From "AT LEAST SADDAM WASN'T AT TAILHOOK!" By Ann Coulter
In 1985, Muslim terrorists hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and threatened to kill the passengers and crew unless 50 imprisoned Palestinians were released by Israel. The terrorists doused American and British women with gasoline and taunted them with matches. They forced passengers to hold live grenades. When their demands were not met, the terrorists shot a wheelchair-bound American, Leon Klinghoffer, and forced other passengers at gunpoint to throw him overboard in his wheelchair......President Reagan was briefed on the daring plan [for F-14s to intercept an Egyptair 737 carrying the Achille Lauro hijackers] -- along with copious warnings from timorous State Department officials that the Europeans might have their feelings bruised, America would look like a cowboy, and it would only strengthen the hard-liners in Egypt. Asked if the operation should proceed, Reagan said: "Good God! They've murdered an American here. Let's get on with it."
Please note that Mr. Abul Abbas and his lackeys did not harm any Americans or damage any property "in the United States" which Greybird has cited as the only reason for U.S. military action. Of course, Hitler never killed anybody on our soil or damaged any of our stuff here...maybe we should have asked him nicely to rescind his declaration of war against us in December of '41!
Greybird said no such thing. Greybird said that the proper business of the U.S. military is the defense of residents and their property within the United States. (I might extend that to international waters.)
Push this to mobilizing the military about hijackings or other heinous mayhem in other nations, or their territorial waters, and you have no logical stopping point. I don't believe that the Achille Lauro was in international waters when it was hijacked. If not, the owners, crew, and passengers were properly construed as taking their own risks, however great, and should have provided for them on their own.
By the way, a thoroughly Constitutional tool for dealing with such assholes does exist -- letters of marque and reprisal. (Essentially, "licenses" to kill or plunder in finding wrongdoers, with immunity from U.S. prosecution for doing so.)