As much as I enjoyed The Pirates of the Caribbean, I was not unaware that the fantasy required us to overlook the fact that our three protagonists either were, wanted to be, or reluctantly became international criminals. (This is one of the reasons the ending is problematic if extrapolated.)
Today I see the following headline on the front page of the New York Times website: "Pirates Attack Ships in Malacca Strait and Hold 3 for Ransom".
Of particular note was:
With half the world's oil shipments by sea passing from the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Malacca to east Asia, the strait trails only the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the gulf as an oil shipping lane. Fears that pirates and terrorists might join forces have been high since last autumn, when a speedboat packed with explosives hit a French tanker off Yemen, the Limburg, in an attack attributed to Al Qaeda.
. . . Pirates have stolen six tugboats so far this year. Other vessels' crews . . . seldom pay attention to tugboats and let them come close, making them attractive vessels for criminal activity. Singapore restricted the movements of tugboats in its waters earlier this year because of fears that terrorists would use them to mount an attack.
Tiger Cruise aside, I hadn't realized that piracy was still common these days.
