As small boats of seagoing thieves, kidnappers, and murderers run rings around zillion-dollar government flotillas off Somalia – one navy spokesman complained that the pirates tended to operate where the navy wasn’t – no one in the MSM is mentioning the fact that highly-taxed (i.e., pirated) merchant ships are not allowed to be armed. Private shipowners would do a far better job of security, and all those navies’ ships could be turned into something useful, like scrap metal.

UPDATE from Russ Lytton:

Thanks for calling out what’s so painfully obvious to anyone who’s looked at this circus-like scenario: these “pirates” (criminals, really) are floating in a disabled lifeboat with an American hostage, surrounded by a huge Navy warship and its helicopters, and the military can do absolutely nothing. Nothing! The hostage captain actually jumps out of the boat to try and save himself and is quickly recovered…by the pirates.

I think back to those Navy Seal commercials that are supposed to so impress us “civvies”. You know the ones: they show the shore at night, waves lapping the beach, and suddenly footprints appear from the water as if by magic, indicating a “mission” has begun. The waves then wash the footprints away, and we are…what? Safer because of this?

These guys are drifting in a lifeboat at sea, and the Navy is helpless.

NPR interviewed an official yesterday who tried to explain this away, saying that the Navy and its vessels are not designed for chasing criminals, but for engaging “enemy forces” who also have large vessels.

Guess what.

The Best of Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.