Free Republic

Captain Richard Phillips was saved Sunday by an old-fashioned formula that pirates understand — Attack U.S. shipping, and you will die. Now that policy needs to be extended to the pirates' sanctuaries on land. The Navy's bold actions were in sharp contrast to the instinctive waffling of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who promised that the Obama administration was seeking “an appropriate 21st-century response” to the pirates who seized a U.S.-flagged vessel and took its American captain hostage. Thankfully, Vice Admiral William E. Gortney, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, gets it. He made it clear that “The...

As the US Navy moves additional ships to the Indian Ocean to attempt to free the American captain held hostage by pirates, some are criticizing Washington's tactics and calling for strikes on the Somali pirates' land bases. The Daily Telegraph reports that the US is sending additional naval vessels to join the USS Bainbridge, which has been in a standoff with the pirates who took an American captain hostage Wednesday. But experts say that an increased US naval presence will not solve the ongoing issue of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean, writes The Wall...