Saving Captain Phillips - Not your ordinary terrorism story

The "Easter Sunday rescue of cargo ship Captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates is a tribute to his personal bravery and the skill and steel nerves of the U.S. Navy." So says an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal On-line, and I couldn't agree more.

While not terrorism in the typical sense, the pirates did succeed in terrorizing their captives, and paid the price for it. The greater issues are the rules of law on the high seas, and for how much longer will piracy be tolerated. If the surviving pirate is tried in the United States, incarceration appears to be in the cards. If in Kenya or elsewhere in Africa, we're not too sure.

Somali pirates are turning the high seas into a state of anarchy not seen in a century or more. They'll continue to terrorize innocents until what we call the "civilized world" demonstrates that they will suffer the same fate as the pirates who made the mistake of kidnapping Captain Phillips.

Read the full article.

Pirates on the High Seas - Why is there no response?

Somali-based pirates hold a number of ships and many crew hostage in ports along the coast of Somalia. Why has there been no concerted effort to stop these attacks from happening? Brett Stephens of the Wall Street Journal comments in this short video report, Why Don't We Hang Pirates Anymore?

For a backgrounder on the link between piracy and terrorism, read "Terrorism Goes to Sea" by Gal Luft and Anne Korin in "Foreign Affairs," November/December 2004