Defense secretary: Killed Somali pirates were "untrained" teenagers ("No Military Solution")

China View ^ | 4/13/2009 | Mu Xuequan

[tobyhill]

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Monday that three Somali pirates who were killed by the Navy's Seals to end a hostage crisis were "untrained" teenagers.

Addressing an audience at the Marine Corps War College in Quantico, Virginia, Gates said that the slain pirates, aged at between 17 to 19, were heavily armed but inexperienced.

They were shot dead on Sunday at the end of a five-day standoff with the U.S. military after they attacked a U.S.-flagged cargo ship about 400 kilometers away from Somali and held an American captain as hostage.

"As long as you've got this incredible number of poor people and the risks are relatively small, there's really no way in my view to control it unless you get something on land that begins to change the equation for these kids," Gates told students and faculty members.

[LibLieSlayer]

That is why at age 54... I have carried a loaded .45 every day of my life since age 18 (unless I was flying somewhere). It is my incentive to keep a$$holes from mucking with me. I have only had to pull it twice... once during a break in and once after Katrina when meth heads drove up to my home looking for trouble. I have never had to fire it at anyone... but like the good old boyscout that I am... I am always prepared.

LLS

[LibLieSlayer]

I just finished reading about it... scary similar eh?

LLS

[True Republican Patriot]

Hey Gates, If they were UNTRAINED 17-19 yr Olds, How come it took You, and ZERO HUSSEIN FOUR LONG DAYS to GIVE The GO AHEAD TO OUR MILITARY TO KILL THE SCUMBAG TERRORISTS WITH THREE BULLETS? OH, GATES, Dont forget a Major Component of Our Proud MILITARY are 18-19 YR OLDS! STOP MAKING EXCUSES FOR MUSLIM TERRORISTS!

[Cheetahcat]

“Lets just fly gates over in a Blackhawk and kick his ass out “treeline” in Adis Ababa.

LLS”

Excellent! He has a lot to learn about this group,I had a bunch working in my crew in the ME and the last thing I would is call homicidal Murdering Savages just teenagers.

[Miss Behave]

"what's the point, Gates?"

Exactly. The *only* point in even bringing something like this up would HAVE to be as a slap to the US. Why else? He just otherwise would never have said it. Truly disgusting.

[LibLieSlayer]

The cic is one... therefore gates must do as he is told. The fact that he enjoys doing hussein’s bidding is what angers me.

LLS

[LibLieSlayer]

These are people that will fillet your arse and season your meat and eat you for dinner. Man, the ignorance of some here is stunning.

LLS

[Prophet in the wilderness]

Here is Joe Biden when he said that " We are going to need your help in the next few months, Obama is going to be tested " ......

Joe Biden singing " ohh we get by with a little help from our Friends " .
( Joe Biden " were going to need your help my friends "

[preacher]

“Spitballs” in another contect:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C58YAONY_hE

[tobyhill]

Those “untrained teenagers” held the FBI hostage negotiators at bay for 3 of the 5 days.

[dools007]

No we don’t. The minimalist war he wanted to fight put my son in harm’s way two times more than he had to be. That goes for Bush as well.

The war on Fundamentalist Islamic terrorist has gone on six years longer than necessary. When American soldiers are sent to war we must allow them to bring overwhelming military force to bear to crush the enemy as fast as possible. Rummy and Bush blew it after the Taliban were run out of Afghanistan and after the Saddam regime was toppled. Then, they went into Viet Nam mode. We never really do learn from history.

Politicians screw up everything they touch.

[neocon1984]

As a clever bureaucrat, he is taking the proverbial wind out of Obama’s sails for his tremendous act of executive courage and decisiveness (at least in the MSM narrative).

[pissant]

Iraq is won. So half of your argument is invalid.

[Enterprise]

There certainly wasn't much sympathy for German teenagers who were killed while fighting Americans was there?

I saw a segment on the History channel about a unit that got into a battle with a German unit composed of teenage fighters. It took a couple of hours for the Americans to subdue the Germans, and the American commander lost several of his men in the battle. After the battle, the American commander tied up the adult commander of the teenagers. And then he personally clubbed him to death.

And there was another segment about a Nazi SS member who was enthusiastically and sadistically violent in his treatment of concentration camp prisoners. And oops, he was a TEENAGER!

Less we forget, many of the Khmer Rouge who persecuted their own people were armed TEENAGERS!

[PhilDragoo]

I have warned that this so-called Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is the same Robert Gates who coauthored with Zbigniew Brzezinski the 2004 Council on Foreign Relations paper "Iran: Time for a New Approach"--and this "new approach" is negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran--the same Iran run by the Holocaust denier working on his second ton of partially enriched uranium.

Gates sees "kids"--deplores their untrained status.

How many "untrained" Viet Cong "kids" did we face with a Johnson Administration which was harsher with the Joint Chiefs in November 1965 when they sought permission to mine Haiphong and bomb Hanoi than that administration ever was with the enemy.

DICK, Doper Islamo Commie Kenyan, hates America and Gates is part of the DICK administration hobbling America--

Hey, DICK, do you recall your bud Osama bin Laden telling ABC News in 1998 that when Traitor-Rapist-42 pulled us out in the wake of Blackhawk Down he was emboldened to do the Embassies, the Cole, 911?

And, DICK, Somalia is the same nest of Islamofascist sewage it was then.

But due to DICK's "Muslim faith" and Gates being the anti-Defense bureaucrat, the odds of our settling accounts in the region are Zero Hope It'll Change.

[Cheetahcat]

These are people that will fillet your arse and season your meat and eat you for dinner. Man, the ignorance of some here is stunning.
LLS

And they were inviting them in here by the thousands overnight from lawless tribal Murdering to a next door neighbor all This just well and fine in the eyes of our so called "all people and Cultures are equal" Government by the people what a joke!

[Miss Behave]

LOL, Jammz.

I'm EXTRA thankful to our US Navy and SEALs that they neutralized the young scum terrorists before they were able to reproduce. Then again, they possibly were baby-daddys already.

[SkipW]

I really do not believe that Gates is that stupid. He is pushing the Obama agenda. Do not hurt a Muslim if you can help it. Also do your best to blame America for anything done in response to Muslim murderers.

The futility doing anything that might be effective in trumping enemies of America is a priority of Obama and his crew. I think Gates is a traitor. I’m not sure about Obama because if you are not an American citizen I don’t think you can be a traitor.

[Tammy8]

The U.S. tried to help Somalia, tried to feed the downtrodden masses about 20 years ago. A friend of ours was in the Navy on a ship assigned to help Somalia. He told us the people absolutely hated the U.S. even though the mission started only to feed and support the people. He said the mission was very hard because when food was delivered the people acted like animals- the men would fight over the food and the women and children were fought back. The men that were the toughest took the food supplied by the U.S. and used it for money and barter, not to feed the people of Somalia.

The mission changed over the next few years and ended with U.S. Army Rangers being killed and drug through the streets to a cheering crowd of Somalians- and then President Clinton withdrew our military and left Somalians to their own devices. Now there is not a real functioning government in place, it is a hotbed of terrorists and supporters of terrorism and things like piracy are condoned by most of the people. The place is a goner if you ask me, and we need waste no sympathy on them-we just need to make sure their pirates leave our ships and our people alone- whatever it takes to ensure that is ok by me. We should have flattened the country when they murdered and disrespected our Rangers and other military instead of withdrawing. The world would be a better place today if we had handled it that way. I don’t care if the pirates killed by our SEALs were teens, or untrained, poor or whatever- they needed to die.

[LibLieSlayer]

On target!

LLS