The Moment

Say this for pirates: we wouldn't have St. Patrick's Day without them. Ireland's patron saint first set foot on the Emerald Isle after being captured by corsairs, so we can at least thank the skull-and-crossbones crowd for green beer.

On the credit side of the ledger, that's about it. Piracy is nasty, brutish--and old. As long as richly laden ships have sailed within reach of dirt-poor land, piracy has been part of our heritage. That has long been true in the Mediterranean, the South China Sea, the Caribbean--and is true now in the waters off the Horn of Africa. This year alone, pirates based in Somalia, where any semblance of a functioning state broke down years ago, are thought to have attacked more than 90 ships. In a recent 48-hour period, they apprehended vessels from Greece, Thailand and Hong Kong, and on Nov. 15 took the biggest prize of all, the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star, laden with an estimated $100 million in crude.

A variety of nations' warships now patrol the waters off Somalia. Vessels of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet are there, together with the British, the French and others. (The Indians destroyed a pirate ship the other day; good for them.) Such action honors a long tradition, which includes a march of U.S. Marines against the Barbary corsairs on the shores of Tripoli in 1804.

International law has prohibited some practices of the past. It would sadly be considered bad form today to leave the bodies of pirate captains hanging in chains from a gibbet at the Mogadishu dock until the maggots ate out their eyes--as was done in the Caribbean long ago. But we might as well be honest: if we are to combat the scourge of modern piracy, then force must be used against force. When Tripoli demanded tribute from the U.S. in return for not capturing Americans at sea, Thomas Jefferson noted, "The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean." Right then; right now.

A Brief History Of: The Secret Service PAGE 19