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Fighting Back Against Pirates

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 22, 2008

The pirate attacks off Somalia are infuriating for many reasons.

These pirates are dangerous robbers who target defenseless ships and increase the risks and costs of trade. A large tanker recently seized was delivering oil to the United States.

Many nations, including the U.S., are stepping up naval patrols there, and India reports having sunk one suspected pirate boat. Thomas Jefferson, who dispatched U.S. Marines to the African coast to deal with Barbary pirates more than 200 years ago, would have approved.

But there's more wrong with the present piracy outbreak than a shortage of gunboats. When the U.S. was trying to bring some level of order to Somalia 15 years ago, the rest of the world offered no help.

Fixing Somalia isn't on the U.N.'s agenda.

It's also irritating that when wealthy companies register their huge ships, they choose the flags of small nations with weak regulations, like Liberia, Panama, and the Cayman Islands.

But when pirates attack, they expect the U.S., Great Britain and other naval powers to rush to the rescue.

No matter what flag they fly, the giant ships themselves need not be defenseless against a speedboat and a few pirates with rifles. Why not make it harder to climb aboard or at least have a guard dog patrolling the deck? It's harder to steal a hubcap from a junkyard than to hijack an oil tanker.

It's no wonder that the home towns of the pirates treat them as heroes. In villages where a lightbulb is rare, helicopters have been dropping suitcases full of money. Some $150 million in ransom has been paid just this year.

Tampa too has a legendary pirate, Jose Gaspar. If the stories are true, in 1795 he captured 36 ships off the west Florida coast. So far this year, the Somalia pirates have taken 35.

The U.S. Navy finally got Gaspar, and no one would be surprised if eventually it isn't the Navy and Marines who have to clean up the current mess.

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