More Piracy Near Somalia

[motorfirebox]

Well Mr. MFB, I would say that to the victims of the pirates, poor men almost all, some of them very poor, piracy is the most important thing happening on the seas from close inshore to hundreds and hundreds of miles out. Attempts to stop it are probably pretty congruent with their needs and desires. That is a guess though, I don't believe the Red Cross has paid a visit to their places of confinement to check up on them and ask.

That's just good (well, less-bad) luck on the part of the victims. They happened to get caught up in a crime that has a wider economic impact. We didn't send pirates to the Straits of Malacca, after all. If any families of Thai fishermen care to question me, I'll tell them the truth: the US isn't in the region on their behalf.

Your last sentence is a model of the sophist's art. Let's see we're going to be policing except policing isn't really good policing because police should know collaring criminals is really short sighted selfishness.

If it's sophistry to recognize that a legal structure is comprised of more than police work, or that a society is comprised of more than a legal structure, then yes--I'm guilty as charged.

These things may have helped start piracy, but what sustains it is the money. Even if there was no strife and there were fish to catch and jobs ashore, now that people have gotten used to the money the piracy will continue: nobody is going to get the kind of money fishing or farming that piracy yields. Once people get used to high-profit, consequence-free crime (the people making the profit are not facing consequences) only physical force will stop them from pursuing crime. It won't stop until cost exceeds benefit, and since benefit is very substantial, the cost will have to be even more substantial.

Sure. But jobs and money often bring social stability and law, because when people have something to lose they want to protect it. And law will quickly bring an end to piracy.