The AP describes your average Bangladeshi-American seaman from Connecticut, who happened to be sailing on the Maersk Alabama, who’s now thinking of quitting as a result of a certain unpleasantness off Somalia.
Reza, who’s from Bangladesh, began working as a Merchant Marine in 1989. Over the years, he’s logged about 15 years on the high seas. His call home on Sunday came shortly after Phillips was freed, unharmed. Elizabeth Reza said her husband learned of the news from an all-hands announcement aboard the ship … The Rezas moved to Connecticut from western Massachusetts in October 2006. They live in the top apartment of a neatly kept, gray clapboard home, which sits on a quiet, tree-lined street. Jonathan Daigle, a downstairs neighbor and friend, said he and his wife often baby-sit Isa and had agreed to take him to school on Wednesdays while ATM “Zahid” Reza was at sea. Reza, whose wife said his birth name had multiple parts formally shortened to ATM, originally was expected to return home from this latest voyage in late May.
The Times Online describes the role Reza played in retaking the ship. Had the pirates kept their word, three of them would be alive today. Ironically, the wound that Reza inflicted on the pirate ringleader allowed him to be the only pirate to survive the onslaught of the Navy SEALs.
The crew had scrambled into a safe room once they realised the ship was being boarded. The ship’s chief engineer, A.T.M. Reza, said that he volunteered to show one of the pirates around the engine room. There he used an ice-pick to overpower the Somali, who turned out to be the gang leader.
Other crew members bound the captive’s hands and feet with rope before using him as a bargaining chip to negotiate the release of the ship. But the pirates had scuttled their own boat and demanded another vessel and fuel. Captain Phillips offered himself as a hostage on the understanding that the prisoners would be exchanged as the pirate left. However, when the pirates got into the cargo ship’s lifeboat, they went back on their word, insisting that the Maersk Alabama follow them into Somali waters.
The man who Reza stuck with the icepick is probably the fourth pirate, who sought medical attention aboard the Bainbridge as part of their demands. He alone of the four survived after the SEALs gunned down his companions. Reuters reported that “A fourth pirate who surrendered before the end of the standoff was aboard the Bainbridge when Phillips was freed. The pirate had sought medical treatment for a stab wound to the hand, inflicted by a member of the Maersk Alabama’s crew when the gang tried to hijack the ship, the official said.” The SEALs themselves had apparently dropped in by parachuting into the nearby sea during the hours of darkness so that they could board the Bainbridge undetected, according to the Washington Post.
The human factor is often the deciding one in a crisis. Airline pilot Captain Sullenberger, like his nautical counterpart Captain Phillips and men like the SEALs and Reza can make extraordinary acts seem effortless, which often conceals the fact of their actual difficulty. Although we see the deed, we often forget the background; and what is unseen above all is the inner decision, the crossing of the point of no return that so many approach and so few traverse that makes it possible for someone to land a plane on the Hudson, offer himself as a hostage, parachute into a dark sea or take on a man with an automatic rifle armed with an icepick. In the end it isn’t the airplane, the ship, the parachute or the icepick but the man behind it that makes the difference.
It’s great to see when training and planning pay off, with no little courage thrown in the mix. Congrats to the Skipper, the Chief and the crew.
Back on the 10th I apparently incorrectly forebode “this will not now end well”. So I must also tip my hat to BHO for making an important decision. At least for now. The survival and capture of one pirate could still end up creating an opportunity for the administration to “mess up”, but for now I’m giving them a chance to do the proper [almost said "right"] thing. And kudos.
It’s interesting some Somalian merchants seem to understand the peril they face if pirates continue attacking US shipping, but the pirates quoted Sunday evening apparently do not. Methinks our next step should be to actually blockade one of their known ports or harbors – probably Eyl – for a month. Cut it off from the sea. Deny transport and off-shore fishing access, day and night, for 30 days. If locals react violently, begin a measured obliteration of their town and infrastructure, violence for violence. If other warlords/pirates, located elsewhere in the country react threateningly move pre-positioned blockade vessels into their harbors or ports.
It would not take a lot of this for the merchants and warlords involved to learn there are easier, squeezier targets elsewhere – or else given enough time we would eventually wipe out the country’s entire seaport capability north of Mogadishu. Sometime during this process the economic and interruptive costs of what was once “normalcy” should eventually ring enough bells that smarter, more responsible heads will take whatever steps necessary to deal with the societal cancer that infests their country’s culture.
But I digress. Now is the ship’s crew’s moment.
Sullivan? Do you mean Sullenberger?
Sullivan? Do you mean Sullenberger?
Yes. Sorry for the error.
Meanwhile, another Seal, Lone Survivor Marcus Luttrell, was dealing with his own evil doers:
Lone Survivor Marcus Luttrel’s Theraputic Dog Killed By Thrill Seeking Perverts
(Has link to Glenn Beck Interview with Marcus)
Marcus Luttrell’s dog was named Dasy; each letter in DASY represents his fallen seal team member’s names. He was given the dog during his recovery period after sustaining horrific wounds that none of us could ever imagine.
Marcus Luttrell was awarded the “Navy Cross” and the “Purple Heart” for his heroic actions in Operation Red Wing.
HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A soldier honored for surviving the worst single-day loss of life in Navy SEAL history chased three men through three counties after suspecting they killed his dog.
A Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman says Marcus Luttrell was involved in the high speed chase in the early morning of April 1 after finding his yellow Labrador shot outside his Huntsville home. Onalaska Police Department stopped the suspects.
Luttrell was awarded the Navy Cross for combat heroism in 2006. He is the lone SEAL team member to survive a June 2005 firefight with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
‘Can’t Let These Guys Go’
911 call as Marcus chases punks that killed his dog – Cruising in darkness in his Pickup @ 110 mph, Luttrell calmly puts up with and informs 911 Operator of his locations through 3 counties.
Marcus should run for Mayor or Sheriff or something in either his home county or one of the ones that he sped through while chasing said punks. That’d be therapeutic too.
Dog and cat killers are scum. They target innocent animals who have learned to trust humans — and betray that interspecies trust.
As for Captain Phillips and Mr Reza, they possess courage of which I can only dream. In this thread we see the best and the worst of humanity.
“The human factor is often the deciding one in a crisis. Airline pilot Captain Sullenberger, like his nautical counterpart Captain Phillips and men like the SEALs and Reza can make extraordinary acts seem effortless, which often conceals the fact of their actual difficulty.”
“…above all is the inner decision, the crossing of the point of no return that so many approach and so few traverse…but the man behind it that makes the difference.”
This is how to defeat Islam.
BZ
There was also a report on FoxNews’ site that the SEALs dropped in with their boats (probably a Seal Delivery Vehicle, i.e., a small submarine) and were either at or actually aboard the lifeboat when commander Bainbridge ordered the shooting. My own post about that is here: “Did Navy SEALs board pirate boat before rescue?”
I also posted Saturday an analysis of just how an underwater SEAL snatch & rescue could have been conducted, “Put Phillips and the pirates in the water.”
We have a creep here where I live who pots the neighbors dogs sometimes right in the dogs yard. thinks he’s a bad ass.
The police won’t interfere, “WE GOT REAL CRIME HERE IN MAYBERRY AND IF YYA’LL CALL AGIN ABOUT DOG SHOOTIN’ I’LL ARREST YOU ALL” OR WORDS TO THAT EFFECT.
i KEEP MY ANIMALS UP HIGH IN THE YARD IF CREEP WANTS TO SHOOT HE MUST COME TO MY KILL ZONE!
That icepick was the catalyst for all the events that happened.
IF YYA’LL CALL AGIN ABOUT DOG SHOOTIN’ I’LL ARREST YOU ALL
On a charge of police harrassment, no doubt.
You law-abiding citizens just have to remember your place, is all.
Dude’s a good American. Showed initiative. Glad to have him with us.
That’s the whole point Barry.
The police exist to maintain the PC order. Doubtless the dog-shooter is a thug, of either “bad-ass” background or the “Correct” ethnicity/religion and the police fear to tangle with HIM. As noted in detail in a similar incident in Theodore Dalrymple’s “Life at the Bottom.”
In which the police arrested two orderlies who came to the aid of a nurse being smacked around in the hospital where she worked by her abusive boyfriend.
You see, your problem is assuming that we live in the world of 1961, with values and moral strictures and behaviors focused on “middle classness” as Rev. Wright put it, oriented around a safe and secure environment and the nuclear family.
Assuredly we do not, we live in a society oriented towards rewarding thugs of all stripes and punishing the law abiding who do not fight back, lack the resources and will to fight back, have no PC defenders, no “thrill” of violence, and so on.
Your Police Department did not get the way it did overnight. They refuse to take action against the Dog Shooter because they FEAR the consequences: being sued, being fired, being prosecuted.
I predict NOTHING will happen to the SEALs dog-shooter. For the same reason: police and prosecutors FEAR the thugs because the forces aligned with the thugs, the PC, the various criminal lobbies, will in fact punish them and protect the thugs.
Quite likely the fallout is the arrest and prosecution of the SEAL for chasing the shooters of his dog, and the shooters will be released with no or only minor charges. With many sob-stories about how they were “oppressed” and how “evil” the “crazed vet” was.
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What we are seeing is a breakdown in civil order at home as we see it in and around Somalia. In both cases force exists that could easily crush the thugs and restore order, but it is not unleashed because it would threaten domestic political alliances.
Suppose the police simply arrested thugs who shoot pets and prosecuted them? Thug rights groups, PC lawyers, various media people who stir up sympathy for thugs, thug worshippers of all kinds, and the SWPL Yuppies who exult in being rich enough to avoid these guys and inflict them on up and coming competitors would all LOSE.
And we can’t have that.
This is why the Somali pirates will be left to do whatever they want when they want how they want. And why Obama, who according to Blackfive and Ace merely re-issued vague standing orders, will punish the crew of the Bainbridge and the SEALs, no question about it.
No one seems to have recognized the important contribution of the smart guy who got the Somalians to agree to be towed by the Navy warship. Once those pirates agreed to be towed 25 yards behind a warship their goose was cooked. The takedown followed on from that. I don’t guess the SEAL snipers will be bragging too much about shooting tangos less than 50 yds away.
Also, I gotta say that the administration and the military and FBI made no false moves in this operation. I can’t say that the outcome was assured but things seemed to move step by step to the right outcome. I certainly agree with W that there were men who acted bravely.
Greetings:
I grew up in the Bronx, back in the ’50s and ’60s. Part of the local folk wisdom was, “I’d rather get caught with my knife than without it.”
“never bring a knife to a gun fight …”
whickey #13: The only thing that gives me hope in this scenario is that we are, after all, talking about Texas. Not saying you AREN’T right, just that there may still be a few real Texan’s left in local justice administration. 95% of the rest of the country you’d be spot on.