Are we over trained and too qualified to compete with these thugs? They are the enemy - we don't need to empathize with them, we need to kill them. That is what the military does. Let the U.N. wring their hands and put warriors in charge of the military.
And that matters?
Gates needs to go!
“Momma don’t let your babies grow up to be pirates-—
“So its up against the wall Muslim pirates”
Any other lyrics in this mess?
As for being teenagers, so what?
BOO FREEPIN’ HOO!!
One of these thugs had a weapon to the back of the captain. A weapon that could have been armed. Don’t tell me it was unnecessary to take him out! Anyway I don’t remember the left having that problem with the Waco siege.
Well, Gates has become a card carrying member of the "root causes" school of criminal and terrorist action. And the fact that these guys were 17 - 19 is not all that remarkable. The average age of Americans who served in Vietnam was 19.
I wonder just what point he was trying to make, and why he thought it worth mentioning at this stage in this incident?
Very simple solution to the problem. Take the actions needed to make the risks relatively large instead of relatively small and the problem disappears.
“Well, it got so that every piss-ant prairie punk who thought he could shoot a gun would ride into town to try out the Waco Kid. I must have killed more men than Cecil B. DeMille. It got pretty gritty. I started to hear the word “draw” in my sleep.
“Then one day, I was just walking down the street when I heard a voice behind me say, “Reach for it, mister!” I spun around... and there I was, face-to-face with a six-year old kid. Well, I just threw my guns down and walked away.
“Little bastard shot me in the ass.”
— An important lesson about “kids with guns”, from the movie Blazing Saddles.
Isn't the obvious answer to make the risks relatively large, as in shooting them dead?
On the Job Training?!
In the sense that there probably is no ‘school for piracy’, then Gates is probably right. It is still an idiotic statement, however. A fast boat, an AK, and a will to commit mayhem is all that is required. It’s also time to consider what would have happened, Sec. Gates, if 1 of our highly trained snipers had missed. You would probably have been thrown under Obama’s bus.
“As long as you’ve got this incredible number of poor people....”
Oh get the F out if here, you mean every poor kid will become a pirate? And that attacking these pirates wouldn’t deter kids from joining up??? Oy
If the pirates were young white chrisians just screwing around they would be considered blood thirsty humans in need of instant execution.
The vast majority of Somalis don’t kill anyone. Why does the action of a minority require intervention with the population as a whole?
If lawyers, sea lawyers at that, weren’t involved these ships could just gun these guys down. People adapt. They’ll find something else to do.
Pacifism and multi million dollar rewards is fueling this.
Anyways, Gates and the security bureaucracy isn’t letting any opportunity go to waste to expand the bureaucracy, spend more and tax more.
Heck, I bet people would PAY to ride these ships. Bring some DVD’s, beer, meat, grill, meet like minded friends, get a tan...
You mean, something like THIS?
You mean Bush ORDERED THE DEATH OF THESE POOR UNTRAINED CHILDREN?
I mean OBAMA?
(sorry, force of habit from the lamestream media)
The Nazis who were trying to kill my Daddy back during WWII were about the age of the pirates, and I’m glad they didn’t succeed.