Pirate Hunting Cruises

Russians. Where would we be without Russia? Off the top of my head, they’ve given us fur hats, the helicopter, and Maria Sharapova. Now they’ve started pirate hunting cruises.

I first got word of this innovation through XbL. Basically, some Russian luxury yachts will take the wealthiest Russians on their luxury yachts and slowly travel along the Somalian coast in hopes of attracting a pirate attack. But don’t worry, these Russians come prepared with a whole team of special forces troops. All this for the low, low price of about 5,000 dollars a day. And for one easy payment of $20 you can have your own AK-47 to shoot up pirates yourself. Boy, where is Billy Mays when you need him?

Of course I was skeptical  as to the veracity of my friend’s claims, but, upon futher reaserch, it appears even the Huffington Post reported on it. Could this still be an internet myth? Yes. It seems, to me at least, too odd to be true. However, that doesn’t mean it can’t spark a debate over the morality of pirate hunting cruises.

Not pirate hunters, not eve russians, but i imagine it'll look like this once the pirates get close enough

If there’s anything i’ve learned from the recent slew of superhero movies, it is that vigilante justice is sometimes needed and can be the swiftest form of justice. In this case, i’m thinking not so much. Pirate hunting cruises are with the intent of murdering pirates is wrong to me. Then again, if there are pirates, that means the area is lawless, which means no one can possibly make this action illegal.

Ok, maybe i am actually split on the merits of this. Afterall, our Seals did shoot the pirates that had that one guy hostage earlier this year. A lot of the talking heads were saying force is the only way to deal with the pirate problem. So Russians enforcing a kind of justice along the high seas might not be all that bad. My moral side tells me this is wrong and says we should send a joint peacekeeping mission into Somalia while securing merchant ships by creating a UN patrol of the area. But right now, that doesn’t appear likely in the least, so i’m more or less slipt 60-40. I mean, even if we did capture the pirates and give try to give them a trial, they’d probably spend 5 years in Gitmo waiting to hear their charges.

So, any comments? good or bad thing?