Itz Italia!

I don't normally link to the Old Gray Whore, but as subby points out, this is just too good to pass up:

Rear Adm. Giovanni Gumiero is going on a pirate hunt.

From the deck of an Italian destroyer cruising the pirate-infested waters off Somalia’s coast, he has all the modern tools at his fingertips — radar, sonar, infrared cameras, helicopters, a cannon that can sink a ship 10miles away — to take on a centuries-old problem that harks back to the days of schooners and eye patches.

"Our presence will deter them," the admiral said confidently.

For visitors on board, lunchtime was the highlight. The officers summoned up from the oily bowels of the destroyer a banquet of homemade pasta, marinated eggplant sliced paper thin, prosciutto-wrapped dates and tiramisu, finished off with cool glasses of spumante.

It seems that when Italians hunt for pirates, they hunt in style.

Yeah. Those pirates are quaking in their brass-buckled boots. Or not...

But the wily buccaneers of Somalia’s seas do not seem especially deterred... in the past two months alone, the pirates have attacked more than 30 vessels, eluding the naval patrols, going farther out to sea and seeking bigger, more lucrative game, including an American cruise ship and a 1,000-foot Saudi oil tanker.

To be fair, I'm being totally disingenuous; there are more than just Italians out there... and a damned good thing, or nothing at all would be getting done. A friend, whose father is a retired U.S. Navy admiral, once related a joke to me: Q: What's the shortest book in military history? A: Victories of the Italian Navy.

And then there's this:

United Nations officials are swinging into crisis mode, calling high-level meetings in East Africa and New York...

Yeah! That'll show those mean ol' pirates they mean BID-NIZ! High-level meetings, biatches! You're goin' down, DOWN, DOWN INTO DA GROUND!!!1

How many clowns are in the U.N. car, anyway?

___
(Hat-tip to Mike S.)




Oh yeah... I suppose I should link to the original article. Copyright and all that. Try not to click it by accident.

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