Pirates me hearties, pirates!

[Occhidiangela]

Not that I doubt the history of the "East" is every bit as blood-drenched as anywhere else, but, to whom are you referring when you say "Easterners"?

(For that matter, to whom is anyone referring when they say "Westerners"? But that's an age old debate.)

-Jester

While a bad habit, consider how many westerners have been killed by such advances.

A bullet don't care where you were born, nor where you learned how to shoot or hide. Funny old thing, the westerners seemed to try them weapons out on one another before applying them elsewhere, being that local squabbles tend to come first.

The one big exception? The atom bomb. A well constructed test, that was. People of wit learned a great deal from that, for less human cost than the flu epidemic of 1918-1920.

We (if I may refer to mankind collectively here, which I prefer not to do) got off cheap on that one ... so far.

When the Pakistanis drop their first nuke on someone, Jester, will they have morphed into "westerners" all of a sudden?

I wonder.

As to pirates: they are a symptom of the land based problem. Killing them on the high seas solves a symptom, not a disease. Follow the money, and kill the crime lords of Somalia, and their bankers in whatever country they hide their money.

Funny, we have not done that with the drug war in Mexico, so the odds of taking that tactic with Somali kidnap for profit scum is low.

This "civilized" world is falling into the common D & D paladin trap: lawful good = stupid.

No way to run an asylum.

Occhi