DanMargarita.com

Former FBI agent Jack Cloonan, who has been negotiating ransoms with Somali pirates, gave an interview with Spiegal International Online. Okay, I’ve never heard of Spiegal International Online before, but excerpts from the interview were quoted on national TV, so I have to assume that Spiegal is reputable.

Cloonan likened negotiating with pirates to buying a car in American. Yes, you car salesmen and women, a former FBI agent compared dealing with you to dealing you with pirates.

“You're dealing with somebody and negotiating and then finally he just throws his hands up and says: ‘All right, I've got to go talk to my manager,’” Cloonan told Spiegal.

Although I don’t suppose you can get some sort of “Warlord’s Day” deals.

Cloonan says the pirates are “fishermen one day and over the weekend they become pirates and on Monday they're fishermen again.” This must make for interesting talk by the water cooler on Monday morning.

“What did you do over the weekend, Bob?”

“I became a pirate.”

This begs the question; if you received part of a $2 million ransom over the weekend, why go back into work on Monday?

I suppose they’re no different from Americans that you see win the lottery and then tell the press, “I’m still going to keep my job.”

Except for Hugh Heffner, I can’t imagine why anybody would still want to keep their day job.

Cloonan also says that $100 million dollars in $100 bills weighs 29 pounds, but of course we all know what that feels like.

Another question that baffles is why a pirate who makes a number of scores from a few multi-million dollar ransoms would continue stay in the pirate business. In a country as disparately poor as Somalia, I wouldn’t think it would take a lot of loot to live comfortably for the rest one’s life.

According to the BBC (whom I have heard of), Somali pirates now live a lavish lifestyle.

"They wed the most beautiful girls; they are building big houses; they have new cars; new guns," a local told the BBC.

In America, we call them “rap artists.”

The BBC also says that “once a pirate makes his fortune, he tends to take on a second and third wife.”

Well, I guess that answers the question as to why they continue to back to sea for more loot. Even in Somalia, supporting more than one wife probably costs a few bucks, not to mention the “getting out of the house” factor. Would you want to hang around the house with more than one wife getting on your case?

“You just want to go out with your friends! You never take me plundering anymore!”

The three pirates who held Captain Richard Phillips hostage got to experience the downside of criminal life, which is, being killed by in the act of pirating (well, they experienced it in the nanosecond it takes for a bullet to penetrate one’s skull).

The pirates did have a chance to get away alive, had they kept their word and exchanged Capt. Phillips for their captured colleague. Believe it or not, once upon a time there was something known as “The Pirate Code of Conduct.” Yes, pirates once had ethics, as written by the infamous “Black Bart.”

Among the 11 articles were “No boys or women on board.” I’m sure that made a group of men spending months at sea in cramped quarters extremely happy.

Not all pirates are dangerous, though.

There’s a group of inept Pirates in Pittsburgh that don’t scare anybody.