There’s been a bounty of articles in the WALL STREET JOURNAL over the last few days. One, by David Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey, discuss applying international law to pirates. There was also an online presentation by Michael B. Oren drawing comparisons between how the US dealt with the Barbary pirates and what it can do today.
Both articles take a hard-line conservative response to the issue that suggest that no response outside of going in guns a’blazing would work. If anything, our recent adventures overseas should have taught us all (even the WSJ crowd) that not all answers can be measures in calibres. While one cannot excuse the crime of piracy, there are limits to only shooting on sight. What helped bring an end to the Golden Age of Piracy was Woodes Rogers promising a King’s Pardon to those who gave up the sweet trade, something none of the Journal’s writers seem willing to consider by the tone of their assessments.
What kept piracy alive and well in the New World back in the 17th Century was the lack of access to means of bettering yourself if you were not highborn. Perhaps that comparison needs to be made in crafting a solution to the action off Africa…
