Thread: What do you think about this?

Is Obama trying to convince the world that we are a nation of cowards? The FBI? Is he serious? Are they going to beg these thugs to release one of our own? Is Obama going to tell these thugs that we are sorry and it's our fault?

Thugs like these didn't mess with the US flag before because they feared the consequences. Now, thanks to Obama, they have no fear. We need to strike the fear back into thugs like this immediately are America will be surrounded by jackals.


Navy calls in FBI to help captain held by Somali pirates
By MATT APUZZO Associated Press
April 9, 2009, 9:02AM

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy summoned the FBI in crisis atmosphere today for advice on how to rescue a cargo ship captain held hostage in the Indian Ocean by pirates who seized his vessel off the coast of Somalia.

At the same time, the shipping company Maersk demanded that Capt. Richard Phillips be returned and called his safety its No. 1 priority. The Obama administration, for its part, weighed options in an incident at sea that dramatized the limits of U.S. military power in international cops-and-robbers scenarios.

At the FBI, spokesman Richard Kolko described the bureau's hostage negotiating team as "fully engaged" with the military in strategizing ways to retrieve the ship's captain and secure the Maersk Alabama and its roughly 20-person U.S. crew.

The FBI was summoned as the Pentagon substantially stepped up its monitoring of the hostage standoff, sending in P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft and other equipment and securing video footage of the scene.

Defense Department officials would not say Thursday morning just how close the USS Bainbridge was to a small lifeboat which was said to be drifting nearby, in the vicinity of the Maersk Alabama cargo ship.

But one official, speaking on grounds of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said the pirates "could see it with their eyes." Another official said there were several other vessels in the vicinity, but it was unclear whether any were the so-called "mother ship" that pirates use to drop them at hijacking sites.

The pirates were still holding the 55-year-old Phillips, from Underwood, Vt., after the American crew retook the ship Wednesday and the hostage-takers fled into the lifeboat. Hostage negotiators and military officials have been working around the clock to free Phillips.

In his statement, Kolko said: "FBI negotiators stationed at Quantico (Va.) have been called by the Navy to assist with negotiations with the Somali pirates and are fully engaged in this matter."

In Norfolk, Va., home of the shipping company, spokesman Kevin Speers told reporters early Thursday that "the most recent contact" that Maersk had with the ship indicated that Phillips remained in the hands of the pirates.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking to reporters at the outset of a meeting with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and their Australian counterparts, said: "We're watching it very closely. Apparently, the lifeboat has run out of gas."

Speers said the company is "grateful" for the assistance of the government and the military and said it is doing all it can to cooperate.

The ship-taking presented Barack Obama with a tough new challenge just as he returned from his first European tour as president.

"We're deeply concerned and we're following it very closely," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. "More generally, the world must come together to end the scourge of piracy."

The pirate-hostage drama was the first of its kind in modern history involving a U.S. crew.

"We have watched with alarm the increasing threat of piracy," said Denis McDonough, a senior foreign policy adviser at the White House. "The administration has an intense interest in the security of navigation."

The Bainbridge was among several U.S. ships, including the cruiser USS Gettysburg, that had been patrolling in the region. But they were about 345 miles and several hours away when the Maersk Alabama was seized, officials said.

The Obama administration has so far done no better than its predecessor to thwart the growing threat of piracy. Since January, pirates have staged 66 attacks, and they are still holding 14 ships and 260 crew members as hostages, according to the International Maritime Bureau, a watchdog group based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

There is too much area to cover and too many commercial vessels to protect for full-time patrols or escorts. U.S. legal authority is limited, even in the case of American hostages and a cargo of donated American food. And the pirates, emboldened by fat ransoms, have little reason to fear being caught.

"The military component here is always going to be marginal," said Peter Chalk, an expert on maritime national security at the private Rand Corp.

According to the Navy, it would take 61 ships to control the shipping route in the Gulf of Aden, which is just a fraction of the 1.1 million square miles where the pirates have operated. A U.S.-backed international anti-piracy coalition currently has 12 to 16 ships patrolling the region at any one time.

Along the Somali coastline, an area roughly as long as the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, pirate crews have successfully held commercial ships hostage for days or weeks until they are ransomed. In the past week, pressured by naval actions off Somalia, the pirates have shifted their operations farther out into the Indian Ocean, expanding the crisis.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6364245.html

I would broadcast a message over and over to the pirates in english and their own language.

"We are going to pull alongside and retrieve the captain safely and each of you will be given food, water, and shelter, and any needed medical treatement as you await a fair trial. If the captain is harmed in any way before or during our approach we are going to open fire on every person in your craft with a fifty caliber machine gun. The choice is yours, leave the captain unharmed and let us retrieve him and you will all be treated fairly and will live to see another day. If you harm the captain in any way we are going to neturalize each of you with multiple fifty caliber rounds to your heads and torsoe."

I would broadcast this message for about twenty four hours over and over again, then mount a sniper team on deck with two shooters training their sights on each pirate and would move our warship closer at a slow rate of speed. A commanding officer could keep watch on the captive and be ready to give the order to shoot.

If upon closer approach the captain was harmed or found to be harmed, the order to fire should be given to maximize the chances the captain could be saved, treated, and or revived.

If the captain were unfortunately killed during this kind of rescue attempt, it would send a clear message to any future pirates that they will not survive any hostage situations with American citizens if our citizens are harmed.

This is the kind of message and about the only kind of message that will have any impact on them.

W

Something needs to be done about Puntland. Also, the FBI is the major reason why kidnapping for ransom is not a viable criminal career path in the US. During the "gangster" years of the 20s and the Depression, they made it a major crusade, to stamp it out. You may be able to kidnap people in the US, but you can't avoid detection and you can't live undisturbed to enjoy the loot.

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

I would broadcast a message over and over to the pirates in english and their own language.

"We are going to pull alongside and retrieve the captain safely and each of you will be given food, water, and shelter, and any needed medical treatement as you await a fair trial. If the captain is harmed in any way before or during our approach we are going to open fire on every person in your craft with a fifty caliber machine gun. The choice is yours, leave the captain unharmed and let us retrieve him and you will all be treated fairly and will live to see another day. If you harm the captain in any way we are going to neturalize each of you with multiple fifty caliber rounds to your heads and torsoe."

I would broadcast this message for about twenty four hours over and over again, then mount a sniper team on deck with two shooters training their sights on each pirate and would move our warship closer at a slow rate of speed. A commanding officer could keep watch on the captive and be ready to give the order to shoot.

If upon closer approach the captain was harmed or found to be harmed, the order to fire should be given to maximize the chances the captain could be saved, treated, and or revived.

If the captain were unfortunately killed during this kind of rescue attempt, it would send a clear message to any future pirates that they will not survive any hostage situations with American citizens if our citizens are harmed.

This is the kind of message and about the only kind of message that will have any impact on them.

W

Now that sounds more sane than what I would have suggested. I'm sick of these pirates. Who does Johnny Depp think he is?

The longer we drag this out the bigger heroes these thugs are becoming. American ship will be a prime target from here on out because these terrorists know we will do nothing to them but negotiate. In the mean time they will get as many hour of international TV time as they want.

The NAVY Seals should have already been in the water launching an attack on this raft. I am sure we have already developed and are using imaging technology that can see through walls. It is called the The Xaver800. This has been used to detect targets and so they can be take them out without harming innocent victims.

I think they are using time to wear down the kidnappers. I'll bet Seals are all over this. Pirate reinforcements coming??? OOOKKKKAAAYYYYY....

Originally Posted by BetsyRoss

I think they are using time to wear down the kidnappers. I'll bet Seals are all over this. Pirate reinforcements coming??? OOOKKKKAAAYYYYY....

Yea, great plan they have. Now the pirates want $2million. Maybe Obama can offer them a substantial share of the bailout money? After all it only taxpayers' money.

I am with you William.

American forces seem to be waiting till the pirates run out of food, fresh water, and khat. We'll see how they sound then.

I am sure that we have the technology and expertise to snare this boat, scoot it next to a warship and winch it up. These guys might start to think about their situation while they are dangling in mid-air on davits off a US ship or sitting on the deck knowing they are surrounded by cranky Americans with guns. What would Tom Clancy recommend in this situation?