"Golden age" of piracy returns with a vengeance: Violating the JCPOA, Brit desperados start work as U.S. proxies in the Mediterranean

As the struggle continues to blockade Syria and choke Iranian economy .. ...

Two days ago, more than 30 predating pirates of Great Brigand (often misspelled as "Great Britain") intercepted a foreign tanker, jumping into it from helicopters and seizing a legal consignment of Iranian oil to Syria.  With an eight-year war raging in Syria, people are freezing in winter and facing food and power shortages.   Spanish officials confirmed this was done on "Washington's behest."  

Other than the ongoing harassment of Iran and Syria, analysts are concerned for yet another reason - the reaction of Spain.  Gibraltar is a disputed territory.  Still lost in their wildest dreams of imperialism, the Brits claim Gibraltar to be a "British territory" according to some "Seville treaty" of the 1700s (not joking).  Spain does not recognize that claim neither does it recognize the waters of Gibraltar as British.  Thus the act of seizing a foreign tanker in Gibraltar amounts to piracy as well as violation of Spain's sovereignty.   Though disgruntled, it's unlikely Spain will ever feel determined enough to take up the matter seriously with the EU. 

Will the kingdom's de facto slave PM, Boris Johnson, and the aging trouser girl, May, serving their White House masters go after every ship heading to the Mediterranean including Russian ships?  In a world that crushes the rule of law as disdainfully as we watch, nothing is impossible.  But Russian ships may not be too interesting to intercept as it's unlikely they would be carrying any useful commodity for the relief of the long-suffering people of Syria.

With slight changes here and there, quality of morals within the realm of the human society never improves.  Laws and rules existed in the 1st century just as much.  But they were silenced and trashed whenever the Romans stepped in with a specific choice of their brutality.  It's no different now.  

When the master terrorist and pirate, Christopher Columbus, accidentally found the wealthy continent we today know as America, his contemporaries and successors were often double crossed by their likes at sea while transporting the looted riches of the new continent to Europe via the Caribbean.  This soon turned into a popular and officially lucrative profession of European vagabonds and grifters serving their monarchies.  Scary ones such as Blackbeard and Bartholomew Roberts are addressed in history books as the "great pirates" in tones implying brags and boasts. They call it the "golden age" of piracy.  While we refer to the era of intellectual development in the middle ages or the Islamic Renaissance as our "golden age," western historians attribute the same title to the crimes of European pirates.  Should then the return of government sponsored piracy in Europe on the orders of Washington surprise anyone just because you speak of it as the "modern" world?

A pirate now and a pirate back then

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