The pirate "mother ship" sunk last week by the Indian navy was actually a Thai fishing trawler seized hours earlier by pirates, a maritime agency said Wednesday. The Indian navy defended its actions, saying it fired in self-defense.
Even if India didn't have the sympathy of the world for the Mumbai terrorist assault, India would have gotten a pass for this mistake.
And remember, the pirates did shoot at the Indians. It was a pirate ship at that moment. The pirates may even have mistakenly thought their human shields would protect them from the Indian warship. The Indians proudly showed the pirate ship engulfed in "a fireball" in what would normally be a nice lesson for the pirates.
Good grief, though, imagine the cries for war crimes trials if we had done this. The Daily Kos crown would be having wet dream fantasies (again) about Cheney being frogmarched out to a Belgian court room.
At least the pirates will have trouble exploiting this error in the current environment.
I cannot fault the Indians for this mistake. Their instinct was good--kill the pirates and keep killing them. But not too many of these mistakes, eh?
