Clarence Page — They’re not making pirates like they used to. I say that based on the lack of swashbuckling yo-ho-ho in the U.S. Navy’s recent rescue of a captured U.S. merchant ship captain off the coast of Somalia.

Snipers from the Navy SEALs killed three pirates from that war-torn east African country and a fourth was taken to New York City to await trial. In photos of his perp walk, the alleged pirate looked downright delighted to have had a free ride from Somalia to the Big Apple.

“He’s just a kid,” says Rep. Donald Payne (D-N.J.), with a hint of fatherly sympathy. “This is a country that hasn’t had schools for 17 years.”

Payne, chairman of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Africa and a former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, knows a lot about Somalia. As the pirate drama wrapped up on the high seas, Payne came under a mortar attack as he was trying to fly out of the airport in Mogadishu, Somalia’s bullet-ridden capital.

Payne, whom the State Department had strongly discouraged from visiting Somalia because of the dangers, was not hurt, but 10 people were reported injured.

“They’re all kids,” Payne said of the hapless quartet that held Capt. Richard Phillips for five days after boarding his ship, the Maersk Alabama. “This is what happens when all order in your country breaks down.”

In a chat with me in Washington, Payne offered a different version of the Somali pirates than most news accounts convey.

Far from the Hollywood’s high-seas Caribbean adventurers, today’s Somali pirates resemble street gangsters on the high seas — desperate young men trying to feed their families in a country that has not had much in the way of law, order, jobs, commerce or schools in almost two decades.

Without much government, even fishing has been pillaged or plundered by big commercial fishers or environmental dumpers in Somalia’s coastal waters.

Following the lead of a few kingpins, pirate attacks have shot up in recent years. The encounter with an American ship, ironically carrying humanitarian aid to Kenya, and with our Navy, offers an example of how our attempts to ignore festering trouble spots like Somalia can come back to haunt us. Remember “Black Hawk Down”? The best-selling book and the movie recounted the shoot down of two Black Hawk helicopters in Somalia 16 years ago and the combat deaths of 18 U.S. troops.

Since then we have tried to avoid getting deeply involved in Somalia’s troubles, except to make a few bombing runs at suspected Al Qaeda hangouts. Terrorist groups are attracted to failed states like rust on an old car bumper.

Three years ago American forces helped Ethiopian troops in a bloody intervention that led to thousands of civilian deaths and overthrew a grass-roots Islamist government led by Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed.

Now Somalia’s troubles are floating out to sea on pirate mother ships and smaller skiffs, threatening lives and shipping traffic.

Yet, even as Mogadishu’s name has become synonymous with chaos worldwide, Payne says he’s seen signs of hope. He said he was encouraged by Somalia’s recovery efforts under Sheik Sharif, back in power as Somalia’s president, and the recent donor nation’s conference in Brussels promised more assistance. United Nations troops may replace African Union troops that now help keep order in Somalia.

World leaders at the UN and European Union, among others, say the first priority will be restoring order on the seas. President Barack Obama has expressed a similar eagerness to work with partner nations on that task.

But the tens of thousands of ships in waters about four times the size of Texas are too big a job to secure with military power alone. The long-range solution to Somalia’s pirate problem will have to come back in Somalia. Young people won’t need to take to the high seas if they can see a future on land.

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