I don't understand these rules of engagement.

You can drop JDAMs on Afghani weddings, but you can't shoot Somali pirates?

An American warship caught a bunch of pirates, blew up their ship, and sent the pirates home.

A Dutch warship was actually attacked by confused pirates - oops - and the Dutch marines destroyed the pirates' assault craft, took their weapons ... and sent them home.

Part of the problem seems to be that nobody knows what to do with the captured ones. For a while they were shipped to Kenya for trial, but the Kenyan government has apparently gotten tired of that. So the various naval assets chugging around off the African coast can catch them all day long, but...what then? There's also the small matter of international law, which really just doesn't cover piracy on the high seas. After all it hasn't been a big deal since the early nineteenth century.

I'm no lover of governments going around killing people. But you could make an argument for an exception where pirates are concerned. The pirates don't seem to mind killing people. They're also getting bolder and faring wider; they used to stay mostly in the Aden Gulf, but now can be found throughout the Indian Ocean. They're also getting...innovative. Guess I'd better get this posted while I can.

So I look back in history, wondering why piracy on the high seas got so rare in the first place when it used to be a real problem. The answer is...Piracy stopped being common when it stopped paying. And it stopped paying because a pirate's chances of survival became pretty much non-existent. Governments - and the sort of big shipping concerns that operated and didn't like to lose ships - took a very hard line with pirates and with the coastal states that harbored them. With nowhere to hide and virtually no chance of survival should they get caught by a better-armed ship, would-be and once-were pirates found other lines of work.

I understand that coastal Somalis have a beef against a bunch of shipping companies for overfishing and toxic waste dumping. But I never hear about Somali pirates attacking the ships that dump nuclear waste: They attack freighters and hold them for ransom. Not exactly morally equivalent. And with that much money at stake, they're not going to stop.

So yeah - catching and releasing them probably isn't going to be a very successful strategy. Even if the naval vessels start sinking pirate ships with the pirates still on board, which - I cannot believe I'm saying this - would make more sense, it's a big ocean and there aren't that many naval frigates on it. I've a feeling the piracy will end when another ancient tactic becomes more common, and when its practitioners gain more experience and skill.

FULL DISCLOSURE: It seems I got taken in by what should have been an obvious April Fools Joke. Gad, I'm a sucker for those.