Whew:
An American ship captain was freed unharmed Sunday in a U.S. Navy operation that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, a senior U.S. intelligence official said.
One of the pirates was wounded and in custody after a swift firefight, the official said.
Capt. Richard Phillips, 53, of Underhill, Vermont, was safely transported to a Navy warship nearby.
The missing context is this — the might and will of the United States were held hostage, until one brave civilian captain took matters into his own hands. Philips risked his life escaping, and opened the door for the Navy SEALs — who ought to be in the business of kicking doors down.
This particular event ended well, due largely to the actions of Captain Phillips. Next time we might not be so lucky.
Should we be “bringing in for questioning” all Somali fisherman within x miles (500, 2500) of their coastline? Hold them for only x days, weeks, months or years. We could enter them in lie detector contests. Winners get to sleep, drink, and eat. Knock down any mansions belonging to hard scrabble fisherman that were built since piracy took off. Mansions in villages with dirt roads are now out of fashion. Our new fashion sense is enforced with Caterpillar D9′s. I’m sure Kurds and the Christians in southern Sudan need someone to fill pot holes and dig latrines. In a few decades, when the pot holes are filled, the fisher folk could be released. Lets treat them like they treat us.
When we broke the Imperial Japanese code, we found out they had spies among the Japanese-American community on the west coast. FDR built camps in the interior in response. During the Civil War, Lincoln suspended rights. He even exiled a US Congressman from Ohio. This is a “war” on terror, not a joke. I don’t want to be popular at the UN. I want to be feared outside the US.
Fishermen don’t have speedy boats. Just divvy up the coast amongst several nations, and let the navies get some good “training” in by destroying all fast boats in the area. Anyone who complains gets a few grams of lead delivered at high velocity.
What are they going to do with the captured pirate? Hang him from the yardarm? Somehow I doubt it.
Within a week he’ll be the new “Mumia.”
It took longer than I would have liked, but our government did the right thing, with the exception that one pirate was captured, rather than killed. I’m certainly not a fan of our current President, but he gets applause from me here.
Me too Jim.
Future movie title:
“The Education of Barack”…
I still don’t like him, but he’s backpedaling as fast as he can on some issues important to this Veteran.
What is the President backpedaling on? So many uneducated answers here. President Obama has never wavered towards the veteran. Quite the contrary. You have a Viet Nam veteran who voted NO on issues concerning our veterans—-that is when he would show up to vote!
Were the soldiers just acting when they cheered him on on his surprise visit to Iraq? No matter what he says or does, the rightwing crackers will never support him. Oh well!
Wow, these Obama spammers are so f-ing brilliant. They can’t even figure out when a “right wing cracker” is giving the guy a break.
It took longer than I would have liked, but our government did the right thing, with the exception that one pirate was captured, rather than killed.
I’m hearing that the one who’s still alive was on the USN ship negotiating when the opportunity came.
There are some happy Navy guys today- they got to bag the first pirates in at least a century.
FYI:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_attacked_by_Somali_pirates
My guess regarding the Alabama is that the pirates didn’t know it was an American ship, but instead thought it was Liberian (similar flags,) their confusion led directly to the crew fighting back and the pirates’ dumb (but very nice) decision to take only one hostage, and that is what led to this all happening rather quickly (though I can’t argue one bit with those who say it took longer than they would have liked.) Everything went as well as possible: the captain did everything possible to ensure the safety of the crew and ship and to escape, negotiations went on and they caused the pirates to separate, SEALs were ready to do their thing, and the good guys also got lucky. And by “lucky” I mean “did exactly what they train for months and years to do”.
I’m with Jim, too. One of the things the Seals do is wait for the right moment to strike.
I have no idea what Sotally Tober is talking about. I’m sure he’s a drive-by who’s never been here before and will never be here again, but if by some strange quirk of temporary integrity, he does come back, hopefully he’ll explain WTF he’s talking about.
Maybe we should send them a nice pan of homemade brownies to thank them.
Barry Soetero did nothing to free that captain! he “allowed” the commander on-scene to take whatever action was necessary to protect the safety of the Capt and flew in a bunch of FBI ” negotiators” (WTF???)to muddle up the deal!
Just as any remote and tactically clueless CinC would. No thought, direction or intervention (except for those wuthless negotiators!) from Barry was needed! Gave him “plausible denial” if the rescue turned out badly.
Fortunately, those with real stones were in charge: Capt. Phillips and Navy Seal snipers, a great combination!!!
Barry can now change his skivvies to get rid of that nasty streak.
Earl T,
Those FBI negotiators didn’t muddle up any deal, they made it possible to have a deal. And they also got the four kidnappers on the lifeboat to become three kidnappers and also made it more and more likely that they’d become three very tired kidnappers the longer the negotiations went on. Really, is this that hard to figure out?
McGehee,
I’m grateful for their stupidity, but not that grateful. A nice pan of homemade brownies with shitchunks maybe, but I don’t have a spare pan right now. I wouldn’t want to put a UPS guy at risk, anyhow.
Jon,
You want to give the pirates an “ATTA BOY!” for giving it the old college try, too?
Just what magic did the FBI use to lure a 16 yr. old kid away from certain death to “negotiate”? C’mon! A 16 yr old? Negotitating with the US? Brilliant!
Sounds more like he was smart enough to realize where his best chance for survival lay, can’t blame him for that! And the Navy needed FBI guys to do that? Not very likely and very wishful thinking on your part!
I know anything to help out Barry garner a nugget of positive PR from this.
In contrast, from Ace of Spades:
Hmmmm: Obama Didn’t Order Rescue
—Ace
As Uncle Jimbo notes, the forces already had standing orders to shoot to kill should an innocent life be in jeopardy. Obama merely ordered them to do what they already had orders to do — take the shot if the Captain’s life was threatened.
It seems that the commander in the field read this order liberally and decided, hell, they’re pointing guns at the guy, he’s in danger, pop them.
Like Clinton did with regard to Al Qaeda targets, Obama seems willing to give only vague if not outright meaningless orders and trust the troops to do what they ought to be ordered to do — the catch is, of course, that Obama, having not technically told them to do much of anything, can disown and pillory them if they make an error or if the outcome is poor.
Via Jules Crittenden, with more.
Earl T.,
Obama had very little to do with this. Sure, he gave the go-ahead for whatever, but I think that’s because he was smart enough to know that the SEALs, the Navy, the FBI, and the rest were handling the situation as best they could. I laugh at the suggestion that he flubbed it just as much as I laugh at the suggestion that he won a big victory. The standing orders you refer to are standard operating procedure in hostage incidents, and that includes the involvement of the FBI. If you don’t believe that, then I guess you get to live in whatever happy world you choose.
I fail to see where I want to give the pirates anything other than pretty much what they got and will get. You’ll have to look elsewhere to find a real enemy, but I guess you want me to be yours. I’m not trying to give Obama much props here, since it was the trained hostage negotiators and snipers who did the real work. I will suggest that those who want to not choose this path tell that to all the nations whose citizens and ships are being held by other pirates in the region. America took care of its own in this instance, and I’m proud of our Navy and FBI for doing a good job. I wish all the other 250 or so currently-held hostage could get so much attention.