that what you just wrote was probably just gut reaction to something that deserves real outrage but go back and re-read your words and think back to our nation's history particularly in the last few decades.

We've somehow gotten into this Jack Bauer mindset here that when we get stung by a mosquito the answer is to burn down the forest. Overkill is so firmly ingrained now in our foreign and military policy that it's where our minds go in an instant when that irritant happens.

Is there any possibility that in that area of the world, legitimate small boats move in and out of Somali ports along with the pirates? Do we just blow them all up and let God sort it all out?

I've been on a sub Eri and the role of those fighting vessels was never to engage in small skirmishes. They were designed as weapons in the ultimate war taking out enemy submarines before they could launch their world-killing missiles. The costs and resources to run them are immense and frankly I don't see their use as pirate-killers as an effective way to spend my tax dollars.

Commercial ships in that area certainly shouldn't be going through the problems they're having right now and there have been a number of suggestions of ways to help protect them. None of the more realistic of those suggestions involve using huge and heavily armed vessels. The problem though is that even armed forces on every commercial ship only kills off today's pirates. There are an endless supply when a country is as ravaged as Somalia has become. Any permanent solution involves both armed defense along with ways to address the underlying issues.

Don't look for the quick fix. It never works.

Art