But, recently the battle has spilled over into the BF2s forum and is quickly turning the population into a North Vs. South mindset which could erupt into an all out e-civil-war. It is in this light that I, Cougar, shall examine both sides in depth and formulate a hypothesis on what would happen if the two major powers of awesomeness where to actually meet in a real life physical confrontation.
Pirate's
Pirates are probably the most well known of the two, with huge blockbuster movies and folklore abound. However, most of these things are exaggerated to a ridiculous state. To understand a Pirate, you must understand a Pirates history. One of the most famous Pirates of all time was Blackbeard The Pirate.
Blackbeard (real name Edward Teach) was born around 1680 in Bristol, England. He died in 1718 making him roughly around 38 years of age. Now, Blackbeard is the most famous Pirate and most would say the most awesome and badass Pirate of them all. I beg to differ. First off, lets look at his flag:

Blackbeards Emo Flag
Balckbeards flag contains a demonic being, holding a spear against a bleeding heart and in the other hand an hourglass. NOT, a skull and crossbones flag, and pretty damned Emo looking if you ask me. Everyone hates Emo's+Blackbeards Emo flag=1 strike for Pirates. The original Skull & Crossbones flag was Edward Englands flag and the Skull and Swords belonged to Calico Jack.
Blackbeard himself was a blundering buffoon. He had a nice run of being a Pirate for a whole 2 years, before running his ship aground and getting himself killed. Most Pirates you read about will either have been captured, killed, sank or just disappeared. Meaning that they hardly ever (if ever) live. Strike 2 for Pirates.
Next we will look at a Pirates appearance:

Well...first off he's missing a frecking leg and is dependent on a crutch, which also takes away use of his left arm. In his right hand he has a single shot flintlock pistol, so I hope he is a good shot because he's going to have to sit down to reload that bitch. Just from the look of him I can tell he stinks like shit, so the element of surprise is gone. Another thing, .....is he wearing panty hose? Strike 3 for the Pirate. Pirates Suck.
Ninja's
Ninja's are probably most renowned for their stealthy and silent killing methods. Basically to kill something or someone without them or anyone else knowing what the fuck just happened, IF they noticed at all. Ninja's are also known for their attitudes towards being caught, and the art of honorable suicide, meaning in a nutshell....you ain't capturing these sons of bitches...ever. There really aren't any "famous" ninja's, mainly because they are so stealthy, secretive and never get caught. Pictures of real ninja's are also rare, but I did manage to find one:

This image is over 60 years old. The person who took the picture was killed. Apparently, legend has it that the man who took the picture was sitting on his porch fiddling with his camera. All of the sudden Hiroshima blew up behind him and as he turned to look he saw the ninja and his falling dead body hit the capture button on the camera. The man's body, believed to have been killed by the blast, wasn't officially classified as a ninja death until 50 years later when his decaying corpse finally revealed a Shuriken buried in his skull. This evidence prompted medical examiners to re-examine his film only to find a ninja on the roll. The poor quality is attributed to the thermo-nuclear device exploding in the background.
Where Pirates use crap weapons like rusty ass swords and flintlock pistols that are un-accurate and have poor loading times, the ninja use shuriken or "ninja stars". These things are swift, shiny, silent and very very deadly. They come in an assortment of colors, shapes and sizes but here is one just for example:

Ninja Shuriken
Much more badass and deadly than a sword in my honest opinion.
Conclusion

Ninja is the Winner.