The Story of a Successful Rescue (and the Obama Adminstration’s Attempt to Claim Credit)
We may never get all the details on what happened, but, from what I’ve been reading on some of the military blogs, Obama initially did not want any aggressive action against the pirates, even after the pirates were shooting at our guys! It was only after the US was made to look like fools to the outside world and everyone was making fun of us that he decided to act (and by “act,” I mean to tell the commanders they had authority to protect ONLY if the captain’s life was in imminent danger; Obama didn’t order any kind of rescue).
These pirates were young African men, and I think the president hesitated to do what he should have done at the beginning for that very reason. So, yeah, if you want to give him “credit” for that…
But, this is also why I don’t think there will be much future action from the US having to deal with pirates – because they’re African. It will turn into a race thing really quick.
But, how much do you want to bet that, if the captain had been killed, the president would have tried to distance himself from the decision and blame the military commanders on site for acting without his authority?
