[tdw]

Both incidents were quite obviously very well handled. Loss of one life is sad and regretable but only a fool would expect loss of hostage lives was completely avoidable but one dead is not a bad result.

Number of pirates dead is irrelevent.

At some stage the pirate bases themselves will have to be taken out but wiping out whole villages is surely not the idea.

OTOH some knowledge of what Somalia and her peoples have gone through in recent years does go some way to understand why the Somalians do not give a flying fig about the west.

For instance, did you know that the coastal waters of Somalia have been regualrly used to dump toxic and nuclear waste ? It's thought to have originally come from Europe via Italy but no one is too sure.

For instance, did you know that Somalia's fishing grounds are being pillaged by mainly European fishing fleets with no compensation being paid to Somalia ?

and did you know that the pirates began their campaign by attempting to extort payment not from innocent boats and ships but illegally operated trawlers and waste carriers ?

Now that doesn't in any way condone the piracy , the pirates or their supporters but it does go some way towards understanding why they do what they do.

Somalia is a shambles. It is a non nation. Corruption is rife. Poverty the norm amongst her people. After the toxic waste dumping began Somalia's then Prime Minister actually did a private deal with Italy's largest waste disposal operation so that they could continue the dumping.

Something does need to be done but it is not carpet bombing the miserable hovels of innocent civilians.