I must say that I was most pleasantly surprised by Shamun Indhabur’s interview in your last section, “The Last Word” (“The Modern Blackbeard,” January 12, 2009). As a leading Somali pirate, at least in Somali officials’ opinion, he does not mince his words. To your question about his background, he begins: “I was a fisherman before I turned to piracy.” To your question about the reasons for the recent increase in piracy, he starts: “In Somalia all the young men are desperate. (…) One of the only sources of income we had was fishing, and the superpowers and Asian countries sidelined us in our own sea.” To your question about his justification for piracy, he begins: “I justify it as a dirty business encouraged by the foreign forces that were escorting illegal fishing boats and toxic-waste dumpers.” To your question about the armed guards that are now put on ships, he starts: “It will not protect them. We also have rocket-propelled grenades, and we can destroy them.” Would that all your interviewees in high places were such straight talkers!