Piracy in African Waters

Tourists on a cruise ship in African waters witnessed the ultimate thrill. According to an article in The Christian Science Monitor there ship was pirated 100 miles off the Somali Coast. The pirates fired aussault rifles and and rocket propelled grenade (RPG).

a band of pirates careened toward the ship in inflatable boats, firing machine guns and a grenade launcher. One couple even had an unexploded grenade lodged in their stateroom's wall before the ship could escape.

Tourism to African destinations is on the rise. It is already the number 1 source of income for certain countries. But the violence that is endemic to Africa makes this source of income highly unreliable, as tourist tend to stay away from violent places:

Just to be safe, the cruise company diverted its ship to the Seychelles Islands, away from Kenya's main tourist port, Mombasa - a city where growing Islamism has also created more and more problems for tourists. In 2002, militants bombed an Israeli-owned hotel near Mombasa - and fired two missiles at an Israeli jet, but missed.

On the East-African coast the population is mostly Muslim, a inheritance from the ages of slave trade with nearby Arabia and the Gulf states. The Muslims have mostly been quiet since the independence of most African countries in 1960.

This quiet has been shattered in the early 1990 when civil war broke out in Somalia. The easy victory of the Mujahedeen over American forces in Mogadishu in 1992 convinced people like Osama Bin Laden that the number 1 world power and guarantor of peace and order, the USA, was a paper tiger:

Bin Laden: The U.S. government went there with great pride and stayed there for some time with a strong media presence wanting to frighten people that it is the greatest power on earth. It went there with pride and with over 28,000 soldiers, to a poor unarmed people in Somalia. The goal of this was to scare the Muslim world and the whole world saying that it is able to do whatever it desires. As soon as the troops reached the Mogadishu beaches, they found no one but children. The CNN and other media cameras started photographing them (the soldiers) with their camouflage and heavy arms, entering with a parade crawling (on the ground) and showing themselves to the world as the "greatest power on earth". .......

.... After a little resistance, The American troops left after achieving nothing. They left after claiming that they were the largest power on earth. They left after some resistance from powerless, poor, unarmed people whose only weapon is the belief in Allah The Almighty, and who do not fear the fabricated American media lies. We learned from those who fought there, that they were surprised to see the low spiritual morale of the American fighters in comparison with the experience they had with the Russian fighters. The Americans ran away from those fighters who fought and killed them, while the latter were still there. If the U.S. still thinks and brags that it still has this kind of power even after all these successive defeats in Vietnam, Beirut, Aden, and Somalia, then let them go back to those who are awaiting its return."

This is how the inspirator of Islamic Resistance sees the strongest Western power. A force whose soldiers have a "low spiritual morale" compared even to the communist Russian forces they encountered in Afghanistan, whose empire collapsed in 1989 and whose population is shrinking.

Obviously the USA is proving itself more committed after the attack on the Twin Towers. Recent events however show that America is a giant on feet of clay. The American Army is still fighting like a blind man in Iraq, because its soldiers do not speak Arabic and do not know the local customs. The public is losing its confidence in a victory. The reason for the American presence is still mistifying observers. Democratisation of the Middle East is NOT a panacea against Islamic radicalisation. Democratic nations in Europe such as France, The Netherlands, The UK and in Scandinavia with Muslim minorities are under attack of Islamists. Libanon is a democracy.

Islamists are thriving in failed states. They found thriving in Bosnia and Afghanistan. In the Palestinian Authority and in Chechnia (listen!). Somalia and Soudan.

They are thriving in Malaysia. Malaysia is a successful modern Asian state. Other Asian states are more successful than Malaysia. But still.

Meanwhile Western states from Europe to South America to North America are in decline vis-a-vis the rest of the world excepting Africa.

So what does that tell us?