Piracy: to police or to purge?

I'm not going to pretend that Obama is 100% wrong all the time. Besides being logically flawed and intellectually immature, it's just untrue. That petty mentality which sees only mistakes and error and flaw is only found on the left. Even Barney Frank can be "right on" sometimes.

So I applaud Obama's decision to authorize the use of force to free Captain Phillips who was being held in the Indian Ocean for the past few days by pirates. I'm proud that our armed forces are so well trained, that our Navy SEALS are truly brave and courageous and that our priorities, taught by Gen. Washington long ago, always value American lives and fight at all costs to save our citizens.

I'm not sad that 3 pirates died in the process. Nor am I sad when I kill the mosquito that bite me and buzzed in my ear all night. A fourth pirate was captured. Too bad waterboarding cannot be used to interrogate him. Maybe our men and women in uniform can invent a new method just for this pirate: something involving electric eels and or mousetraps....alas, some dreams cannot come true.

So President Obama- thank you for acting like a commander in chief and giving the green light. Now go the next step...

The pirates of the Caribbean, romanticized by Disney, Captain Hook, the genius Johnny Depp and uber-hot Kiera Knightly are not accurate depictions of the men (and women) who terrorized the warm Caribbean seas during the 17th and early 18th century. What brought about their demise was not just heroism at sea but the destruction of their bases, their ports, their reloading and restocking places. A ship, constantly at sea, will run out of food and water and die.

The British, Spanish and Dutch, despite being economic and political enemies, formed an alliance against the pirates. Any colony caught aiding and abetting the pirates by allowing them port would be considered an enemy of the other nations subject to war and risking the cargo and commerce of that nation. This alliance forced the pirates to use unclaimed islands as bases- mostly Nassau.

Famous pirates like Blackbeard, another one romanticized but in reality nothing more than a common murderer, thief and rapist, were hunted down and killed. Robert Maynard finally caught up with Blackbeard off the coast of North Carolina where his ship, the Queen Ann's Revenge, had luckily run aground. Did Blackbeard bury his treasure somewhere in the outer banks...? Irrelevant. But enticing.

My point- to clean the Caribbean, make it safe for commerce and travel, the pirates were killed at sea and on land. Obama should do the same.

He needs to order the systematic destruction of all pirate ships in international water. I think our Navy is up to the task. And Obama needs to launch a preemptive (yes, I said it, preemptive) strike on pirate ports in the Horn of Africa, particularly Somalia.

Aiding and abetting the pirates is conspiring against the free world. They are complicit and guilty. If Somalia is turned into another Jamaica or Hispaniola of the 1740's, meaning it does not offer port to any rogue pirate ship, then the pirates will be stuck at sea where they will die or we will kill them.

My hope is that Obama takes this to the next level. Otherwise America turns into a navy police- and we run the risk of more pirates being successful and terrorizing the seas forever.

Kill the pirates. Sink them at sea, burn their boats on the land. Kill the pirates. And we will not have to deal with them again.

Let's eradicate this threat completely and not look back at a lost opportunity to purge the world of scum.