I shook my head when I read the chest-beating editorial in the Democrat-Gazette this morning about the Navy’s rescue of the kidnapped merchant ship captain. “If this doesn’t teach these brigands not to mess with the United States of America, nothing will.” Etc.

Note, please: I’ve long been in awe of Navy Seals. I thought the U.S. handling of the hostage crisis was properly careful — even as the right-wing hyenas were calling for instant nuclear options — and, in the end, stunningly executed. But teachable lessons for the outlaw forces at work here? Shock and awe haven’t exactly extinguished Middle East terrorism. It seems to me that the solution, in the long run, isn’t summary executions on the high seas (warranted though they may be situationally), but the long, difficult process of shore-based solutions to what set the piracy in motion in the first place.

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I venture into international waters after seeing the headline that Somali pirates had hijacked three more ships since the rescue.

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