Source: The Crucial Years
by Bill Mckibben
“I don’t know enough maritime law to tell you exactly why it’s wrong for America to be dropping troops onto tankers to seize them—just to say that, no matter what legalistic excuse the administration cooks up, it looks exactly like being a pirate. (It’s worth remembering that the US Navy was founded largely to take on piracy, and thanks to the Barbary corsairs, the early Americans had a lot to say about the subject. George Washington, for instance: Pirates are ‘enemies to mankind’.) But I can tell you this. In the ever-shrinking mind of our current president, the reason why it’s good to seize a tanker is because it carries oil, and oil is the source of all strength, his contemporary equivalent to pieces of his eight.” (12/11/25)
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/pirates-of-the-anthropocene