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Daylife/Reuters Pictures
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| Captain Richard Phillips, (R), alongside Cmdr. Frank Castellano, CO of USS Bainbridge after his rescue |
Hero Capt. Richard Phillips was freed today in a dramatic ending to a four-day high seas standoff that riveted the world.
Three of the four ragtag pirates who held the world’s most powerful Navy at bay on the Indian Ocean were killed, and the fourth was taken into custody.
Phillips was said to be in good condition.
On Saturday negotiations had broken down when the Somali pirates reportedly insisted they would only free Phillips in exchange for their own freedom – a deal nixed by US officials.
Phillips, 53, captain of the 17,000-ton relief cargo vessel Maersk Alabama, offered himself as a hostage to save his 19-man crew Wednesday when armed pirates took his ship.
He and the pirates had been drifting in an out-of-gas lifeboat, surrounded by massive US warships who could do little but keep pirate reinforcements from reaching the lifeboat.
The audacious pirates even opened fire Saturday on a small Navy vessel sent from the destroyer USS Bainbridge.
Bravo!
#60. I think you are right. There isn’t enough backbone in the U.S. for the type of strat I proposed.
The shipping companies, their ensurers, and their policies are responsible for this piracy mess and the inevitable deaths that must now follow before it will even be slowed. Clearly a pay-off scheme would eventually have Somali grandmothers hi-jacking ships & crews with guaranteed impunity. Apparently this is now the case for teenagers.
45 hateyanks. “…by shooting some black teenagers who were just trying to survive in a world that has abandoned them.”
I’ll leave it to you to research what these teenagers are pulling in to meet their basic survival needs.
Because the shipping companies never had the fortitude to make the difficult choices right from the start, nature & the US Navy are now providing those for them. And it will certainly now be at a much higher cost.
RBG
#44 – Ah_Yea – Upgraded? Do you understand what that means? Obama didn’t give the kill order until 9:20 am Saturday!
That’s not true. Read this part of the article:
I might be wrong, but it sure sounds that he expanded the order to use lethal force to the new units that joined up in fighting the pirates.
#49 – Mr. Fusion
Thanks Fusion. 🙂
It’s an amazing mindset that says we need to understand these poor children because they’re desperate. I don’t care how desperate you are, taking people hostage and threatening to kill them is unnaceptable period.
If BO really did give a specific kill order, I salute him – it took 3 months but he finally did something right. I would still ask what took so effing long though.
Another though to ponder is this: It was GW’s military that executed this rescue. After a couple of years of downsizing and budget cuts, how well will the BO military, armed with nothing more than slingshots and plastic butterknives, handle a similar situation?
# 65 Toxic Asshead said, “If BO really did give a specific kill order, I salute him – it took 3 months but he finally did something right. I would still ask what took so effing long though.”
I think that this was the 1st US flagged ship to be taken. So, I think he did what was proper, at the proper time. Now, that they have targeted US ships it is time to take out these scum. That’s Obama’s next test. Will he do what is correct?
#66 – I agree. My point is that the captain was a prisoner a lot longer than he needed to be.
So Obama is a hero because he didn’t withhold permission to kill pirates threatening to kill the captain?
RBG
# 68 RBG said, “So Obama is a hero because he didn’t withhold permission to kill pirates threatening to kill the captain?”
No, it’s that he acted properly. If he is a real exec he’ll now set a goal: Eliminate the the piracy threat to US shipping.
He’ll give that to the SecDef to accomplish and not have to think about it anymore. If he’s incompetent as an exec, he’ll continue to make tactical decisions and age prematurely…