Posted on 02/22/2011 6:08:59 AM PST by TomGuy
Edited on 02/22/2011 6:19:00 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
FOX
Love that graphic. May I link to it in a web page - maybe, Facebook?
Because the admin wanted a "victory". They wanted to pull Jimmy Carter and hope to get press over negotiating the "safe release".
The bastards in the WH will use ANYTHING they can to manipulate the news.
Then, perhaps we call it “Open Season”?
More misunderstood YOOTS?
Maybe if our government brings a few million more Somalis to live in small town America their attitudes will change.
/sarcasm/
Time to bring back “drawing and quartering” or at least “walking the plank”?
Would anyone really care if we nuked the whole country — except the Somalies, of course. But then, they would never know what hit them.
In all honesty, this has been an issue for at least the last two years. WHY would an American family take their yacht into the waters off of the coast of Somalia?
Lord have mercy of their souls, but, was that really the most intelligent decision they made?
Speaking just for me, I’d never take my family into a boat off of the coast of Somalia, just as I’d never take them to the Middle East, the Mexican border in Texas, Arizona or New Mexico or downtown Detroit. A little common sense goes a long way.
Most of the pirates come from Puntland, another breakaway region that is between Somaliland and Somalia proper. A number of the pirates captured over the years claim that they are Puntland policemen.
Before I join in the knee-jerking, I want to know if they were killed during a rescue operation. “Negotiations” sounds like there might have been something else going on..
They had started out with a yacht race and decided they wanted to go across the Indian Ocean (they were not going to Somalia - these pirates range all over the place now, and in fact even start from “mother ships” out in the ocean). They sailed a lot and had made several other trips. It was their habit to bring along Bibles to distribute to impoverished churches in poor areas where they stopped, and in fact at home they belonged to some kind of group that supplied Bibles in the Third World, where it is often hard for churches to obtain them.
But the point is that we can’t start letting parts of the sea become “off limits.” And that’s what we’ve allowed to happen. The pirates essentially control these areas now and not only do they capture stray yachts, they are capable of shutting down shipping by making it too hazardous for tankers and freighters to get through there. This is too important to sit back and blame the victim. (Inidentally, even armed crews have been the victims of these pirates.)
Every single one of their boats needs to be blasted out of the water, every single mother ship needs to be sunk, and every single coastal hide out needs to be obliterated immediately. And states that give them refuge should meet that same fate.
If 'we' can't do it, the American citizens need to call on the Russians and Putin to do it for us...
You said it...we can not let parts of the sea become off limits because of a threat. WE NEED TO DEAL WITH THE THREAT!
And the ransoms are growing, but they keep getting paid. Ships and crews are now fetching upwards of $9 million each, negotiations are taking many more months. Al Shabab, the Al Qaeda group that controls most of southern Somalia, wants in on the action and there have been reports of fighting between Al Shabbab and the pirate warlords.
A new wildcard got added back on the 9th. Pirates captured two tankers full of crude oil, including a Greek supertanker headed to the United States. With it's cargo the ship is worth in excess of $300,000,000. The Navies of the world might not get aggressive for humanitarian reasons, but governments can smell cash.
You called it right... that's what's happening.
Problem is there’s no one to declare war on! They’ve a real catch-22 there in that there’s no government so there’s not a party on whom to declare the war.
We can (should) declare war on pirates and those who harbor pirates, just like declaring war on terrorists and those who harbor them.
Historical precendent: Jefferson going after the Barbary pirates. All the European nations kept paying the ransom, except, as Rudyard Kipling aptly wrote, they kept paying the Danegeld and the Dane will not go away. Jefferson read the Koran, more for as a “know your opposition”, a fact lost on Keith Ellison. And Jefferson saw wisely to pursue a more last solution to the problem versus keep paying the Danegeld.
Yes, Somalia is a criminal non-state. My suggestion is that we send an aircraft carrier and marine expeditionary ship loaded with attack helicopters.
Range up and down the Somali coast; “visit” every harbor, cove, inlet and wharf. Anything that floats, sink it. No boats, no pirates.
Just recall the words from the Marine Anthem and to the shores of Tripoli and what they mean.
IMO, regardless of their persuation that is whether missionaries or hippies, if that boat was flying the US Flag, we SHOULD HAVE come to their aid and we MUST now seek retribution, swift and merciless.
It’s Jimmy Carter all over again.
When I was in the navy we went through this same BS when Qaddafi decided to extend the coastal claims of Libya to the waters where our naval maneuvers were conducted - The entire Gulf of Sidra. Carter meekly rescheduled our maneuvers to stay outside disputed area, ordering us to not cross Qaddafi’s line. True to form, Carter failed to confront Qaddafi over the issue even after a siege on the American embassy in Tripoli in 1979.
Shortly after taking office, Ronald Reagan took a stand. He made it clear that American maneuvers in the Gulf of Sidra would proceed. Anticipating trouble, Reagan was asked by the Joint Chiefs what American pilots do if attacked? Would Reagan’s orders allow for “hot pursuit”? Reagan’s answer – “All the way into the hanger.” You know the rest of the story.
We need another Reagan. Now.
Amen to that!
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