Warships alone won't solve this problem

According to US legend, the notorious criminal Willie Sutton was once asked why he robbed banks.

After a moment's startled silence, he said: "Because that's where the money is."

That's the dilemma the world faces as piracy becomes the biggest enterprise in Somalia. In the anarchy, poverty and outright terror that stirs that nation, we can understand but not condone how desperate people come to do desperate things. There is a similar climate in quake-striken Haiti today: If your parents or your children are starving, looting does not seem to be so wrong.