Posted by
Steve on Monday, April 13, 2009 2:24:13 PM
Over the weekend, the US Navy rescued the captain that had been captured by those Pirates from Somalia. The courage shown by our US Naval personnel was extraordinary. Their discipline was extraordinary. Their ability to take out an enemy combatant without them being able to return fire was also extraordinary. The only question I have is why did it take so long?
Captain Phillips also showed remarkable courage in this entire ordeal. He volunteered to be a hostage in the standoff on the ship. The standoff occurred when the pirates boarded and tried to take the ship. The crew outnumbered the pirates and stabbed the lead pirate in the hand with an ice pick. The crew held the upper hand, but they had no guns. The pirates were in a weak position, but because they had guns they could not be dislodged. That is why the agreement for the captain to be a hostage and the pirate leader to be a hostage. The crew and the pirates agreed that upon the release of the pirate leader they would release the captain. That did not happen.
The captain feared for his life. He was beaten up while he was a prisoner. When he saw an opportunity to escape, he jumped from the ship he was on and tried to swim to safety. The pirates shot at him and soon had him back in custody. The Navy stood by and watched this scenario play out and did nothing. I wonder why the Navy did not attempt a rescue of the captain at that time. He was away from the pirate vessel and a well placed cannot shot in the pirate ship would have sunk it. Then the captain could have been rescued earlier. I am not sure how far away the captain got from the pirate vessel. Maybe he was too close for a cannon shot to be safely attempted.
Now, I know today’s military and how it is micromanaged from above. It almost seems like they could do away with everyone between the rank of Captain and Major General and still function just as well as they do. I do realize that they need the ranks I am just commenting on the fact that the people on the scene do not get to make the decisions. Barack Obama made the decision to rescue the captain. I am sure that the Navy recommended that he make that decision. So, I must give Barack Obama credit where it is due and give him a credit for making the decision to rescue the captain instead of giving in to the pirate’s demands. I half expected him to give in based on his track record. He must have taken a lot of convincing before he made the decision to act.
The pirates are now saying that they will kill all American and French sailors they come in contact with. That is because the French also raided the pirates and rescued their hostages instead of bowing to the demands. Since we now know what will happen to our sailors we have three choices to make. The first choice is to ignore the pirates and hope they do not capture any Americans or French. This is rather silly. If there is shipping in the area with Americans or French, they are bound to be captured sooner or later given the situation.
The second option is to pull all American and French sailors out of the region. This is also not a good option. It is running from danger. Running from danger just encourages more of it. If the pirates got wind that American and French sailors were removed from the region, they would ramp up their demands because they would have scared the Americans and French away.
The third option is to arm all shipping that sails near Somalia. We did this during World War II and it was quite successful it stopping the Germans and Japanese from capturing our ships. The ships would have to have large guns capable of sinking another ship that could cover all parts of the merchant ship. The merchant ships would also have to have an assortment of small arms available in case the ship was in danger of being boarded. These small arms would have to include assault rifles and handguns. The world would have to be notified that any ship that was identified as a stranger would be sunk with no questions asked. This would make piracy a very dangerous business. More pirates would die than would be successful. Therefore most would give up the business as not profitable.
We did teach the pirates a lesson. That lesson is that Americans are not good hostages. Americans mean dead pirates, not money. That lesson was originally taught by Thomas Jefferson and John Adams way back at the beginning of our country. It was time the world relearned the lesson. Congratulations to all those involved in the rescue. There were a lot of heroes in this story. That is what makes America different from other places. We breed heroes here in the United States from ordinary people.