Well let’s chalk up another great success for the Deutsche Marine. Or at least that’s what one might want to do if he or she believes what they put out on the wire half an hour ago about their “Atalanta” anti-pirate mission going on down in the Gulf of Aden. And this despite that unfortunate little nasty detail about the hijacking of a German tanker by Somali pirates – yesterday.

Carrying liquefied petroleum gas from Saudi Arabia, the German-owned, Bahamas flag-waving Langcamp was hijacked with a crew of 12 Filipinos and an Indonesian by Somali pirates in international waters (can’t get much more international than that), and this despite the highly praised and loudly acclaimed (in Germany) “international” German navy mission that echoed through the German press a few weeks back. This was the third ship hijacking this year, by the way.

Böse Zungen (malicious tongues) might suggest that this proves yet again how things can actually go wrong once you actually start doing things, actually, even if you are a German, or a German navy. But that would be böse so you won’t be hearing it from me.

Nope, nobody down there can stop the Karlsruhe. Nobody down there needs to, I guess.

„Die deutsche Marine werdet die Mission als Erfolg – trotz der erneuten Schiffsentführung durch somalische Piraten.“