Well, they brought the lone surviving pirate from the ill-fated boat hijack off the Somalian coast. This is a kid (though he will be tried as an adult) who speaks no english, is dirt poor from a Somalian peasant family, and claims that he was forced by gangsters to work on the pirate crew.
While it has captured everyone's imagination, this story of "real-life pirates" on the high seas, the truth is that this is a pathetically poor, uneducated teenager, who now finds himself at the center of a very complex legal system (he arrived shackled and escorted by 12 FBI agents and marshalls).
I have to think that even the most ardent conservative, who sees all criminals as simply bad people who chose to turn to crime, would understand immediately that this Somalian is surely a victim of his environment. People who are as poor as he is do desperate things. I am not saying that it wasn't wrong what he did, and I know that he must have understood that taking things by gunpoint is not ethical. But if my family was desperately poor I might put such considerations aside, and I would hope that most Americans would see it that way as well. It's ironic that he is being held in the same detention center with Bernie Madoff, a nonviolent thief, but one who stole when he didn't need the money. Which one is the worse person?
So what's to happen to him? Should he be locked up for decades for this, or should we as a nation show a bit more understanding?
Separately, I think that his story has real star potential. He is about as exotic as they come in this world made smaller by the media and internet. He's a pirate, from a part of the world still ruled by warlords. The true story of his life, if it gets told, will likely be heartbreaking, and if he can turn his life around, either here in the US, or back in Somalia, what a great story that would be.