Thoughts on Piracy
Ali Hassan Massoud at Strike the Root - if you or I steal stuff on the high seas or demand payment to allow a ship to pass, it's called piracy. What's the difference when a state does it? None, says Chemical Ali. I concur. In spades. [root]
And so let me end with this summary of my conclusions. I stipulate that there are no perfect answers here and there never have been. However, alternatives and solutions exist and always have. Commerce is better when it is unrestrained by states or by private parties using force. If someone has a product to sell and there is someone else who wishes to buy it, who then are the navies of this world to interfere? What is their right to do so? They have none, say I. Navies are merely pirates by another name and with different flags than the Jolly Roger.