US Navy and Pirates!

In my never-ending quest to make this blog the go-to place for piracy news, I bring you the most recent details of the US Navy and multinational task force kicking some pirate ass:

Eight suspected pirates were apprehended after a counter-piracy task force foiled an attack on a vessel in the Gulf of Aden, authorities said Monday. The suspects were taken aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Farragut, U.S. 5th Fleet spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Corey Barker told CNN. The 5th Fleet is part of multinational Combined Task Force 151, aimed at combating piracy in the Gulf of Aden and nearby waters. The eight were apprehended by coalition warships, the task force said in a news release issued Monday.

The Tanzanian-flagged MV Barakaale 1 came under attack in the gulf and alerted other vessels in the region by radio. An SH-60B Seahawk helicopter, from the Farragut, was dispatched to the vessel, the release said. "During the pirate attack ... the crew adopted defensive maneuvers" that resulted in a suspect falling overboard while trying to board the vessel, the task force said. The suspect was rescued by the suspected pirates' skiff and again tried unsuccessfully to board the Barakaale.

The arrival of the helicopter prompted the suspects to flee, and the copter -- after repeated warnings to the skiff -- fired warning shots across its bow and the skiff stopped, the release said. A team from the USS Farragut boarded the vessel and apprehended the eight suspects, it said. Although the number of piracy attempts in the region has increased over the past year, the task force said Monday, the number of successful attacks have been reduced by 40 percent.

Now that's what I'm talking about. Send in the Navy, shoot some warning shots into the water and get 'em to surrender. Eight pirates down, 876543567890 still to go. This will keep working in the short run, but as I've said before, the only way to dramatically decrease the number of attacks is to fix the problems in Somalia. Establishing a legitimate, functioning government that controls its borders and has a monopoly over the use of force is the only long run solution to this problem. Patrolling the waters and decreasing the success of attack will only help at the margins. But the lack of determination to actually fix the source of the problem provides the rest of us with entertaining pirate stories a couple times a week.