nuclear-news

Pentagon contracted ship struck by pirates

Pirates Strike a US Ship Owned by a Pentagon Contractor, But is the Media Telling the Whole Story?

MEDIA CHANNEL By AlterNet.10 April 09 The Somali pirates who took control of the 17,000-ton “Maersk Alabama” cargo-ship in the early hours of Wednesday morning probably were unaware that the ship they were boarding belonged to a U.S. Department of Defense contractor with “top security clearance,” which does a half-billion dollars in annual business with the Pentagon, primarily the Navy……….

…………..The U.S. military says the Alabama was not operating on a DoD contract at the time and was said to be delivering food aid………………

……….Often, the reporting on pirates centers around the gangsterism of the pirates and the seemingly huge ransoms they demand…………

…………But this type of coverage of the pirates is similar to the false narrative about “tribalism” being the cause of all of Africa’s problems………..hardly the whole “pirate” story………………..

…………. Nuclear dumping has polluted the environment. “In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed,” wrote Johann Hari in The Independent. “Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since — and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country’s food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.”

According to Hari:

As soon as the [Somali] government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.

This is the context in which the “pirates” have emerged.

Media Channel – Home

April 10, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AFRICA, secrets,lies and civil liberties | antinuclear, nuclear, radioactive, Somalia, uranium