This would be funny if it didn’t make you want to cry. James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal reports what Abe Greenwald in an article for the New York Times that passes for serious commentary wrote about Pirate Blowback:

“This is pirate blowback! Did the president think we could use billion-dollar equipment to shoot some raggedy ransom-seekers out of their rowboat without inviting retaliation? By flaunting our material superiority we merely whet their appetites for treasure. And by demonstrating that we value one American life more than three Somali lives we’ve turned a handful of desperate thieves into a sympathetic movement with recruitment potential.

And all for the sake of one seized ship??? . . . Let’s face it: on Sunday, we only created more pirates.”

Are we seriously to think, we should not police or defend anything for fear of stifling young aspiring pirates?  I guess I never understood why we needed a President to “sign off” on an action to save a man’s life clearly threated by a gun at his head.

Cambodia and Viet Nam can attest to the damage and serious threat to life and limb that guns in the hands of the young and misguided can do.  Where are the adult and serious thinkers in the media?