Sunday, April 12, 2009

Negotiating with pirates ...

The United States received good news today following the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips from the clutches of Somalian "pirates." After a second "escape" by the captain, who jumped off the boat he was being held on, Navy Seals facilitated his rescue, killing three of the four pirates who have held him for days.


There is nothing romantic about these Somalian pirates. They are little more than wanna-be gangsta thugs, except instead of driving around neighborhoods in their beater cars, they are tooling about on the high seas. They claim to not want to kill anyone, but their business plan is demanding ransom from each hijacked ship's home nation.

Naturally mainstream media claims the Teleprompter of the United States is responsible for this positive outcome. Yet there are also media accounts that the U.S. was prepared to pay the $1.2 million ransom demanded by the pirates.

I predict the one in custody will be given U.S. citizenship and the families of the dead criminal pirates will be given reparations.

There is no reason that our Navy should not have been able to go in and end this hostage situation days ago. Even though there is no apparent government in Somalia, the consequences should be swift and sharp.

At any rate, I'm grateful that there are still professionals in the Navy who have the smarts and athleticism to get the job done. 

2 comments:

Fuzzywuzzy Knickerbocker said...

Yep, no negotiating, prompt military action and why the heck aren't the crews of ships going into the dangerous waters of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, ARMED?

Then you read today that the one we've got is thought to be 18, but his family says 16!

These pirates are little kids! That being the case, it could really hamper the prosecution of these guys.

Fuzzywuzzy Knickerbocker said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
 
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