Are the pirates media-savvy? Timing is everything, of course. They were the lead story on every TV talk show this Sunday morning, providing an equal opportunity to right and left-leaners to parade their wisdom. Newt Gingrich (who wanted to bomb the North Korean missile last week) now wants to board a Blackhawk helicopter and reprise Mogadishu, 1993. Paul Krugmen reduced piracy to statistics, showing that even a brilliant economist can know the price of everything but the value of nothing; for him, piracy is statistically insignificant, an irritant on the order of occasional muggings in big cities.
A lot of news items on piracy off the coast of Somalia can be found at my news archive site: East Africa Forum.  Look in the category ‘Somalia’.
Here are a few interesting sites. For an extensive overview, I recommend item #2 by Amb. David Shinn.
1. A quick survey of piracy with nice reproductions and familiar names…Sir Francis Drake, Capt. Kidd, the Barbary Pirates, etc.
2. A recent paper/talk by retired Ambassador David Shinn (Ethiopia, 1996-1999), now teaching at George Washington University, taken from the website where I archive news items about the Horn.
3. A BBC world affairs analyst’s review of the lessons from 19th century responses to piracy for today.