Navy Seals Rescue American Hostage And Kill Somali Pirates

Even though a good friend is in Somalia now making a documentary on pirates-- and even though we have discussed the Somali pirates here in the past (yes, before they were so trendy)-- we've left the recent Somali pirate talk to the right wing blow-hards while we tried keeping the focus on the far more dangerous and predatory Wall Street pirates.

Now we're happy to report that Richard Phillips, the American captain of the Maersk Alabama, who was held hostage by 4 surrounded Somali pirates demanding a ransom, was freed, unharmed. Since the rightists were all blaming Obama I wonder when Fox will be congratulating him now that U.S. Navy Seals killed 3 of the pirates and locked up the 4th in a well-executed strategy that was very different from the insanity demanded by the slobbering right-wing nutcases. Despite all the worst wishes of the Republicans who would rather see America fail than Obama succeed, it looks like the president handled his first 3am call just fine-- and still managed to get his daughters a cute puppy!

I wonder why the Bush Regime never did anything about cleaning up the Somali pirates' nests along the Horn of Africa. By virtually ignoring the problem, they let it fester and grow. It was satisfying to see that President Obama moved in swiftly and surely-- and that he authorized the three AK-47 armed pirates who may have been attempting to kill Captain Phillips be shot. And thank God there's no chance of Obama strutting around an aircraft carrier with a sock in his crotch and a big "Mission Accomplished" banner in range of cameras.




UPDATE: The Blow By Blow

There's been so much misinformation, mostly spread by Fox and other rightist sources making things up, as usual, that I figured I'd mention that this was a carefully planned and sanctioned operation and that Captain Anderson had not escaped overboard again. Many of the sources are reporting variations on the story but I'm counting on this NY Times version, which is kind of like what CNN is reporting as well (from Bahrain):

Just after dark on Sunday, snipers on the U.S.S. Bainbridge saw that one of the pirates was pointing an automatic rifle at Captain Phillips, and that the captors’ heads and shoulders were exposed from the capsule-like lifeboat. President Obama had previously authorized the use of force if the commander on the scene believed the captain’s life was in danger, so they fired, Admiral Gortney said. The lifeboat was about 100 feet from the Bainbridge when the shots were fired, a little after 7 p.m. Somalia time (seven hours ahead of Eastern time). The vice admiral said he did not know Captain Phillips’s location at the time the shots were fired, but given the length of the lifeboat, he was less than 18 feet from the snipers’ targets... [T]he Navy managed to attach a line to the lifeboat and began towing it away from shore. Mr. Phillips was being held in a covered part at the back of the lifeboat, the official said, and one pirate typically stayed with him under cover. The lifeboat had gotten as close as 20 miles to shore, drifting after running out of fuel, off Gara’ad, Somalia.

...More than 250 hostages are being held by various Somalian pirate groups, including the 16 crew members of an Italian tugboat captured on Saturday.

One pirate named Ali, in Galkaiyo, Somalia, said the American Navy rescue won’t discourage other Somali pirate groups at all.

“As long as there is no just government in Somalia, we will still be the coast guard,” he said, adding: “If we get an American, we will take revenge.”

More details from this morning's Washington Post. And as JCWilmore pointed out at DailyKos last night, the Republicans, as usualy, bet against America-- and they lost when America won. All real Americans can be happy that the president passed his first security "test"-- with flying colors.