"If you don't deal with criminal behavior, then it will continue."
That's the lesson all right, as relayed by New Jersey Democratic Congressman Donald Payne, who, this week, acquired the standing to speak in such terms. In other words, the Somalis could have killed the guy. They certainly tried: firing mortars as his plane lifted off from Mogadishu on Monday. Payne was headed home, having dispensed his cogent advice at the end of a visit with Somali leaders of one kind or another concerning piracy and like Somali specialties.
Any cop, practically any mayor who isn't posturing for the cable news cameras, knows the truth of what Payne said -- knowledge gleaned from experience with local crime.
The more bad behavior you overlook, the more you get, is the timeless message -- a fresh dose of which the world could stand right now.
Three Somali pirates came to a well-deserved bad end on Sunday, thanks to Navy Seal Hawkeyes who, with presidential approval, put them away before they could harm Capt. Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama.
None of this was Guadalcanal or Gettysburg: no massed armies, no banners, no desperate charges. Fine. If we caught a glimmer of truth anyway -- especially if the Obama administration as a whole caught such a glimmer -- concerning the fate of soft nations, we are ahead of a game that grows graver all the time.
The truth, though you wouldn't suspect it from Democratic rhetoric of the past several years, is that a nation runs serious risks when it acts as though there's no such thing as a foe who can't be reasoned or jollied into at least marginally good behavior.
A weak nation, or one merely perceived as weak and feckless and ineffective, draws the immediate attention of bullies. Such a nation opens itself to insult and worse, for instance the carnage of September 11, 2001. Al-Qaeda's overconfidence respecting its declaration of war on the United States likely owed much to perceptions that the response, when it came, would be bearable.
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