Burnett's well-researched investigation is spiked with plenty of seafaring action. Through sheer ingenuity and a little bit of luck, he survived, and his shocking firsthand experience became the inspiration for Dangerous Waters. The USS Cole incident suggests that big ships are really quite vulnerable especially since much of the world's sea cargo is oil. While sailing alone one night in the shipping lanes across one of the busiest waterways in the world, John Burnett was attacked by pirates. As Burnett shows, the most terrifying scenario is that of a major terrorist attack on the seas. He also "dramatizes" some recent, extremely brutal real-life examples of piracy. The most likely spots for attacks are off the coasts of Malaysia and Indonesia. They attack mostly cargo ships, but anything might be fair game. Pirates, he explains, are often "gangs of poverty-stricken young men" (or sometimes women) employed by warlords, organized crime syndicates and terrorists. He describes some hair-raising close calls and shares his research along the way. He hitches rides on two ships, a British carrier transporting crude oil from the Middle East to Western and Asian refineries, and a tanker carrying jet fuel and diesel oil to Vietnam. A firsthand experience with pirates in which his private sloop was attacked near Borneo inspired Burnett to explore the modern world of thievery at sea. But as Burnett, a freelance journalist and former United Press International reporter, shows in this original and intriguing work, piracy is alive and well. For many, the word "pirate" only conjures up kitschy images of mustachioed villains with eye patches and gold hoop earrings.
0 kommentar(er)
