Swashbuckler has a future on Wall Street

The morning after Congress fired a cannonball through the stock market and the economy, a reporter for The New York Times picked up a phone and called the spokesman for a band of pirates aboard a Ukrainian cargo ship 200 miles off the coast of Somalia.

Well, I don't know. The very thought of it cheered me up a bit.

For starters, how does one go about finding a pirate's phone number? Is there some sort of a Google-like directory for the high seas - "Garrrgle," perhaps? What kind of cell plan do pirates prefer? Do you think they get a Circle of Mateys?

And since when do pirates have spokesmen anyway? Who might they be, exactly? Reporters laid off by the lily-livered publisher Sam Zell? Former flacks for the tobacco industry? Failed proteges of Karl Rove?

The pirates, in this case, hail from Somalia. They seized control of the freighter last week. It's loaded down with Soviet-made tanks, grenade launchers and other firepower - a fact that's compounding international authorities' already considerable consternation about the theft of the ship.

The spokesman for the pirates, Sugule Ali, told The Times that he and his fellow swashbucklers didn't have a clue they were taking a great, grand ship carrying an estimated $30 million worth of weapons.

Purely accidental, he claimed.

"We just saw a big ship," Sugule said, "so we stopped it."

Uh-huh. And American CEOs who pillaged and plundered their way through corporate boardrooms the past decade were just taking full advantage of their benefit packages.

Piracy, unfortunately, is a growing business off the Somali coast. This year, more than 25 ships have been hijacked, and some have garnered million-dollar ransoms.

The problem has grown so severe, according to The Times, that the United Nations is thinking about setting up a maritime peacekeeping force.

These pirates aren't being taken lightly, nor should they be. The U.S. Navy has ships nearby, making sure the weapons don't go anywhere.

And a Russian frigate - presumably under the watchful eye of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin - was on its way to the scene this week.

The pirates, it's feared, intend to deliver the weapons to Islamic insurgents in Somalia. But the spokesman said that's all a huuuge misunderstanding.

Sugule said he and the others don't intend to add to the violence in his country. "We don't want that suffering and chaos to continue," he told The Times. "We are not going to offload the weapons. We just want the money."

What's more, the pirate said, he and his co-workers are not really pirates - or "sea bandits," as he phrased it. They're merely a bunch of guys patrolling the waters for illegal fishing and illegal dumping.

"Think of us like a coast guard," he said.

Aye, a deft bit of p.r., that was. But not so easy to believe.

Sugule's particular "coast guard" unit wants a $20 million ransom for return of the ship and its mighty weapons. (Cash only, please, given the circumstances.)

"Killing is not in our plans," he said. "We only want money so we can protect ourselves from hunger."

When the caller from The Times astutely asked why such a large sum would be needed to fend off hunger, the spokesman laughed and said, "Because we have a lot of men."

Say what you will, but there's a future for this fellow on Wall Street.

Assuming, of course, he didn't come from there.

Daryl Lease is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. Reach him at (757) 446-2441 or daryl.lease@pilotonline.com.