AP Writers Seem Sympathetic to 'Pirates' in Latest Dispatch

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APabsolutelyPathetic0109In a report this morning  on the situation off the coast on Somalia, Associated Press reporters Elizabeth A. Kennedy and Paul Jelinek seemed oddly sympathetic to the cause of the terrorists in training the world insists on calling "pirates," almost to the point of grudging admiration.

Check out some of the words the AP pair used in their 9:15 a.m. dispatch (saved at host for fair use and discussion purposes, and for future reference if or when the text changes) following the "breaking news alert" at the link:

Undeterred Somali pirates hijack 4 more ships

Undeterred by U.S. and French hostage rescues that killed five bandits, Somali pirates brazenly hijacked three more ships in the Gulf of Aden, the waterway at the center of the world's fight against piracy.

..... The latest trophy for the pirates was the M.V. Irene E.M., a Greek-managed bulk carrier sailing from the Middle East to South Asia, said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur.

The Irene was attacked and seized in the middle of the night Tuesday - a rare tactic for the pirates.

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Wow. These brave "pirates" are "undeterred." They'll change tactics if they have to. And their reward for acting so "brazenly" is yet another "trophy."

Trophy?!?

It would appear that the reporters' desire to make America and the free world look weak in the face of lawlessness is more important than the impact its expansion might have on real peoples' lives, the world economy, and their supposed best bud Barack Obama. Or maybe they're trying to send a signal to the White House that it's not going to get any journalistic backup if their guy continues to act like a real Commander-in-Chief instead of the Chief Kumbaya Orchestrator they expected.

The two AP reporters' work is of a piece with an item James Taranto at Best of the Web noted yesterday at Reuters (bold is mine):

So far, pirates have generally treated hostages well, sometimes roasting goat meat for them and even passing phones round so they can call loved ones. The worst violence reported has been the occasional beating and no hostages are known to have been killed by pirates.

Taranto incredulously asked, "So suffering an 'occasional beating' to be consistent with being treated 'well'?"

Not to put too fine a point on it, but maybe someone should ask Reuters writers Abdi Sheikh and Abdi Guled, if they have wives, how "well" they treat them.

Seriously, whose side are the world's reporters on?

Back to the AP pair - Perhaps, to advance the cause of investigative journalism, Kennedy and Jelinek should consider offering themselves up in a hostage exchange so they can experience first-hand what these "brazen" and "undeterred" thugs are capable of. No, I don't want them to really do this. But if they did, and in the somewhat unlikely event they actually survived intact, their reporting might actually improve.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

 

—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters


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Hero's of the Left

Let's see, we have Fidel, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Min and now the pirates as heros of the left.

I guess Fredoom ranks low in leftist calculus.

Don't forget Hitler... he was a lefty too!

Hitler WAS a liberal.

Don't forget Hitler...

Absolutely correct.  He was the head of the

National SOCIALIST Workers party... (Nazi to you and me).....

A nice Left wing liberal organization

As was Mussolini, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot.........

Conservatives will let the market ebb and flow, you're allowed to succeed or fail on your own merits..

It's the Liberals that have always promised everything under the sun and then ruined peoples lives...

"Any government big enough to give you everything you need, is big enough to take everything you have."-- Thomas Jefferson...

Don't forget Hitler...

Absolutely correct.  He was the head of the

National SOCIALIST Workers party... (Nazi to you and me).....

A nice Left wing liberal organization

As was Mussolini, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot.........

Conservatives will let the market ebb and flow, you're allowed to succeed or fail on your own merits..

It's the Liberals that have always promised everything under the sun and then ruined peoples lives...

"Any government big enough to give you everything you need, is big enough to take everything you have."-- Thomas Jefferson...

Don't forget Hitler...

Absolutely correct.  He was the head of the

National SOCIALIST Workers party... (Nazi to you and me).....

A nice Left wing liberal organization

As was Mussolini, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot.........

Conservatives will let the market ebb and flow, you're allowed to succeed or fail on your own merits..

It's the Liberals that have always promised everything under the sun and then ruined peoples lives...

"Any government big enough to give you everything you need, is big enough to take everything you have."-- Thomas Jefferson...

Somalia Teenage Wasteland

 The Age of Somalian Pirates is in line with the median age in the country of Somalia 17 years old, the life expectancy is 47 years old for males, that means a 16 year old would be a full grown man in their culture-country - Not the same as in Western culture. So why is our media using a Western measuring stick for non Western people? Slow, Ignorant, Lazy....

http://youhavetobeth...

Pirates

Come on, everyone knows the pirates were the work of Karl Rove to try an make Chairman O look bad.

Pirates

They seem to operate like PETA, Greenpeace and some of the leftist flavor. 

Weather underground was also a popular "movement". 

Left-wing radicals

The Dept. of Homeland security just issued a 9- page report warning police against "right wing " radicalism growing in America. Funny, it comes out just before Tea Party Day. It seems to me America and its citizens have much more to fear from the left-wing radicals in our media, in our government, and in the White House. As outlets such as the AP continue their propaganda, the lefties in America continue to love terrorists, pirates, dictators, and sundry others who wish nothing but harm to our beloved country.

BTW, here's an example of how our new government thinks. The report warns about "disgruntled veterans". The reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, Bill Clinton, and Barry must be busting their buttons.What a bunch. Disgusting!

Furthermore, Texas has once again asserted its "States Rights" under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution. God Bless them.

 

NEVER,NEVER trust a "liberal"

Where did the term "Pirates" originate?

These goons are terrorists, period. It would be interesting to know who began using this term "Pirates" to describe these thugs and why. Nobody I know thinks of "pirate" as a modern day term, except in describing computer information piracy.

Pirates of old tried to take over ships with ships being of equal size to their prey. They didn't use row boats. They has alot more crewmen than 4 on their ships.

In somebody's editorial board meeting was somebody sensitive to using the term terrorist to describe these thugs?  PC run amok?

 

Pirates

Good question.

Here's a little something...A Pirate of Exquisite Mind, published in 2004.  A few snippets (in no order of importance).

Piracy--both buccaneering and privateering--was a viable career choice in seventeenth-century England for young men such as William Dampier. With mercantile expansionism at its peak, the ships and colonies of Spain and France could be judged not as honest business enterprises but as legitimate targets in an economic war.

But when he returned to England, in 1691, he set to work preparing an account of his exploits. The resulting book, A New Voyage Round the World, handsomely illustrated with maps and drawings, was published in London in 1697, and a sequel appeared two years later.

The Oxford English Dictionary cites Dampier as the source of more than a thousand English words, many of them related to food: avocado, barbecue, and cashew begin the Dampier ABCs. Captain James Cook read Dampier during his travels in the late 1700s, as did Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin in the 1800s.

The thing I found most interesting, is piracy/bucanneering was/is an ecomonic war.

The book was a fascinating read...but the romanticized "pirate life" is a Hollywood fantasy.

I hope he fails, too.

 

 

the term fits

Main Entry: pi·ra·cy Pronunciation: \ˈpī-rə-sē\ Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural pi·ra·cies Etymology: Medieval Latin piratia, from Late Greek peirateia, from Greek peiratēs pirate Date: 1537

1: an act of robbery on the high seas ; also : an act resembling such robbery2: robbery on the high seas3 a: the unauthorized use of another's production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright b: the illicit accessing of broadcast signals

Pirates and piracy have been happening all through the modern era.  Just because it's not widely reported here doesn't mean it hasn't been happening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate

The size of the ship or tactics they use are irrelevent because they are still commiting crimes of kidnapping and theft for monetary gain. Unlike terrorists they have no motivation other than ransom money. There is no larger "cause".

Added:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1280886.html

Interesting article from 1997.

Disenfranchised Water Youth?

I was just going to say, how long till writers find an even MORE PC term than "pirate". You know, the word pirate has such a negative connotation to it. It brings up images of Blackbeard and peglegs and such.

 How long till they come up with a term akin to "undocumented immigrants"?

How about, "Undocumented

How about, "Undocumented crew member" 

 

I like the name Bobs, as in see how those dead pirates still "Bob" in the water after you fill them full of holes. 

Semper Fi

Freedom is not free, but the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of your share.
Ned Dolan

Sharpton already came up

Sharpton already came up with the PC term: Volunteer Coast Guard.

Re Piracy

Re offering oneself up for a hostage exchange; I understand Barney Fwank is already working on that. He was seen in a shopping center in Virginia stocking up on pirate-appropriate gear, or clothing, I should say. He has also committed to get to the bottom of the piracy problem.

Slick....

......you Da Man!

He has also committed to get to the bottom of the piracy problem.

ROFLMAO

slick...Add me in here

slick...

Add me in here too...I'm also LMAO...

...Now that was a slick post!

Doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea. ~Andrew Breitbart

Disregarding Danger

A few days ago I noticed the HuffPo main page had the "ARRRRGH!" pirate cry and pic of a skull and crossbones black pirate flag. The were clearly treating the pirate subject with levity. 

Noting is wrong with the occational levity, but I think it's a piece of evidence showing how the left fails to take dangerous people seriously. And, not only do they not take dangerous people seriously, they often empathize with them and take up their cause.

That's what you see in the AP reports. That's what we've seen with the left's casual disregard for the threat that radical Islam poses. It's the same with those antiwar activists who went over to Iraq to make themselves human shields and "apologize" for America's impending invasion. 

The left condescendingly fails to respect that these disturbed people are not only capable of doing harm, but fully intend to.  

All of civility depends on being able to contain the rage of individuals. ~ Joshua Lederberg

the point

Seriously, whose side are the world's reporters on?

Isn't that the whole point they're not supposed to be on a side, ours or theirs. They are supposed to report the fr*gg*n news! Maybe a translation would be helpful.

The worst violence reported has been the occasional beating and no hostages are known to have been killed by pirates.

Should be...

Some hostages have been beaten and none of the captives have been killed yet. 

Sounds a lot less pro-pirate that way. And "killed yet" isn't biased because gun point hostage situations eventually have fatalities.  

I'll give you the "side" argument to an extent ...

... but you would think they'd give equal time to the "side" that is trying to make things safe, and spend a little less time sympathetically portraying the side that would slit their throats without a second thought.

right

That's that I'm saying, you report both sides if there are two sides. This case doesn't have two sides.

There are criminals performing illegal activities. Report the facts and how the situation will be dealt with. 

hope

All the more reason for TOTUS to give the Pirate Speech I so desperately crave.

LOL

Oh, oh, oh. Thank you for that. I needed a good belly laugh. 

All of civility depends on being able to contain the rage of individuals. ~ Joshua Lederberg

Back to the AP pair -

Back to the AP pair - Perhaps, to advance the cause of investigative
journalism, Kennedy and Jelinek should consider offering themselves up
in a hostage exchange so they can experience first-hand what these
"brazen" and "undeterred" thugs are capable of. No, I don't want them
to really do this.

YES, I want them to REALLY do that.  The only way for them to unlearn the lies they have been taught is to experience LIFE the way it really is.

AP - Always Pussies