Piracy along the Barbary Coast once challenged the very survival of the United States. The fees for safe passage extracted by the pirates were so great that they represented a large portion of the national treasury. This was the early years, when the United States was just getting its footing as a nation state.
The situation was not sustainable, so we went to war against the piratical Barbary states. The first Barbary War was fought under Thomas Jefferson. The second Barbary War was fought under James Madison.
The U.S. Department of State website has an article that discusses the two Barbary Wars:
The Barbary States were a collection of North African states, many of which practiced state-supported piracy in order to exact tribute from weaker Atlantic powers.
We fought those wars in order to insure that we would have freedom of passage along the Barbary Coast, passage without paying tribute to anyone for that right.
Yesterday Donald Trump suggested that the United States would demand a toll of 20% on all cargo ships that wanted safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
From the CNBC website, quoting Donald Trump:
“The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT...But... will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped...
Under Donald Trump, have we become a pirate nation?
I found one website that offers a History of Piracy and clear definitions of it. This definition comes from Plutarch (Greek historian, 100 A.D.):
... pirates [are] those who attack without legal authority not only ships, but also maritime cities
The website goes on to explain that rules of international law were originally established to address the issue of pirates. That's because piracy traditionally occurred outside national boundaries. Therefore, national laws would not apply.
According to a June 26 article by Nick Turse in The Intercept, under the Trump Administration:
The U.S. military has conducted more than 60 attacks, resulting in over 200 extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. In almost all the strikes, between one and four people lost their lives
These attacks at sea were unilateral and without judicial process. The United States military declared the boats to be targets because they were presumed to be operating as drug smugglers. The people on board were dispatched without proof of any crime. No third party viewed evidence to support the administration's assertion that the boats were carrying drugs.
In one especially notorious strike, the U.S. obliterated a boat and left two survivors in the water. The survivors clung to a piece of floating debris for about 45 minutes. They waved their hands in the air to an overhead (U.S.) aircraft, the very one that had shot them out of the water. Despite the apparent helpless state of the survivors and their inability to offer any threat to the U.S., the order was given to kill them.
Bombs rained down on the shipwrecked survivors and also on remnants of the ship that had been blasted in the initial assault.
To quote from "The Intercept":
Under international law, those who surrender — like those who are shipwrecked — are considered hors de combat, the French term for those no longer in the fight, and may not be attacked. The Pentagon’s Law of War Manual is explicit on this point. “Persons who have been incapacitated by wounds, sickness, or shipwreck are in a helpless state, and it would be dishonorable and inhumane to make them the object of attack,” reads the guide.
It is apparent that the current United States government considers itself sole decider on issues of international law.
On the last day of the most recent G-7 meeting, Trump famously declared, "I'm the boss." The statement was made apropos of nothing. He just offered it up to an assembly of world leaders. Some have interpreted this seemingly spontaneous comment as evidence of the president's mental decline. Maybe not.
He is the boss. He rules. There are no laws he acknowledges. There are no constraints on his will. He acts as pirates have throughout history. If he sees something he wants, he takes it. This is true domestically and internationally.
This is my president, this is my country. We recently celebrated our 250th anniversary as a nation. I have always been proud of my national legacy. Right now, though, we are in a dark period. I am embarrassed. We are a lawless nation.
My president speaks of taking land from other nations, because we need it. He wants to invade Iran's Kharg Island and declares that if we do this we will take the oil.
Trump shattered the status quo in the Middle East with this Iran War. He destroyed the balance of power, cutoff the peaceful flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Now he wants to tax shippers to give them back (safe passage through the Strait) what he destroyed.
Is this, all of it, not piracy? Are we a nation of pirates? I guess that's up to us, the people of the United States, to decide. I hope we can rise to the challenge.
This blog was written on the spur, as most of mine are not. I am responding viscerally to Trump's recent announcement. The image came into my head almost as soon as I read his remarks about levying a fee on shippers who use the Strait. The image was made from two elements:
Trump face and hand: Treblo on Pixabay
Pirate Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur 1797 public domain
Thank you for reading my blog. Peace and health to all. Hive on!
