Somali Pirates Kill Five Crew on Hijacked Tanker
Did a reckless raid get hostages killed or do the hijackers who murdered them bear the blame?
Above: Families of Pakistani oil tanker crew members seized by Somali pirates protest in Karachi on June 19. Image credit: Rizwan Tabassum/AFP/Getty Images
The Spin
Establishment-critical narrative
Sailors were gunned down as a rescue operation closed in, and no official press release can scrub that away. Families begged for months for diplomacy and ransom negotiation while authorities stalled, and the price of that inaction came back in body bags to Karachi. Storming a tanker full of hostages was always a gamble with other people's lives.
Pro-establishment narrative
Blaming these deaths on the forces who freed a tanker after five brutal months of captivity is backwards. The crew was starving, sick and threatened with execution, and armed men who murder hostages bear the guilt for those fatalities, not the ones who boarded the ship. Letting hijackers hold vessels indefinitely just guarantees more seizures and more ransoms.