Pirates! and: What?

This report from the AP is extremely confusing. A shipment of tanks(!) and other arms has been hijacked by pirates (what century is this?) off the coast of Somalia. In a stunning confluence of the world's worst situations this ship is being held for a 20 million dollar ransom (down from 35 million!). The US Navy's fifth fleet has it surrounded to contain it while the Ukranian shipping company that owns the ship negotiates with the pirates.

As if that were not wild enough, the shipment was intended for Sudan, which is under a US embargo restricting arms shipments to the country. The embargo is a half-hearted attempt to squash the well-known genocide in Darfur, a genocide that nobody wants to do anything about.

Not terrible enough? The pirates who have the ship are thought to have been on their way to delivering the arms to Al-Quaeda training camps in Somalia.

Holy Cow! What parallel universe is this happening in? None. This is happening in the world we live in. How does this kind of thing happen? An arms shipment going to a genocidal region is then hijacked to go towards Al-Quaeda. When was this boat and its goal a good idea?

This is one of those news stories that highlights just how far we have to go towards a peaceful world. Why is international trade in arms even still legal or tolerable? Who thinks it's a good idea to sell tanks to anyone?

Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, and Voltaire would love this story. I hope you do, too.