Have you hugged a pirate today?

The lefty media have been in orgasmic throes lately over the idea that ignorant fishermen\Somali pirates have been violently assaulting tourists and merchant seamen on the high seas. It doesn't even matter to the lefties if the ships hijacked are carrying aid for starving Africans, or the crews are made up of mostly darker skinned internationals, they just can't stop crowing about how American military might is powerless against such a clever foe.

Except that we haven't been using military power up to now. The ships' owners, crews and especially the cargo insurers have been avoiding using force. Which only proves that force works. It's been working really well for the pirates.

One of the security guards at work, never before a fan of President Bush, was waxing lyrical about the old Bush days. "If Bush was still in office, them pirates sure would be sorry," he said, sounding melancholic indeed.

We even have US senators going to Mogadishu with a checkbook in hand to ask the oxymoronic sounding "Somali government" how much money they need to stop their criminals from engaging in piracy. Clearly he should just open them an open ended account.

In any case, the cost of living is so low in Somalia that the millions they have already taken in ransom could have been used to build schools and hospitals and roads accross the country many times over.