Alright, I throw in my last points.
Yes, I know the American military sometimes takes a cavalier attitude (to say the least) about responding to possible threats. That doesn't make it right, or effecive, and it's specifically frowned upon. The navy is doing the right thing - you hear about the wedding crashers in Iraq precisely because that kind of shit isn't supposed to happen.
As for bombing pirate villages or whatever, I say it won't accomplish anything, because it never really does. For starters, the navy has guided ordinance, not death-rays. Throwing shells at shanty-towns usually just turns piles of rubble into smaller piles of rubble, maybe killing a person or three unless you want to turn loose the five million dollar cruise missiles. That's a small, quiet part of why the military doesn't usually intervene in these hostage takings - our military apparatus is such a ponderous money hole that it's usually cheaper to just pay the ransom.
Besides, if there's one lesson to be taken from every asymmetrical war America, or Britain, or Russia, or any larger power has fought, it's that it's just not possible to bomb away a systemic problem. You can kill individuals, you can't kill people. Throwing firepower at poor, angry, desperate people just makes them more poor, angry, and desperate, and as long as they are poor, angry, and desperate this will be the outcome.