About those pirates...

My military experience is limited..three years in the U.S. Army, but somebody please tell me that the U.S. Government, backed by the most powerful military in the world, has told the "pirates" off Somalia that if they so much as damage a single hair on the Captain's head, they will be utterly destroyed and their families hunted down too? OK, the family part is a touch drastic, and I do understand how lawless that part of Africa is, but is there nothing we can do? Can't the ships be armed somehow? In Vietnam it was the NVA black-pajama jungle fighters. In Iraq and Afghanistan it's the the "insurgents". All smaller forces going up against the mighty USA. At least those Vietnam and Middle-East fighters were battling for something they believed in. These "pirates" are nothing other than common criminals. There must be something the rest of the world can do to stop their plundering. [UPDATE: Late this afternoon came word that the FBI is opening a criminal probe into the pirates. So there.] [UPDATE 2: Op-Ed piece in the Times on the difficulty of battling the pirates.