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wespiser_2018

A US Service member was dragged dead through the streets in '94 in celebration of defeating a UN peace keeping mission to ease an on-going famine, and those images were broadcast all over the world.

It's easy to underestimate just how powerful that image is in shaping perceptions, and rightfully so: a lot of violence has been done to us citizens by thugs and pirates using the the lawlessness in Somalia as cover.

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The pirates didn't start the practice of abusing lawlessness. After the civil war and the breakdown of the state, fishermen from other countries would illegally trawl the waters off the Somali coast and industrial waste was being dumped by foreign opportunists. Just one instance involved 600 drums of radioactive waste from Europe and the US. This exacerbated the problem by reducing the fish supply further.

Eventually, this led to violent clashes where Somali fishermen would take over ships in the area illegally for ransom. This quickly became the piracy industry as we know it.

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