I'm not the first to make this point, but it's worth recognizing that the crew of the Maersk Alabama, who have apparently seized their ship back from Somali pirates, are part of the International Maritime Union, and had been provided with counter-pirate training by ... their union. Just like the pilots and crew of United 93 the plane that landed in the Hudson River last fall, who received safety training from their union. Even as right-wing blogs use this crime to criticize the president, the workers whose right to organize they would deny are taking direct action to stop the pirates. The failure of these pirates to successfully seize an American vessel due to the actions of the crew combines maximum deterrent value with minimum collateral damage, unlike suggestions to "bomb every pirate port on the Somali coast." Incidentally, I'd wager that the relative rarity of pirate attacks on U.S. ships has more to do with the fact that relatively few merchant ships fly the U.S. flag and that deterrence wasn't really the issue, since U.S. Naval forces were only recently deployed to fight pirates off the Somali coast, who aren't exactly known for their discerning taste in victims.
-- Tim Fernholz
