U.S. issues Counter-Piracy Execute Order

I don't think it's a coincidence that the U.S. has stepped up their operations against the Somali Pirates just after the M/V Faina was released.

This from ABC NEWS

A total of 16 Somalis captured in two separate boats this week were taken into custody today aboard the USNS Lewis and Clark.

The arrests also may mark the beginning of a pirate crackdown. According to a U.S. official speaking on background, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a "Counter-Piracy Execute Order" for the Horn of Africa last Thursday, creating a vast operating zone to go after pirates.

Most of us have forgotten that the U.S. has a history of chasing pirates.

The first frigates the U.S. Navy ever built were intended to go after Barbary pirates, which ravaged American shipping until two wars in the early 1800s ended their reign of terror. The naval offensive is memorialized in a line in the "Marine Corps Hymn": "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli."

Many of the pirates in those years used Tripoli, on the North African coast, as their base.

Lt. Commander Charles Daniels of the U.S. Navy Information Office said American ships battled pirates in the Gulf of Mexico before and after the Civil War, and chased pirates in the South Pacific in 1858.

The Navy was also was called upon to battle pirates around the Philippines in the early 1900s, in Asia from 1908 to 1930 and in the South China Sea in the late 1940s.