There's something quite heartening, even inspiring, about a bunch of rag-tag unemployed Somali fishermen playing Robin Hood And His Merry Men off the east coast of Africa.

It didn't happen without cause.

First, these fishermen had to watch impotently while the Americans and  Ethiopians destroyed their (working) government because it worshipped the wrong god.

Then, enormous foreign factory boats illegally scooped up most of their fish.

Finally - irony of ironies - other foreigners dumped nuclear waste on their beaches and in their waters, thus poisoning whatever was still crawling or swimming.

One has to ask, therefore, if it isn't entirely logical that these same unemployed fishermen then look around for other work so they can feed their families, and notice all those big, fat foreign ships cruising past their villages like ancient Spanish galleons piled high with the treasure of the first world? And setting up a toll system just like the fabled outlaws of Sherwood Forest, to hold some of those big, fat, foreign galleons until appropriate ransom is paid?

It's called stealing from the rich to give to the poor and has a fairly honourable provenance.

And isn't there a certain poetic justice in the Sheriff of Nottingham threatening and sniping and huffing and puffing because the outlaws of Somalia just aren't playing by his rules and he doesn't have the faintest idea how to handle such outrageous behaviour?


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

Barack Obama’s honeymoon is a wondrous thing. In only a couple of months he’s had his way with millions of Americans, Europeans, Canadians and Latin Americans.

But what of the people who changed so much of the world in a few short hours back on 9/11? What of radical Islam and al-Qaeda?

What if -- in spite of the Obama honeymoon and the optimism it spawns -- America and its Western allies have already lost the battle against Al-Qaeda and radical Islam?

And what if the Holy Warriors of the Jihad have already won?

What if?

The American-led attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan (and now Pakistan) were -- publicly at least -- aimed at exporting the delights of democracy to the Muslim world. To win Islamic hearts and minds for Western concepts of freedom.

But they’ve had exactly the opposite result.

Every day the fighting lasts, more and more of the one-and-a-half billion Muslims around the world either volunteer to fight the Western infidels or organize jihadist cells in their own countries. Every day more Muslims are persuaded that the wars are simply a 21st. century version of traditional Western imperialism. That the so-called War on Terror is actually a War on Islam. That resistance against America and its allies is an apocalyptic battle for Islamic holy rights. That holy warriors, righteous believers, are fighting godless infidel crusaders to defend God-given sacred land.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and the US missiles slamming into Pakistan) have turned out to be the perfect recruiting agent for militant Islam. And the holy warriors are making converts -- winning hearts and minds to global jihad -- faster than the mighty armies of the West can kill them.

One reason for all this new radicalism is the Internet, the planet’s most powerful and effective communications system.

It’s flooded with jihadist networks. Thousands of them. Specializing in radicalizing Muslims around the world. Turning them, in the name of Allah, against the corrupt and feeble West. The sites are virtual guerilla training camps teaching how to organize revolutionary cells and kill infidels. Allahu Akbar (God is Great) they say piously and endlessly.

So what happens next?

Over the next couple of years the American pull out of Iraq and the likelihood is that "the cradle of civilization" will fall into even more chaos as ancient blood and religious scores are settled.

Over the same time, the Americans reinforce their battalions to "save" Afghanistan (a corrupt, failed, female-fearing narco-state) and step up attacks on north-west Pakistan. Meanwhile, the Taliban and Qaeda prove again and again that you can neither introduce or enforce democracy with the gun and NATO allies try to sneak off home without being noticed.

If the Americans are actually defeated in Afghanistan -- which is increasingly likely -- all hell will break loose in the Muslim and Arab worlds. Neighbouring Pakistan is already a rapidly failing Bomb-owning state ripe for Islamic revolution and needs no more than a little push. The fragile autocratic regimes of Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan will fall like dominoes and radical Islamic Middle East political groups Hamas, Hezbollah and the Moslem Brotherhood will seize power. Then -- the ultimate irony -- the united  jihadists will turn on America’s only real friend in the region, Israel.

Right now there are only two alternatives for America in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

One is to take the chance of alienating more and more Muslims and keep fighting these unwinnable wars while desperately hoping for a miracle.

The other is to do the unthinkable, the unmentionable -- and sue for peace.

Fortunately, Barack Obama can likely get away with offering an olive branch. His honeymoon remains incredibly powerful. Even so, as the lawyers warn, time is of the essence. Because honeymoons, as we all know, don’t last.

And the consequences of not using this honeymoon period to act forcefully and generously are too awful to contemplate.


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)