Just in case you somehow missed it, the Maersk Alabama, a 17,000-ton cargo ship heading to Kenya was attacked by pirates roughly 300 miles from the coast of Africa. A handful of pirates held the ship for several hours before the Maersk Alabama's crew fought back and re-took control of their ship. The pirates fled in one of the Maersk Alabama's lifeboats, taking the ship's captain, Richard Phillips, with them (some reports say that Phillips handed himself over to the pirates in return for them leaving the ship). There's now a standoff going on between the pirates in the lifeboat, which is out of gas and dead in the water, and the Navy's guided missile destroyer USS Bainbridge, which sped to the scene after the hijacking. FBI negotiators are currently in discussions with the pirates for the release of Capt. Phillips.The Maersk Alabama was, briefly, the sixth ship taken by Somali pirates this week alone. The five other captured ships are still being held by the pirates for ransom. What's been interesting is that in interviews with some of the Maersk Alabama crew's families, many say that they thought there was a good chance the ship, which often sails in the waters off the Horn of Africa, would one day be hit by pirates. Shane Murphy, the Maersk Alabama's chief officer, went so far as to post on his Facebook page recently: "these waters are infested with pirates that highjack ships daily...I feel like it's only a matter of time before my number gets called."
And speaking of the media, like often happens when they’re forced to cover events they're not familiar with, the Maersk Alabama hijacking has led to some pretty bad reporting, with Fox News leading the way. Yesterday afternoon Fox started reporting (a claim that has been picked up in other reports), that the incident with the Maersk Alabama was the "first time in two centuries" that a US ship had been attacked by pirates. Though in just five minutes on Wikipedia I found the story of the MV Seabourne Spirit - a luxury cruise yacht owned by the Miami-based Carnival Corporation - that was attacked by Somali pirates in November 2005. The Seabourne Spirit managed to repel the attack, even ramming one of the pirate boats in the process, and was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade shot by the pirates. Of course this means not only was the Maersk Alabama incident not the first pirate attack against a US-owned ship in 200 years, it wasn't even the first pirate attack this decade.
The Fox crew went on to describe the pirates as "terrorists" and, along with their 'military advisor' of the hour, repeat the oft-said statement about how the "United States doesn't negotiate with terrorists", even though at this hour we are negotiating with the pirates - I guess the US Navy and FBI didn't get the memo...
Now that America's attention has been focused on Somalia, let's hope some decent reporting follows.
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