In the past week, the piracy in the Indian Ocean created international chaos after four pirates hijacked an American cargo ship and held the captain, Robert Phillips, hostage after releasing the rest of the crew on April 8. The pirates demanded $2 million in exchange for the captain. On April 10, President Obama permitted the Navy SEALs to shoot the pirates in the event of any visible threat to the captain.

By April 11, American officials continued to negotiate with the elders who represented the pirates from Gara’ad, Somalia. The officials requested that the Puntland authorities arrest the pirates and demand a safe return for the captain, but the elders refused to arrest the pirates.

After one pirate in need of medical aid surrendered to the authorities, the other three stayed with Phillips. The news reports now identify the pirate in custody as Abduhl Wal-i-Musi, a youth in his late teens.

A senior Navy advisor claimed that the pirates pointed an AK-47 at captain Phillips. This action led to three Navy SEAL snipers firing one bullet each, killing all three pirates.

“It’s amazing to think of the success of the snipers, but I am looking at the public response with query eyes,” said Director of the Friends Center and Campus Ministry Coordinator Max Carter. “Our country is celebrating the killing of three nameless teenage pirates.”

According to The New York Times, after the release of the captain, President Obama promised to “halt the rise of piracy.”

According to The New York Times, many government officials are wary of committing to attacking pirate bases in Somalia. The memory of the Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia that resulted in the loss of 18 American soldiers still lingers as a warning for the United States.

Instead, experts suggest tactics that will not involve military attacks, such as deploying more ships to patrol the region. They want to ask commercial shipping companies to refuse to pay ransoms and to do more to protect their ships. They also plan to encourage other nations to police piracy and bring them to justice. Finally, they want to help build a stronger transitional government in Somalia.

The last suggestion reflects an issue that might be at the core of the piracy problem.

The New York Times covered responses of some of the members of the American cargo ship. Crewmember Miguel Ruiz asked one of the pirates why he attacked the ship.:

The young pirate responded, “We’ve got 20 million people in Somalia who are poor, that don’t have education. We don’t have no food.”

Senator Russ Feingold, chairman of the Senate’s subcommittee on African affairs, sent a plan to President Obama that suggested propping up the new transitional government of Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmaed in Somalia.

For the past two decades, Somalia has been an unstable state, with transitional governments and rule by warlords.

“Somalia has no infrastructure, no economy, no opportunities to provide people,” said Assistant Professor of Political Science Robert Duncan. “It doesn’t surprise me that they turn to criminal activity – they have to eat.”

“Poverty in Somalia has made piracy ‘a very attractive career field’ for young men with few prospects, and that it would be difficult to completely eliminate pirates under those economic conditions,” said Defense Secretary Robert Gates, according to The New York Times. “We can put a lot in jail and we can kill a lot, but there’ll still be more.”

So far, one of the biggest mysteries about the piracy situation is about the pirates themselves. Now that Wali-i-Muis is in custody, the United States plans to try him in New York.

In response to the upcoming trial, Joshua L. Dratel, a lawyer who has handled terrorism cases in federal court and Guantanamo Bay, said, “We don’t know a thing about him. He may have been a conscripted child soldier. There may be whole back story to his motivation that’s very different than just criminal behavior and criminal intent.”

Carter expressed the utter necessity for people to consider the background of the pirates, and allow them to be more than just the negative title.

“We need to look at how we dehumanize people with the rhetoric that we use consciously or unconsciously. We need to think about how we may be insensitive to the situation in Somalia,” said Carter.