Pirates

With Captain Phillip's rescue and killing and capturing of his captors, the US has won a small victory in the war against the Somali pirates. Why is it so hard to prevent these piracies? We keep hearing that the area in question is large, a couple of times the size of Texas, but somehow the British did a fair job of suppressing pirates in several seas and oceans a couple of hundred years ago, with wooden ships powered by sail, without radio, radar, satellites, or aircraft.

It's a question of will. It would be easy to provide ships with armed crews and weaponry that could sink any pirates, but the shipowners don't want to. It would not be terribly hard to suppress the pirates at their source. Pirates could be followed back to their villages, and all of the boats of that village destroyed. If that didn't send a message, next time destroy every boat in a Somali harbor. There are various reasons not to adopt these measures, but ultimately it might be necessary. Either that, or set up a more formal system for paying tribute.

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