My belief is that the AK47 being pointed at Phillips is not true. The life boat was being towed to steady it and make the kill shots easier. The commander said waste the Somalis and lets get out of here. So the shots were taken at the best time irregardless of an AK47 being pointed at Phillips.
We are left with our chickenshit lame brain President taking the credit
You 'n me both, Brother FReeper.
Good, honest folks are so conditioned to believe what the media tells them, and/or what the Officials (military, law enforcement, whatever) tell the media, that it never occurs to them that ... it may be fabricated, for whatever reason, good or bad -- in this case, good. To me, any part of or all of the official story should be taken with a grain of salt. One FReeper, early on in the original thread announcing the rescue, said "We know for a fact that the captain jumped twice." I corrected him: No, we know for a fact that the media is reporting that the captain jumped twice. I coudln't believe how many people just took it on faith, when it seemed pretty clear to me that the "second jump" scenario was just a nice, convenient way for the SEALS to justify (rightly) their actions, and the good captain would certainly go along with it to save the SEALS' butts.
I think: the captain jumped overboard the first time, as CNN reported, and either the SEALS weren't in place yet (most likely, IMO), or they were but were prohibited by Obama from taking initiative and responding with force (second most likely). SEALS waited around for four or five days, Obama knew they could get Cpt. Phillips pronto if need be, and Obama said NO. I think that any Special Forces guys aren't the type to wait around. They're proactive, not reactive.
So they got fed up with the whole situation, concocted the "official" story duly reported early on by CNN that Cptn. Phillips jumped a second time and precipitated the rescue, but in reality they went in and took care of business, saving one pirate for info and killing the others.
They had Obama by the balls: he couldn't reject the rescue and tell them to give Cptn. Phillips back to some other pirates! He couldn't tell America that he'd forbidden the SEALS to rescue Cptn. Phillips when he desperately tried to escape a second time. That's why the "official" story reported by CNN of the second jump initiating the rescue was, to me, so RICH and DELICIOUS -- what a clever way to handle it! It totally USED CNN, which was refreshing, to put Obama in a corner. It necessarily implied that the captain, not Obama, initiated the rescue (where I believe the truth is the SEALS initiated the rescue). Obama couldn't uphold the fiction that he had initiated it if the story was that the captain had jumped a second time, so the story was quickly updated (as the SEALS snickered in their sleeves, I imagine!) -- CNN then was reporting that no, the captain hadn't jumped a second time, that was mistaken information.
The story evolved quite a lot in the first hours after the rescue. First, the surviving pirate hadn't been on the lifeboat, but on the Bainbridge negotating .. then it was to have an injured hand treated ... leaving only three pirates for the SEALS to take out after one of the pirates had pointed a gun at the Captain. Early reports were also that Obama had "approved" two or three different rescue plans ... and/or approved having the SEALS to go in and rescue the Captain if his life was immediately endangered. It was enough to make you laugh, the way the story was evolving so quickly to accommodate the fiction that Obama deserved any credit.
The SEALS took care of business in spite of Obama, not because of him. God bless the Navy SEALS and God bless all of our American military and brave warriors.