Piracy, continued

Thank you so much to Ron and Satish to weighing in on my piracy questions. Check here for their insights.

For further reading on piracy, I came across a nice list on Foreign Affairs.com.

Piracy - a military matter? or a commercial matter?

First of all, here's a link to a very interesting map of pirate attacks around the world. They certainly are clustered around Somalia, but there are some off the Americas as well.

My bigger question, raised when the US military got involved with the latest big act of piracy and hostage taking:
Is this a military matter, where commerce is part of the national interest and should be protected?

Or is it a commercial matter, where insurance against piracy is simply the cost of doing business? This seems to be the attitude, by and large, up to this point.

Here's my opinion: dealing with piracy should be a private, commercial matter. The consumers of the goods being shipped will pay the additional costs for the safety of transport. If the matter is taken over by the military then you and I, the taxpayers, are subsidizing the businesses that choose to use this shipping lane. Why should I do that? If I'm a purchaser of those goods, I'll make the decision whether or not I'm still going to purchase at a higher price and then the market sends a clear signal on whether that shipping lane should be used.

I haven't seen any media discussion of this. Has anyone?