Abe, indeed this is a wonderful outcome. The task now is to re-establish peace and security on the seas and go about the task of recovering, if possible, over 250 hostages held by the pirates. Thomas Jefferson understood you can not defeat pirates by chasing them one by one around a vast sea. We must either in concert with our allies or unilaterally, if need be, devise a strategy to take the fight to the pirates and re-establish some semblance of order.

I’m not sure this is entirely encouraging:

“We remain resolved to halt the rise of piracy in this region,” Obama said. “To achieve that goal, we must continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks, be prepared to interdict acts of piracy and ensure that those who commit acts of piracy are held accountable for their crimes.”

If preventing future attacks means eradicating pirates’ safe havens then we may be on the right track. But if the ploy here is to play cat-and-mouse on the high seas and treat pirates as individual criminals we’re in for a long and likely inconclusive outcome.

What is encouraging is that, once again, we see that our military remains the finest in the world. We should make sure they continue to have what they need to maintain their ability to fight both cutting-edge and remarkably old-fashioned threats.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 12th, 2009 at 4:58 PM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.