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Have you been following the Somali Pirate Saga in the news this week? Here’s the remedy for the problem from William S. Lind:
Cleaning up Somali piracy should take tens days, a fortnight at most. It’s not hard. International ships and aircraft hunt down and sink the pirates’ vessels at sea. (As in the 17th and 18th centuries, there are very few pirate “ships;” most pirates operate from open boats, now as then.) Any ship taken by pirates is immediately re-taken by some state’s navy or Marines. Captured pirates are hanged from the nearest yardarm, without trial, as common law allows. Ports out of which pirates frequently sail, such as Eyl, are bombarded, and any likely pirate craft are destroyed. This is a script any admiral from the age of sail would know by heart.
Lind says this is is a measure of the growing world disorder as the nation state system breaks down.