oil tankers sailing from the Persian Gulf into the Atlantic Ocean around Africa.

The Sirius Star was enroute to the USA.

* * * * *

Have you ever wondered how a small bunch of Somali lowlives are able to disrupt world shipping whilst the great navies of the world are seemingly powerless? The answer is two words: Human rights! No, this is not some kind of a joke.

You see, according to the various UN treaties on Human Rights, should any other signatory country’ ship, capture and arrest the pirates, once they are onboard a ship, they are in fact in on a territory of the flag of the ship, thus they can immediately claim asylum seekers status.

Consequently the Navy commanders who are there to protect shipping are under strict instructions not to capture the pirates or if they captured to let them go immediately, but NOT turn them to the authorities.

The ground on which asylum can be sought is that should the pirate be returned to Somalia, according to the Sharia Law the applicable law in that country, they, the pirates, may face the death penalty for piracy or at least getting their hands chopped off for stealing. It sure looks like the inmate running the asylum.

Did I say Sharia Law? Yes I did, and yes the pirates are Muslims but oh no! We should mention it because it may offend some people!

The emotional “compassionate” liberals claim Islamophobia. They are quick to point out that it is all to do with the fact that Somalia is a dysfunction country, that the pirates being Muslims is only incidental because all Somalis are Muslims and thus their crimes have got nothing to do with Islam.

Oh really? Let us see; There are ten major areas around the world that are notorious piracy activities, those are:

• The Straits of Malacca; between the Island of Sumatra (Indonesia) and the coast of Southern Thailand, West Malaysia and Singapore.
• Bay of Bengal; off the coast of Bangladesh.
• South China Sea; off the Island of Borneo (shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei) and the northern Philippines island.
• Philippines; Off the (Muslim) Island of Sulawesi.
• Sunda Straits; between the Indonesian Islands of Java and Sumatra.
• East Africa; off the coast of Mozambique.
• Gulf Of Guinea; off the coast of Nigeria.
• South America; off all counties, and
• Gulf of Aden; Between Yemen and Somalia.

( The Straits Of Hormuz, the entrance to the Persian Gulf, was also in the list until the navies of the USA, Britain and Australia started to patrol it to avoid smuggling of arms into Iraq)

Further, according to Associated press, one of the fighting splinter groups claimed to have been going after the pirate that hijacked a Muslim ship. Strictly speaking, by my own past dealing with her owners, the ship is not own in Saudi Arabia but the point is that it is thought to be thus according to the LA Times of 21 November:

MOGADISHU, Somalia — A radical Islamic group in Somalia said Friday it will fight the pirates holding a Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of crude oil.

Abdelghafar Musa, a fighter with al-Shabab who claims to speak on behalf of all Islamic fighters in the Horn of Africa nation, said ships belonging to Muslim countries should not be seized.

“We are really sorry to hear that the Saudi ship has been held in Somalia. We will fight them (the pirates),” Musa told AP Television News

Who do you think finance this “radical Islamic group”? Chances are the same people who finance other “Islamic groups”, any suggestion? Could it be that some of the ransom money find its way to such group as protection money?

Do they think that we are all morons to believe that there is no relations between the “Islamic groups” in Somalia and the pirates or that being Muslim is not a factor in sea piracy.

* * * * *

No concept has ever been abused more then the notion of Human Rights and more so by, for and on behalf of people who preach total submission under a religion by that name, Islam. Islam, submission in Arabic, is not a religion as we know it in Christianity or Judaism, slam is a religion, a way of life, a law and a political movement, all in the name of Allah and his prophet Muhammad.

Unlike Judeo-Christianity whereby the general rule that is that anything which is not specifically prohibited is permitted, in Islam anything which is not specifically permitted is prima facie prohibited, except perhaps riding Rolls-Royce when it comes to replacing camels.

This is why we see Falafel stands and music shops burned in Baghdad or their owners executed under the Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

Nothing demonstrates the abuse of human rights in Islam as the status of women. Under Islam, women have a few rights, must mostly obligations. For example, a woman is not permitted to leave her houses without permission from the man of the house (typically husband, father, or brother), she must be obedient to her husband at all times, she must be “ready and willing to have sex any time here husband wishes (except when she menstruates) and a husband has the right to beat his wife.

Woman must submit to her husband

A child may be married and such marriage may be consummated, when a non-Muslim does it is both child abuse and paedophilia but when a Muslim does it, it is diversity of culture. So what is so bad if a woman must obey her father in arranging her marriage or the fact that in (Islamic) court woman evidence valued half that of a man.

And there is the question of honour. The whole honour of her family lays between any young Muslim girl’s leg, failing to maintain, what Muslim call honour may and will cause the young women her life, she will be beaten, stoned or otherwise murdered by her father and/or her brothers. Mind you, being raped is not a valid excuse to “loss” of honour.

Can you imagine the outcry if our respective parliaments would make a law that prohibits women from leaving their houses without permission of their husband or, if unmarried, their father or brother. Yet such law exists right under our noses but our governments afraid of dealing with it, for a fear of being labelled racist or Islamophobic .

In the very first paragraph of their book Fleeced, co-authors Dick Morris and Eileen McGann say:

FACT: The mainstream media in America is distorting the news to deliberately downplay terrorism. The Society of Professional Journalist has actually recommended that reporters “avoid using word combinations such as ‘Islamic terrorist’ or ‘Muslim extremist’.”

In her book Londonistan Melanie Phillips writes:

… on the day that four Islamist suicide bombers blew themselves and more than fifty London commuters to bits, the [Metropolitan] deputy commissioner [of Police], Brian Paddick, stood before the television cameras and made the noteworthy comment: “As far as I am concerned, Islam and terrorist are two words that do not go together”*

[* The quote is attributed to Ian Herbert of ‘The Independent’ of 8 July, 2005]

Astonishing, to say the least. Now, would you trust the media and the multicultural infested authorities to tell that sea piracy is a Muslim problem too when they have such evidence? Not a chance!

* * * * *

If you think that Muslims that enjoy human and other rights, far and beyond anything they had imagined possible in their original countries, are grateful for the hospitality their new home countries extend to them, you are wrong! Not only they are ungrateful and in some cases hostile, many consider any gesture of goodwill as a weakness on the part of their host countries. I experienced that attitude in person I am sorry to say.

Too “racist” for you liking? Listen to what Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali asylum seeker in Holland at the time ⁽¹⁾, has to say about her countrymen and women, asylum seekers, in her book Infidel she says:

We had always been sure that we, as Muslims and Somalis, were superior to the unbelievers …

[the Somali Muslims’] reaction was to crate a fantasy that they as Somalis knew better about everything then the inferior white people.” you don’t need to teach me how to use a thermometer, our Somali thermometers are much more advance” – that kind of attitude. His breath smells of pig. He’s only a bus driver. How dare he think he can tell me how to behave”

Sure there are decent people who were born into Islam and go about their day like most of us, but how many of them actually condemn those who carry abuse of human rights, let alone atrocities?

So you see, whilst the Political Correct brigade is in complete denial of the evil of Islam “superior” Muslim Somali pirates putting innocent seamen life at risk, much like be FBI before 9/11 and the British police before 7/7, who displayed more concerned for potential terrorist Miranda Rights then their own citizens’ lives.

How difficult is it to proclaim a law by which convicted sea pirates cannot apply for asylum? Then send the navy down and blow the Pirates out of the water.

______

⁽¹⁾ Ayaan Hirsi Ali went on to become a member of the Dutch Parliament, she renounced Islam became a vocal critic of Islam, particularly the treatment of women. She came into international fame with the murder of the Dutch film maker Theo Van Gough who was murdered by a Muslim.