What Do You Call Three Dead Somali Pirates?

A fairly decent start.

My hat is off to the Obama administration for taking such decisive action against the Somali pirates holding Captain Richard Phillips hostage in a life boat out on the Indian Ocean.

In a courageous rescue, Navy SEALs killed three pirates during the successful mission.

From the Associated Press:

In a daring high-seas rescue, U.S. Navy SEAL snipers killed three Somali pirates and freed the American sea captain who had offered himself as a hostage to save his crew.

Although many news outlets are hailing this as a great victory for Obama and claiming that he has passed his first international test, the pirates are promising revenge:

The operation was a victory for the world’s most powerful military but angry pirates vowed Monday to retaliate. Those threats raised fears for the safety of some 230 foreign sailors still held hostage in more than a dozen ships anchored off the coast of lawless Somalia. “From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill them (the hostages),” Jamac Habeb, a 30-year-old pirate, told the Associated Press from one of Somalia’s piracy hubs, Eyl. “(U.S. forces have) become our No. 1 enemy.”

It appears that a new front has opened in the Global struggle against terrorism and we Americans are once again being brought to center stage.

Now, unlike my liberal counterparts who want to blame President Bush for everything the terrorists did over the past eight years, I will not blame Barack Obama for whatever the pirates and other terrorists do in response to this rescue. The blame falls solely and squarely on the pirates and terrorists themselves, just as it did during the Bush years.

This was not the first test of the Obama administration. It was the first question of the first test. Many more questions will come up and you can bet that the pirates and terrorists will be the ones writing them.

One Somali pirate noted:

“Every country will be treated the way it treats us. In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying,” Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding a Greek ship anchored in the Somali town of Gaan, told The Associated Press on Monday. “We will retaliate (for) the killings of our men.”

I applaud the Obama administration for taking this action, but I am still waiting to see how this will play out in the coming months. Obama will have a hard time trying to reconcile his policy of “listening and learning” against the hard-line policy of taking swift action to protect American lives and interests. Reality is always different from academic exercise.

As for those countries who will want to blame the U.S. for whatever happens to their own sailors in the pirates’ custody, those sailors wouldn’t be their if those countries had taken steps to protect/rescue those sailors in the first place.

We shall have to wait and see which policy wins out, and whether or not such policy has the desired effects.

You can access the complete story on-line here:

Captain Freed After Snipers Kill Somali Pirates
Associated Press via MSNBC
April 13, 2009

Looking Deeper Into The Pirate Attack On MAERSK ALABAMA

In my post from yesterday, I wondered whether or not the Somali pirate attack on the U.S.-flagged MAERSK ALABAMA may have been a result of the pirates being emboldened by Obama’s various shows of weakness during his European tour.

Other are thinking exactly what I was thinking. An editorial from Investor’s Business Daily notes some interesting circumstances that we must not be dismissive of and what the consequences of any action by the Obama administration would be.

From the article:

At 7:30 a.m., 280 miles off the Somali coast, a gang of pirates attacked the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama carrying 17,000 tons of U.S. humanitarian aid to Kenya. It was the sixth ship hit since Saturday, but the first U.S.-flagged vessel hit since 1804. … It poses an important test for the new Obama administration, still not 100 days in power, and it’s critical the response be decisive. First, it’s likely the pirates knew it was an American ship, given the planning and firepower it takes to hit one 280 miles off the coast. If that’s so, then the attack had a political aspect, and the pirates wanted to show the U.S. as weak. Two, the pirates aren’t the only bad actors in that region. Terrorists will watch the U.S. response closely and adjust their calculations accordingly. Unlike the foreign affairs jaunts Obama has participated in, involving only talk, this incident will be judged by the concreteness of the response.

I know that somewhere along the line Obama said that he “had no patience” for those who blow up bombs for political ends, but those are simply words. I highly doubt that if Obama comes out and says that he “has no patience” with Somali pirates that the pirates will suddenly release their hostages and free all of the ships they captured.

Words do not deter criminals and terrorists. Effectively forceful responses do. Say what you want about President Bush, but you have to acknowledge the fact that there have been no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001. If the terrorists still hated us afterward, what stopped them from mounting anymore attacks? The effective use of force by the Bush administration, that’s what.

Obama’s response is one we must watch carefully. And here is why:

Precedent is worth noting. In 1993, with Bill Clinton’s presidency just beginning, Somali hoodlums also attacked and murdered American troops delivering aid to the indigent. They dragged the troops’ bodies through the streets and crowds cheered. Instead of making the barbarians pay, Clinton ordered American troops out. This alerted the region’s terrorists that Americans were easy to push around. One of these terrorists was Osama bin Laden. According to the 9/11 commission report, a bin Laden fatwa in 1996 praised the Somali attack because the U.S. “left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you.” The report goes on to say that bin Laden was behind the attacks on the American helicopters. Lawrence Wright, in “The Looming Tower,” noted that whether he was or not, he thought it important to claim credit.

Despite the fact that this pirate attack is ultimately a failure, it is a failure because of the fortitude and resourcefulness of the crew, not because of anything the Obama administration did. As of this writing, they still haven’t done anything in response. Pirates and terrorists around the world are not looking at the crew of MAERSK ALABAMA as a measure of risk for future attacks; they are looking at how the U.S. government will respond as their measure of risk.

IBD is right. This is the first real test of the resolve and mettle of the Obama administration. If Obama fails this test, it will be a major repeat of the first major international mistake of the Clinton administration.

And we all know exactly where that mistake led to.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Somali Pirates Lay Out Another Test
Investor’s Business Daily
April 8, 2009

Somali Pirates Hijack American Ship; Update: Crew Retakes Control

UPDATE II:

It appears as though the Captain of the MAERSK ALABAMA was taken hostage by the pirates when the crew retook control of the ship.

From MSNBC:

The American crew of a hijacked U.S.-flagged ship retook control of the vessel from Somali pirates Wednesday but the captain was still being held hostage, according to Pentagon officials and a member of the crew. The crewman told The Associated Press that the 20-member crew had managed to seize one pirate and then successfully negotiate their own release. The man, who picked up the ship’s satellite phone but did not identify himself, told the AP in a brief conversation that the crew had retaken control of the ship and the pirates were in a lifeboat. But the man also said the pirates were holding the ship’s captain hostage.

The crew overpowered one of the pirates and used him as a negotiating chip for their own release. The other three pirates took the captain hostage in retaliation and fled in a lifeboat. There were negotiations to do an exchange, but although the crew held up their end and released the pirate, the other three pirates reneged on the agreement and are still holding the captain.

You can access the complete story on-line here:

Pentagon: U.S. Crew Retakes Ship From Pirates
NBC News
April 8, 2009

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UPDATE:

The Associated Press is now reporting that the crew of the ship has retaken control and has one of the pirates in custody.

“The crew is back in control of the ship,” a U.S. official said at midday, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak on the record. “It’s reported that one pirate is on board under crew control—the other three were trying to flee,” the official said. The status of the other pirates was unknown, the official said, but they were reported to “be in the water.” The crew apparently contacted the private shipping that it works for. That company, Maersk, scheduled a noon news conference in Norfolk, Va, defense officials said. Another U.S. official, citing a readout from an interagency conference call, said: “Multiple reliable sources are now reporting that the Maersk Alabama is now under control of the U.S. crew. The crew reportedly has one pirate in custody. The status of others is unclear, they are believed to be in the water.”

I hope those other three pirates can stay afloat long enough for a few sharks to swim by. Maybe someone could send another boat out there to chum the water.

You can access the complete story on-line here:

Officials: US Vessel Now Back In Hands Of Crew
Pauline Jelinek
Associated Press via Breitbart
April 8, 2009

Now we really need to see Obama’s response. Will he apologize for the “arrogance” of the crew’s retaking the vessel from the pirates? Will he offer reparations to any of the pirates’ families if the pirates die? Will he offer up the crew as war criminals for counter-attacking and retaking their own vessel?

These questions may seem silly, but given Obama’s conduct during his European tour, they are legitimate.

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This from the Associated Press:

Somali pirates on Wednesday hijacked a U.S.-flagged cargo ship with 20 American crew members onboard, according to the shipping company. The 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya at the time it was hijacked, said Peter Beck-Bang, spokesman for the Copenhagen-based container shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk. In a statement, the company later confirmed that the U.S.-flagged vessel has 20 U.S. nationals onboard.

Now, the question is whether Obama will send bailout money to Maersk to pay the ransom or will he try to secure the release of the ship by apologizing for the “arrogance” of the American crewman?

I’m wondering whether or not Obama’s various shows of weakness during his European tour (bowing to a despot, calling America “arrogant,” praising Islam for a betterment that never happened, etc.) may have had something to do with emboldening the pirates to attack a U.S.-flagged vessel.

We should all be watching this and how Obama handles it. Attacking an American ship on the high seas is not something that our government should take lightly.

You can access the complete story on-line here:

Somali Pirates Hijack Ship; 20 Americans Aboard
Katherine Houreld
Associated Press via TownHall.com
April 8, 2009