Pirates you say? Part 2

As I mentioned before, there have been only two methods for successfully dealing with pirates and they have been employed in varying degrees for thousands of years - pay em off (tribute) or eradicate them (military action). Neither is cheap and both always have unintended consequences. Tribute runs the risk of creating more pirates elsewhere and/or creating a beast that can cause more trouble - the Principality of Monaco is an example of the latter. In the case of the Somali pirates the issue with tribute is both the danger of encouraging copycats elsewhere (like the Caribbean where cruise ship could be targeted) and the threat of some of the funds winding up in the hands of Islamic terrorists. We have seen Afghan drug money fuel the Taliban and al Qaeda for years now and no one is quite sure if Somali pirate money is not making its way into such coffers. Terrorists, it seems, have no qualms taking money from criminals and vice versa. So that leaves eradication in Part 3.