I suspect the reason we're hearing more about it now, even though it's been a problem for a long time, and even though it's a bigger problem in another area that we're not hearing about, is because the governments of certain Western countries are probably looking for support among their electorates for some sort of large military action in the area of Somalia that has more to do with oil than pirates, and they're using the pirates as their excuse. That's how Western pirates seem to prefer to operate.

Whatever the Western governments are cooking up, I expect it will involve relieving some very poor people of their natural resources.