Posted on 02/24/2011 9:27:43 AM PST by Pan_Yan
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The New York Times reports that an FBI hostage-rescue negotiator aboard the U.S.S. Sterett came to believe the two Somalis were not serious when they boarded the vessel. Once those men were taken into custody, U.S. officials told the pirates on the yacht -- called the Quest -- to send over someone they could negotiate with.
The events that immediately followed have been sharply contested and raises questions about the decision to detain the pirate leaders, the Times reports.
American officials said the pirates on the yacht seemed relieved — even “exceptionally calm” — when they were told their senior commander was cooling his heels in a Navy brig.
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(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Primary error: thinking of piracy as Law Enforcement problem rather than a military problem. Everything else devoloved from there, IMO.
if we had a sensible administration we’d bring back keel hauling and hanging. Not to mention having a few thousand UAVs looking for pirates.
Earth to FBI: You are not dealing with normal criminals. They are wackos with a terrorist frame of mind.
These murders are the “fault” of only one group of people: the pirates.
Anybody, no matter who, can make mistakes when negotiating with kidnappers, because you never know what is going through their crazy minds. The only “mistake” I think was made was to treat this like a kidnapping, just a normal criminal act, and not like piracy on the high seas, which is something that requires a military response and not a law-enforcement response (other than good old military justice solution of a speedy trial and swift execution).
That said, the death of these hostages was not the fault of the FBI, the Navy, or anybody but the pirates.
All pirates should be shot at sea. PERIOD!
Someone needs to explain to the world why this has been permitted to go on for going on a decade? How difficult would it be to set up decoys and encounters with 1000 pirates and then take them out?
Great, we have Deputy Barney Fife in charge of negotiating with real pirates as if they were relatives of Ernest T. Bass. I think I just outed my age:<
You are wrong, this was a command failure. This is not the proper role of the FBI. The dead are dead because of Obama and those in official positions who tolerate him.
I wouldn't agree with that, at all. They are quite clearly your run-of-the-mill criminals. They aren't pirating to advance some 14th Century religious belief, or to protest against some political policy. They're pirating for cash, which is the motive of virtually every criminal.
Whether it's kidnapping for ransom in Columbia, stagecoach robberies on the great American frontier, or piracy on the Indian ocean, those crimes are all perpetrated by criminals, not people with a political agenda.
How much of great pension and travel expense with those FBI Agents end up with? Is their end dead bleeding on the deck of boat hijacked in the wide ocean? No way! They’ll get promotions and pensions!
It must have been a really cool and fun trip for them. Exotic travel, excitement! But they don’t get hurt. They get PERKS!
Sure we should execute pirates, but isn’t it Negotiation 101 as to what sort of signal you send when you detain the emissary?
The Gray Lady needs to stop looking for people to blame. Even my 4 year old understands that pirates are bad people and that is why they walk the plank.
The mistakes, if any, were not by the hostage negotiators who were dealing with a bunch of pot smoking paranoid heavily armed leaderless hooligans. Rather the mistake was the Obama administration’s failure to proactively flush out the pirates from their ports and send them to Allah.
We have “no fly” zones, it should not be too difficult to create a “no boating zone.” You enter the zone, you will die.
“FBI screwup?”
No, USN ROE screwup.
The legal and military aspects of eradicating piracy have been well understood for centuries.
When pirates hoist the black flag (or no flag) they are signing their death warrants - and the death warrants of their families, their ships, and their bases on land.
I think this kind of retrograde navel-gazing is frequently useless except to establish where the blame will be placed.
One fletcher class destroyer from WW II,,, complete with an authentic naval officer,, that’s all we need. Fbi,,, captains who worry about diversity and sensitivity training.
Not to mention,,, if their home port has 30 hostage ships, why is it mit closed too anything, including fishing boats?
FBI ignorance on full display, this surpasses the stupid of Waco and ruby ridge.
“How difficult would it be to set up decoys and encounters with 1000 pirates and then take them out?”
For this clueless admin, very difficult.
“All pirates should be shot at sea. PERIOD!”
That would be a waste of ammunition. A rope tied to an anchor would be sufficient.
I would reserve comment about what the negotiator should or should not have done. First, I'm reticent to believe anything that comes from the New York Times. And second, I'm hesitant to second-guess the on-scene negotiator without access to all the facts he surely would have had.
My point was/is that there is a role for the FBI when American citizens are being held against their will. And, it would be ridiculous not to try negotiate a favorable outcome, before electing to directly engage the hostage-takers. Boarding a ship on the open sea is much riskier than entering a bank or a home in a hostage situation, and look at how LE is loathe to do that. They won't unless they believe their is an immediate danger to the hostages.
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