On Wed, 8 Apr 2009 18:03:42 -0400, "Eisboch"
wrote:



Interestingly, the first military action taken by the United States after
we became an independent nation was against the Barbary pirates who were
doing exactly the same thing then as the Somali pirates are doing today.
They were capturing European ships and demanding ransom payments. They
then began attacking US ships. At first Congress appropriated money to be
paid as ransom but Thomas Jefferson had some balls and led the effort to
confront them. We didn't really have a global Navy at the time, but what
we had were sent to the Med and they took care of business.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/collecti.../mtjprece.html


The Barbary states were pushovers compared with Somalia.
No leaders in Somalia.
The only answer I see is to make pirating suicidal.
One tactic might be to carpet bomb any port where ships are held
captive - after the ships are ransomed of course.
But it will generate very bad publicity and all kinds of hand
wringing.

--Vic