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So what are European governments doing to improve the situation in Somalia? Are they helping the U.S. fight the war on terror? Before you say the two aren’t related, let me point out that Somalia and other poor African countries are havens for Al-Queda.

@Jason:

The NATO flotilla, known as Standing NATO Maritime Group 1, comprises 5 ships.

Portuguese frigate NRP Corte Real, flotilla flagship;

-Canadian frigate HMCS Winnipeg;

-Dutch frigate HNLMS De Zeven Provincien;

-Spanish frigate ESPS Blas de Lezo;

-The frigate USS Halyburton.

The European Union task force consists of 5 vessels:

-Spanish frigate SPS Numancia, the task force flagship;

-Spanish fleet tanker SPS Marquis de la Ensenada;

-French frigate FS Floreal;

-German supply ship FGS Spessart;

-German frigate Rheinland-Pfalz

Taken from here:

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/international/index.ssf?/base/international-0/1239206113314880.xml&storylist=international

Why would we want to fix this? This is a great money maker all around. Just a few people being killed it is not an all out war. What a good thing. The pirates who carry out the raids get around a million bucks for each successful plunder. The individual pirate keeps about $10,000 of that. Then you have money that goes to the catering company that feeds the pirates and hostages while negotiations are going on. Oh yeah, these hostage negotiations take time so we need caterers, for real. Oh by the way, the $10,000 the individual pirate gets sets him up pretty well. The average annual income in Somalia is about $500. So $10,000 is going to last a few years.
Also the supporting cast gets paid, the people who provide the speed boat, the gun suppliers, the people who take care of the mother ship. Ah! but now we are going to talk about where the big money goes.
There are about 20,000 ships that pass through this threatened area each year. And most if not all of the companies that own these ships pay insurance. On an annual basis they pay close to $400 million dollars. About 100 ships are pirated each year at a cost of about a million per ship. I’m guessing this cost is going to go up. But 100 ships at a million dollars each that is only $100 million. So the insurance companies are pocketing somewhere between $200 and $300 million each year. What’s not to like about this arrangement?
This information came from a National Public Radio report I heard this morning.

@RichMC: You got a point there. It’s some sort of weird development aid …

Very odd indeed! Thanks for sharing.