I was sitting around on my couch the other day, contemplating the themes of greed and moral patience in Super Mario World when I happened to catch the tail end of a news report about a cruise ship that had been attacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia.
After doing some Internet research, I discovered that the cruise ship had sustained machine gun fire and multiple rocket blasts before repelling the pirates, against all odds, with a sophisticated sonic device.
Furthermore, there were reports of a pirate “mother ship” floating off the Somali coast that had the ability to dispatch smaller vessels like the one that attacked the Seaborn Spirit two weeks ago.
It was then that I realized that we live in a world where terror can strike into the heart of what we previously believed were the most impenetrable of our collective institutions. We can no longer rest on the assumptions that our shuffleboard courts and all-you-can-eat seafood buffets are safe from those who wish to obtain our buried treasure at any cost.
These pirates represent a clear and manifest evil that all the nations of the world can unite against. No more nuanced ideological enemies whose pre-emptive slaughter at the hands of coalition forces brings up sticky issues of culture clash and American imperialism. We can all now join hands in universal solidarity to defeat the growing pirate threat.
The first step is to let these new, more easily identifiable evildoers know we mean business. We must press the UN to allocate funds and resources to battle this new menace. We must spare no expense to equip our coalition sailors with state-of-the-art earrings, scimitars, and fluffy pants in order to enable them to get the job done right.
Secondly, our forces must be freed from the shackles of the Geneva Convention if they are to defeat an enemy whose black heart knows no such restraint. How are we to compete with the swarthy pirate captains who chop off their own lieutenants’ fingers just for kicks when we need to call a public tribunal every time we want someone to walk the plank? The commonwealth of nations will not be held hostage by our own sense of moral decency in our efforts to make the high seas safe for commercial cruise lines.
Mind you, I am not suggesting we begin the long trip down the slippery slope of torture and cruelty. The free nations of the world do not torture; that is the tactic of the pirates. But we must also refuse to let liberal guilt or a false sense of our enemies’ natural human compassion prevent us from taking any and all necessary measures to drive these parrot-fetish extremists back to the mists of historical legend and Halloween costume stores where they belong.
We must be firm in our resolve. These are people who hate commercial cruise lines and everything they stand for. I mean, these are the people that at one time tried to kill Orlando Jones.
And so I propose that we form a coalition of nations to beat back the pirate menace. We fight not for ourselves, but for the overweight tourists who represent our fundamental ideals of freedom, justice, and liberty on the high seas. It is they who bore the brunt of the swashbuckling, and we will honor their memories by never resting, never relenting, never forgetting the sacrifices they made until every last frilly blouse sinks slowly to the bottom of the sea.
