Pirates in Waiting Game With US Navy?

The Maresk Alabama was attacked yesterday and pirates attempted to take the ship over before the American crew thwarted it. However, the pirates managed to escape, taking the captain with them. Now, a US Navy destroyer is shadowing the unpowered lifeboat with the pirates and captain on board.

The pirates took Capt. Richard Phillips as a hostage as they escaped into a lifeboat Wednesday in the first such attack on American sailors in around 200 years.

Kevin Speers, a spokesman for the ship company Maersk, said the USS Bainbridge had arrived off the Horn of Africa near where the pirates were floating near the Maersk Alabama.

"It's on the scene at this point," Speers said of the Bainbridge, adding that the lifeboat holding the pirates and the captain is out of fuel.

"The boat is dead in the water," he told AP Radio. "It's floating near the Alabama. It's my understanding that it's floating freely."

Speers said the company "is grateful" for the support it has received from the military establishment and the federal government. He also said that "the safe return of the captain is our foremost priority."

I'm sorry, but why is the Navy playing a waiting game?

Four pirates are holding Capt. Phillips.

So, what was the US ship carrying? How about food aid for starving people in Somalia, Uganda and Kenya.

Smerdon says the WFP cargo includes more than 4,000 tons of corn-soya blend for malnourished children and mothers in Somalia and Uganda and nearly 1,000 tons of vegetable oil for refugees in Kenya. Smerdon says there are many more containers of food aid belonging to the U.S. Agency for International Development and other agencies.

"We need to keep a constant pipeline of food coming both to Somalia and to other countries in the region," said Smerdon. "Otherwise, we have to cut rations and people will go hungry. Basically, this amount of food would feed hundreds of thousands of people for a month. It is only a part of the basket of food we give people in the region. But it is an important part."

The Maersk Alabama was scheduled to arrive in Kenya on April 16. But, early Wednesday, the Danish-owned, American-operated ship was seized nearly 500 kilometers off the coast of Somalia by four armed hijackers. The hijacking was the first of its kind involving an American crew in modern history.

Of course, the solution to piracy was found long ago. The US Marine Corps found its inspiration on the Shores of Tripoli fighting the Barbary pirates. Taking the fight to the home bases is the way to stop the pirates, and yet the world seems all too interested in the legalisms of the situation to realize that the world navies have always had the power to act.

It's what I've been saying for quite some time.

UPDATE:
Tigerhawk (no relation) elaborates on effective deterrence and taking the fight to the pirates. The Royal Navy and US Navy both have anti-piracy missions in their long institutional DNA, and there's no reason that both can't do the same once again.