This is just too easy IMHO. Arm 500 helicopters with night vision goggles and miniguns and station them on ships off Somalia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ7cTI623Vg
Add a $10,000 reward for each gun sight video kill.
Open it up to private contractors.
Problem solved.
The problem is that pirates don’t fly the Jolly Roger. They go out in “fishing boats.” So when you’re up in the sky, it’s hard to tell them apart. And, the minute you sink a genuine fishing boat, you’ll have Human Rights Watch all over your @ss and some plaintiffs law firm suing you under the Alien Tort Statute on behalf of the Somalian you killed.
Still, cool video.
You are right, and would be a lot cheaper than paying ransoms not to talk in saving lives value...
Excellent idea. The free market would solve the problem much more quicly and more efficiently than a government/military run operation. They could even do a “Dawg the Bounty Hunter” type reality show and have DVDs distributed along the Somalia coast.