Home » Those Audacious Americans

A beautiful night passes over America and here we are realizing once again how bold, how downr ight courageous we Americans can be.

Imagine if you will living in Somalia and deciding the only path you have open is one of piracy. Of course, you know it's wrong, but you feel you have no choice. So, you and some of your merry countrymen arm yourselves to the teeth and wander out into the busy sea lanes. You grab a ship and crew, get paid a hefty sum as a ransom, then let the hostages go. Not bad for a couple of days work, you think.

 

You become bolder and bolder and take more and more ships, all the while paid exhorbitant sums of money for the return of the ships and the crews. You don't bother to look at the cargo since your goal is really just money. You don't care a whit that many of the ships you seize are laden with foodstuffs bound for your own country, or other impovershed nations. Of course, you also seize a ship carrying Russian tanks, but that is not the norm. You have a good thing going here and you decide nothing can really go wrong. The world, specifically the United Nations, knows all about what you are doing, but the world (specifically the United Nations) feels powerless.

 

You are even intelligent enough to know the United Nations is in fact powerless.

 

The days seem to run into each other as more and more ships are seized, until that one day a French-flagged vessel is stopped. The French (of all people) decide to do something about it, so they launch a rescue and kill both pirates and hostage. That alone doesn't dissuade you since, after all, it was the French, and so you continue to patrol and seize and when you try to seize an American-flagged vessel, your world stops and you realize things will never be the same.

 

The Americans not only retake the vessel, but the captain of the ship offers himself up as a trade. You gladly take the captain, not realizing the danger. You then vacate the ship, the Americans in control once again, and then . . . your world stops again and you are now dealing with the American Navy.

 

The Americans are soft, you think, as the 'negotiations' go on for days. The Americans are not what they once were, bold and daring. They will pay because everyone pays.

 

And then your world stops for the last time and you are now dealing with the fact the Americans decided enough was enough. They kill the pirates coldly and ruthlessly, rescue the captain, then go on their way.

 

How strange, how utterly bold. We are thought of as soft, or at least soft until something happens and then we are riled enough to respond heavy-handed. The world knows we are strong and courageous, yet they also know we are hamstrung by a political system which, at best, can agree to disagree. And yet . . . and yet for a few shining moments we became the America of old, the America that refuses to let lawlessness run rampant.

 

For a few moments we became those audacious Americans and for a few moments, we were all one nation.

 

If only those moments could make all of the other moments seem insignificant.