Pirate overkill

Check out this video of smiling Somali criminal mastermind malnourished 16-year old Abdul Kadhir Muse arriving in the U.S. to face trial. I counted about 20 guards from the NYPD and FBI escorting him which, I must say, comes across as a bit excessive. 

This makes me worried that the inevitable U.S. media circus around Muse’s trial — the first U.S. piracy prosecution in over a century — is going to try to paint him as some kind of arch-terrorist of the seas. He’s unlikely to fit the bill. Muse’s country has been wracked by civil war and anarchy since before he was born and he’s quite possibly smiling because he’s happy to be out of it and getting enough to eat for once.

Muse should certainly be prosecuted for participating in a criminal act that endangered the lives of U.S. sailors, but it would be unfortunate if too much attention were paid to the trial of one teenage gang member while the hellish situation that produced him continues unabated.

Stephen Chernin/Getty Images