Pirates Fire on US Cruise Ship

This is getting ridiculous. The idea that in this day and age we've got to deal with pirates on the bounding main is ludicrous.

Until the world decides to do something about the failed state of Somalia by going in for reasons of collective security and establishing some kind of central authority, the pirates will be there - just as they used Portobello, Suriname, and Madagascar in the 17th century.

This time, Blackbeard's successors went after an American cruise ship:

Pirates chased and shot at a U.S. cruise liner with more than 1,000 people on board but failed to hijack the vessel as it sailed along a corridor patrolled by international warships, a maritime official said Tuesday.

The liner, carrying 656 international passengers and 399 crew members, was sailing through the Gulf of Aden on Sunday when it encountered six bandits in two speedboats, said Noel Choong who heads the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Malaysia.

The pirates fired at the passenger liner but the larger boat was faster than the pirates' vessels, Choong said.

Their usual targets are tankers - much slower and fewer crew members. I guess they thought the cruise ship would be easy pickings. And it probably would have been if the Captain hadn't increased speed and run away.

Don't expect Obama to be volunteering American military power to help solve the situation. He'll be too busy sending troops to Darfur.