Sounds like a target rich environment.
1. Poor Captain Phillips. Why was there nobody nearby to help him when it would be so easy to surround an unpowered boat for the contingency of his escape and rescue? Somebody was preventing that contingency action
2. What are the odds that four or five Somali thugs can have a cogent strategy to outsmart the U.S. Navy? Two ...slim and none, they are getting help
3. The time for surprise has passed. The profile has become too high, it has become a morass, a full fledged standoff. Frozen in fear to act. There are times to act quickly and decisively and if not done there are almost no good endings or alternatives.
4. See item 2. I doubt these guys are very smart and doubt very seriously that any survivor would act rationally. You shoot the ones on deck or in the open and the remaining one acts in a panic and irrationally.
5. The other ships have multiple hostages from Russia, Germany, Phillipines etc. Collateral damage would spark an international incident for ZERO who wants everyone to love him. ZERO is a coward, he exhibits no courage and only preys on easy marks, he is a schoolyard bully but not in a physical sense, confronted he is a coward. This is too complicated for him, he is frozen and has frozen those who know what to do ...and now it is too late for those who know what to do to execute the proper action without creating the international incident.
6. The negative messages this sends are numerous ...I traveled worldwide after 9/11 without much concern because the message was clear ...mess with a U.S. citizen and suffer the consequences. The message hung out there ...now it doesn’t. A U.S. vessel with releif supplies is hijacked and all we can do is rush to the scene so our NAVY can be witnesses followed by pirates in ships with hostages from elsewhere to surround and watch and dare action that they know will not come. You don’t sail in harm’s way to face off a warship with a scow unless you have a real good idea that nothing will happen.
PS:
Captain Phillips is considered a RWG (Rich White Guy). That makes him overpaid and underserving exploiter of those he saved in the eyes of ZERO.
That enclosed fiberglass lifeboat has got to be ripe with those darkies in it. The stench will kill if nothing else does.