A Marcus Rediker Take On PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN

Awhile back I remember a critique of the third Pirates of the Caribbean film that takes issue with, among other things, the depiction of pirates as some kind of quasi-ethnicity being mass-murdered by the East India Company. In particular, the reviewer objected to the sequence where a bunch of pirates, including a child, get hanged and it's depicted as a bad thing. After all, pirates are basically sea robbers and were prone to committing atrocities--for a paper I did on the historiography of Atlantic piracy, I found accounts of pirate Henry Avery's men committing a mass rape of Muslim women on the pilgrimage to Mecca, other pirates torturing and murdering the crew of a ship they'd taken, and various other grotesque acts. The book Under the Black Flag strongly disputes the romanticized view of pirates that omits or downplays their bad behavior.

However, there are pirates and there are pirates. The earliest buccaneers weren't pirates at all, at least at first. They were European adventurers who lived in various Caribbean islands, hunting the cattle that the Spanish had introduced (that had gone wild) and selling the meat to passing ships. Their name comes from a Taino Indian word for "grill." The Spanish repeatedly tried to run them off, until they took control of the island of Tortuga and started attacking the Spanish instead. Furthermore, many later pirates were actually licensed by their governments to attack enemy ships in wartime. The "classic" (and worst-behaved) pirates were at the tail end of the age of piracy, when governments no longer employed freelancers against each other and the pirates basically preyed on everybody.

(To be fair, many pirates had understandable reasons for adopting that way of life--sailors who'd been abused aboard merchant ships or in the military, runaway slaves, etc. Marcus Rediker's Villains of All Nations and the book he co-wrote The Many-Headed Hydra describe these people in more detail, including accounts of how sailors on ships attacked by pirates would often jump ship and join them. However, that still doesn't acknowledge torturing people to find hidden money, rape, etc. Somebody can have a sympathetic back-story and still be an unpleasant, nasty person. Consider Severus Snape, the poor Goth kid oppressed by the rich spoiled popular athlete as a student--who became a cruel teacher who bullied his students and rarely if ever bathed. And Snape is one of my favorite characters.)

So here's a way to get sympathetic pirates and still be at least somewhat realistic. Depict Jack Sparrow and others like him living on some nominally-English but de facto independent island near Port Royal in Jamaica, perhaps a more benign and less violent version of Nassau (depicted as an independent pirate commune in The Republic of Pirates). Emphasize that despite the disdain of Port Royal's residents, most of them are making an honest living selling meat to passing ships, fishing, growing enough food in a month to sustain them for a year, etc.

If they are engaging in criminal behavior, it's more sympathetic activities like smuggling to avoid excessive tariffs. After all, our Founding Fathers did it. :) If there's any actual piracy, it's defensive or retaliatory in nature--they're fighting more violent criminals trying to take control of their island (think how The Godfather made the Corleones sympathetic by pitting them against even more immoral crime families and dirty cops), plantation types trying to reclaim members of their community who'd fled slavery, former employers who'd mistreated them, etc. Emphasize the more sympathetic parts of Jack Sparrow's back-story in particular--according to a deleted scene, he refused to participate in the slave trade. Think Han Solo, who on the surface was a rogue, mercenary, and criminal but had been drummed out of the Imperial Navy for defending a Wookiee slave.

However, not all residents of this island are good folk deep down beneath the veneer of roguishness and petty criminality. Barbossa could be present as a crueler and more violent pirate, with the back-story of him usurping Sparrow's ship still there. He comes to the island and despite Sparrow's opposition is welcomed for his wealth and powerful ship. Then he promptly starts raiding the Port Royal merchants, engaging in the more typical pirate atrocities (including the "dining with the crew...and you'll be naked" implied rape threat from the first film). The fantasy elements can stay or not--their terrorizing her with their undead nature would further show they're bad apples and retain the supernatural stuff depicted in the Disney World ride.

While all this is going on, we can have the canonical romance between Will Turner and Elizabeth. Will is an unappreciated apprentice--he's a trained sword-fighter and makes an excellent weapon, but his lazy master gets all the credit. He might be tempted to join the pirates himself. Elizabeth could too--she clearly has issues with the gender roles of her time ("Do you like pain? Try wearing a corset!") and isn't interested in marrying the older Commodore Norrington.

For the later films, here's where the East India Company (or a more Caribbean-focused equivalent) comes in. Even with Barbossa defeated, the Powers That Be use the fact that Sparrow's island hosted him and many of the inhabitants joined him as a pretext to drive the population away...so they can make it into a sugar plantation. And sugar-production back then was horrifically destructive to the enslaved work force. This is where we can meet Beckett and get his back-story with Sparrow. If Sparrow and his friends engage in outright piracy and the more aggressive behavior originally more characteristic of Barbossa, it's in defense of their homes against a ruthless and dangerous opponent operating under the color of law.

(And, if we retain the fantasy elements, possibly in collusion with evil supernatural forces like Davy Jones.)

So, you all like?

On The Ethics and Practicality of Hanging ISIS Prisoners...

Posted a news article I found earlier on Facebook and got quite a discussion. The gist of it is the Jordanians have threatened to kill ISIS prisoners if any harm should come to a Jordanian pilot captured alive by ISIS during the air campaign.

I posted that I supported this policy. After all, one of the reasons armies are (supposed to be) kind to enemy prisoners of war is reciprocity--they don't want any bad things happening to their own people who fall into enemy hands. ISIS, given its propensity for killing prisoners en masse (you see this mostly with Syrian Army soldiers), taking and beheading hostages, etc. clearly needs to be taught this lesson.

Some people took issue with my supporting this policy on the grounds of both morality and practicality...

The first to object was Zaid Jilani, who pointed out that the guilt or innocence of anybody tried and convicted by Jordan is questionable given the practice of judicial torture, especially in regards to terror suspects. In case you need a source other than Wikipedia, here's al-Jazeera and here's Human Rights Watch. He also said "civilized people" don't execute prisoners, which is not something I agree with but that's not relevant to the issue at hand. My friend Evan, a college professor, said if anything merited killing ISIS prisoners, it would be that they had committed capital crimes, not that ISIS had killed prisoners/hostages first.

These are some very good arguments. If the Jordanians captured a bunch of teenage conscripts forced to fight by family members held hostage (I don't know if ISIS actually does this, but knowing them I wouldn't be surprised) or people like this teen "volunteer" suicide bomber, that would be victimizing them twice. The same if the captured female suicide bomber is telling the truth about being an unwilling participant in the scheme. During WWII the Allied powers didn't retaliate for Nazi crimes by making indiscriminate massacres among POW camps, although organizations that routinely violated the rules of war could expect little mercy. All too often the argument "don't sink to their level" is basically an exercise in putting the scrupulous at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the unscrupulous (think honorable Ned Stark vs. the crafty Cersei or Littlefinger in Game of Thrones--if Ned had been more willing to be more ruthless or dishonest about his ultimate intentions he could have won even as late as the attempt to arrest Cersei in the throne room), but this is not one of those situations.

On the matter of practicality, Zaid pointed out that ISIS glorifies the deaths of its soldiers in battle, so they wouldn't be unduly upset if some of their prisoners were hanged. Furthermore, martyrs can make useful propaganda tools, so giving them more is not a good idea. And if those hanged were not guilty of major crimes, the PR problem is multiplied on top of the morality problem. To use a WWII analogy, this isn't like bombing Germany--there are many Germanies and some of them are U.S. allies (i.e. Jordan, Saudi Arabia), so PR, propaganda, etc. is much more important.

(I didn't come up with that analogy, but it's a good one.)

Furthermore, this article depicts an ISIS emir captured by the Kurds praising them for their mercy and claiming to have been deceived by ISIS "caliph" al-Baghdadi, so even a high-ranking (and presumably guilty of capital crimes given ISIS's propensity for killing prisoners, making Yezidi women into sex slaves, etc.) enemy commander could be worth more alive than dead. The captive emir, for example, could be used to make particularly effective anti-ISIS propaganda videos and encourage ISIS soldiers facing the Kurds to surrender rather than fight to the death. Showing mercy to a defeated enemy is not just an ethical issue, but can be a practical one as well.

That said, avoiding making martyrs is not the be-all, end-all. The Allied powers made millions of martyrs for fascism during WWII and yet the occupied Axis countries are not ungovernable hellholes. Furthermore, there are martyrs and there are martyrs. If the Jordanians hanged some teenage conscripts, ISIS and opponents of Jordan's government more generally could give them such hell over it that it might not be worth it. But if the Jordanians have got an ISIS technical specialist (like the chemical weapons guy just killed in an air strike) or commander, the threat of hanging them might deter ISIS from killing its remaining hostages (since these people, unlike foot soldiers, aren't a dime a dozen) and their deaths would damage ISIS's cause so much that the "martyr factor" wouldn't compensate.

Think the bombing of the Axis countries during WWII--whatever hay Goebbels (or his Italian or Japanese equivalent) might make it of, their physical ability to make war was damaged. Severing the spinal cord of a mad ax murderer might make him more angry or psychotic than usual, but if he's paralyzed he can't do anything. And as far as the "repentant ISIS fighters make good propaganda" angle is concerned, someone who is remorseful and willing to denounce his former comrades is useful--an unrepentant fanatical twit is not.

So however much hanging ISIS prisoners might appeal to one's instinct, this course of action should be trod very carefully. It would have been better if the Daily Mail article had included more detail about who these "ISIS commanders" the Jordanians have got are, so whether hanging them is moral and/or worth the trouble can be examined. However, it is not a course of action that should be closed off completely either. However vile and racist the Confederates could be in the Civil War (see the Fort Pillow Massacre or Confederate slave-raiding during the Gettysburg campaign), the threat to kill or enslave Confederate prisoners was enough to deter (most) Confederates from treating black prisoners as slave rebels.

Attack of the Mexican Lake Pirates

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/new-details-emerge-in-deadly-shooting-on-us-mexico-border-lake/19658735

Heard about this on Neal Boortz's radio program yesterday while driving into Atlanta for an appointment.  This is not the first time this has happened--there have been several other incidents as well, although this is the first time someone has actually died.

It turns out that all the shenanigans take place on the Mexican side or close to the maritime border between the US and Mexico, so it is primarily the Mexican government's responsibility.  And to be fair, it's not like the Mexican government is stonewalling on the issue.

http://www.reporterherald.com/news_story.asp?ID=29730

That being said, the Mexican government's control over much of its territory is rather tenuous right now.  Like what's going on in Somalia, if a state cannot police its own territory, someone else should.

Were I the governor of Texas, I'd base some National Guard attack helicopters thereabouts and have them periodically patrol the area.  In the event of anything like this happening again, the perpetrators get shredded.  The purpose of the State is to protect the lives, liberty, and property of its citizens and that's at risk here.  Chopper patrols might also be useful in deterring incursions by the Mexican military or armed cartel types as well, which have been known to happen.

Boortz went so far as to suggest American search teams with Apache helicopter escort cross over to the Mexican side to find Hartley's body and if anyone attempts to interfere, they'll get put on the bottom with holes in them, but given how the Mexican government is (allegedly) helping try to find the body, that might be rather premature.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2024162,00.html?xid=rss-mostpopular

The above article said that signs the cartel violence has crossed the border (two shot-up Mexicans in a truck) are more troubling than Hartley's death, and since that happened in the U.S., she has a point.

However, what happened on that lake is pretty darn bad.

Hmm...maybe it's time to say something politically inflammatory, like "Out of Iraq, Onto the Mexican Border?"  One might need to modify the Posse Comitatus Act though, since border-security is primarily a law-enforcement issue at present and military involvement in law enforcement is restricted.