"... a ship is full of potential weapons".   Sorry, this is a half-truth. More significant is the fact that the pirates did not in fact want to kill sailors--they were after hostages and cargo, and dead sailors tend to lose their value as hostages. They may have even planned to force the sailors to sail the ship to their chosen destination.

Also more significant is the fact that Capt. Phillips offered himself as a hostage--an extremely valuable prize for the pirates. It was a big gamble. We should all be glad he won it. The WSJ editorial page says it would have not criticized Obama if Capt. Phillips had been killed in a rescue attempt.   Would anybody here?--that would be an interesting question.

But if the pirates had just wanted to take over the ship, regardless of the human cost to sailors on the ship, all the "potential weapons" would not have prevented a substantial body count of unarmed sailors. Anybody who disagrees has possibly seen "Key Largo" too many times. I'm a big Bogie fan and it's a great film--but it is a film.