Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Today In History: Piracy, plain and simple.

On this day in 1985, noble peace-loving freedom fighters of the PLO hijacked the cruise liner Achille Lauro. They then demonstrated how tough and resolute they were by shooting a wheelchair-bound senior citizen.

For some reason, not one of the hijackers ended up decorating a yardarm.

4 comments:

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

However, we did end up capturing Abu Abbas in 2003 and he died (of natural causes, damn the luck) in US custody in 2004.

Rustmeister said...

I was stationed in Greece back in the mid-late 80's. Once, we were driving through Piraeus and there she was - the Achille Lauro.

I mentioned it to the van full of fellow soldiers. None of them knew what I was talking about. =(

Tam said...

That's sad. :(

How could they not? I mean, by the time the story was ended there were F-14s and SEALs and a near shootout with the Carabinieri...

NotClauswitz said...

We have failed in our citizenshippery if we have not hunted-down and hung pirates.