Poll - What Does the US do to rescue the Maersk-Alabama Captain

[American Horse]

The Captain who commanded the Maersk Alabama volunteered to be taken hostage to save his crew in a characteristic act of courage, his family says. The captain’s brother is now in command of the Maersk Alabama, and captain Richard Phillips is being held in a “life-boat by the pirates; a small, orange, enclosed craft.

At least a dozen ships and more than 200 crew members are currently being held by pirates off the coast of Somalia. It’s believed in an effort to provide assistance to the pirates holding Captain Phillips, at least four of these pirate-held ships, with their crews as prisoners, are heading toward the lifeboat, possibly to provide transportation for them and Phillips to another location while waiting for the ransom, or as cover for the pirates once a ransom is paid.

Just after Captain Phillip’s failed attempt to escape, French commandos stormed a yacht held by Somali and one male hostage and two pirates were killed in the assault. It was reported three other adults and a three-year-old child were rescued.

This is the first pirating of a US flagged ship since the days of the Barbary Wars, the first war waged by the United States, and involved the US Navy and the US Marine Corps against the “Barbary Pirates”, behaving then the way they are now.

We assume that our ships will prevent these rogue and pirated ships from getting very close to the pirates holding the captain, or perhaps there will be some other strategy.
The “life-boat” he and the pirates are in is a small 28-foot, orange enclosed emergency type craft, without any visible hatches or portholes. It carries provisions for 34 people for about ten days.

But what then; or what do we do in the meantime?
What is the best way to conclude this sorry affair, and get the ship’s captain back?

We can only pray that the whole question will be successfully rendered moot before the week-end is out.


Here’s an ABC link with a U-Tube Video imbedded
ship alabama and pirates "life-boat" - Google News

 

[Angel Heart]

Wait's until the 15Th then makes a big spectacle over it and attempts to keep the Tea Party out of the news.

 

[oreo]

Well, what blows my mind is this has been going on for several months. It's hard for me to believe--that we got ourselves into this mess in the first place. We knew this was going on--we witnessed it--& here the proprietor sends his ship into the area, without any security force??

How we get the captain back? I have no idea--I imagine they will try & use special forces--probably a rescue attempt at night.

In the future--put heavily armed guards on these ships to deter these pirates.

 

[auditor0007]

Pay the ransom. This is just a way of doing business at this point. What needs to be understood is the number of ships that travel these waters. There are thousands of them. The way things are now, there is no possible way to protect them all.

It does seem however, that we should be able to protect all of these ships. To do so, they could set up shipping lanes. Rather than allowing any ship to travel any course it wants, force all ships to travel in convoys which are escorted. You could have fifty ships traveling per convoy with naval escorts. I'm not sure if something like this would be workable, but it seems as if it should be workable.

 

[krotchdog]

Gee, this never happened to Bush. Maybe they think Obama is weak and the next thing we get to look forward to is a stadium of baseball fans dead.

The best thing for Obama to do is find a great jewish lawyer to take them to court, our secretary of state said this is a crime so we must first get a good prosecutor. I wonder who will represent the people who may of or may not of took the hostage.

Please remember that Hillary, despite laughing about this, Hillary says this is a crime, these people are innocent until proven guilty.

Under Bush, this is war, Under Clinton, I mean Obama (I get confused because Obamas entire cabinet was lifted from Clintons so please forgive the error), so under Obama we are not at war with anyone, people are just merely, or maybe not, commiting crimes..

You got to remember as well, that you cannot stop them, you can only prosecute the crime after it happens, just like 9/11. Untill somebody does something, or I must say allegedly does something, they are innocent, if we think this man may have taken the captain its not for us to say, Obama knows we will have to give this man a Lawyer and a fair trail. He wont be able to get a fair trail here, its got to be a trail of thier peers, so we need Obama's Lawyers to go to Somalia so the poor people accused get a fair trail.

AND PLEASE, WE ARE AMERICANS, STOP ASSUMING THESE PEOPLE ARE GUILTY, THEY ARE INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY.

Its time for change, we voted for change, we demand change, stop the same tired old policies of the last 8 years.

 

[Skull Pilot]

they had their chance to take those savages out when the captain made a break for it.

It's called target separation. When he has swimming for it, the crew of the destroyer had a chance to light up those scurvy dogs and send them straight to Davy Jones' locker in a hail of 50 cal machine gun shells

Why do you suppose they didn't. Were they unprepared? Did they not think to anticipate such an opportunity?

Or were our sailors and Marines aboard that destroyer ordered not to save a fellow American and to spare the lives of the criminals?

Guess where I stand.

 

[krotchdog]

Skull Pilot, they did not have a translator to read the people thier rights. They commited a crime, I heard the sound bite of our Secretary of state said this is a crime that the world must come together for. So first they need the proper translator, read the rights, than they got to get the world together in order to try the guys. You cannot blow people away anymore, they have rights, they are innocent until proven guilty, I will find the clip of hillary stating its a crime, we all know Obama said its time for change, everything will change, even how the nave reacts, did you here they brought the FBI in. Its a Federal crime, Obama bowed to the king, its change.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Skull Pilot, they did not have a translator to read the people thier rights. They commited a crime, I heard the sound bite of our Secretary of state said this is a crime that the world must come together for. So first they need the proper translator, read the rights, than they got to get the world together in order to try the guys. You cannot blow people away anymore, they have rights, they are innocent until proven guilty, I will find the clip of hillary stating its a crime, we all know Obama said its time for change, everything will change, even how the nave reacts, did you here they brought the FBI in. Its a Federal crime, Obama bowed to the king, its change.

BULLSHIT

So once again, the so called constitutional rights of a criminal come before the safety and well being of a victim? They are holding a man at gun point and threatening his life, when the opportunity presents itself to save the victim, that's is what should have been done.

Oh and BTW, these savages are NOT protected under the US constitution and as far as I'm concerned have no rights.

 

[Amanda]

This whole sit has me sick. I can't believe we haven't sent in Spec Op or Marines to end this crap. I would be sorry if the Cap died, but he put himself in that position knowing what it could mean, so it would be a death with honor if it happened. I would be happy to die if I were in his position if it meant the pirates would get their justice. I know that sounds harsh, but some things ARE worth dying for.

 

[garyd]

You do it the Spetsnatz way. The Barbarians we are dealing with here understand that. By now we have good I.D.s on these people. You bring a couple of F/A-18's by them low and slow and let them know they aren't going to be alone in there deaths if anything happens to the Captain and that if the Captain isn't released in 15 minutes not only will they day but so will everyone at their base of operations which will shortly there after be bombed into oblivion. The one thing you do not do is pay the damn ransom. People willingly paying ransoms to these asshats is why we are still having to deal with this crap.

Billions for defense not one red cent for tribute.

 

[Annie]

I agree with most posts above, this posting says it pretty concisely, the Pirates show what's sick with the West:

Chicago Boyz » Blog Archive » A Vacuum of Will

A Vacuum of Will
Posted By Shannon Love On April 10, 2009 @ 2:25 pm In Civil Society, Crime and Punishment, Law, Leftism, Terrorism |

Significant piracy has been so long gone from the world that the very word “pirate” evokes only images of 17th-century sailing ships armed with blackpowder weapons. Now pirates have returned to the choke points of the world’s oceans. What has changed? Why could we deal with pirates 150, 100 or 50 years ago but we can’t deal with them today?

I think that, as with terrorism, the return of piracy indicates the collapse of international law and the liberal order it establishes. It tells us how dysfunctional international law has become. ...

...

Half of the polity now argues that unlawful and inhumane tactics merely represent the desperation of the justified underdog instead of the callousness of the cruel and greedy. In such a moral environment, those who must fight and apprehend pirates understand that they will face far harsher judgment, with far less presumption of innocence, than will the pirates. Why should they risk their reputations, careers, freedoms and lives just to uphold the law when they know their most likely reward will be a knife in the back?

In a world in which a country is sanctioned and ostracized for responding to overt large-scale attacks on its civilian population, what kind of support can a naval officer fighting pirates expect? If responding to attacks on civilians gets one branded a war criminal what will happen to those who respond to attacks on economic interests? What kind of justice can they expect in a world [5] in which in any court in any country has the presumed legal right to pass judgment on the actions of any individual anywhere in the world?

In a vacuum of will, the brutal and the criminal prosper. Lawlessness spreads until it becomes the accepted norm. People no longer put any trust in laws and lawful institutions. Lawless and despotic authoritarianism seems the only alternative to a chaotic and violent anarchy. This is the future we face.

Forty years ago it would seem pathetically funny that a group of people in a fishing boat armed with nothing more than assault rifles and RPGs could capture ships out from under the nose of the U.S. Navy, but today we regard it as a “very serious and complicated problem.” It isn’t. Modern piracy is a trivial problem with simple, proven and well understood solutions. The fact that we cannot deal with it tells us how sick we’ve become.

 

[garyd]

Hear, Hear. By the way the Spetsnaz way was everyone's way of dealing with Pirates in their hey day. You killed the bastards and were done with it as quickly and cheaply as possible.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

they had their chance to take those savages out when the captain made a break for it.

It's called target separation. When he has swimming for it, the crew of the destroyer had a chance to light up those scurvy dogs and send them straight to Davy Jones' locker in a hail of 50 cal machine gun shells

Why do you suppose they didn't. Were they unprepared? Did they not think to anticipate such an opportunity?

Or were our sailors and Marines aboard that destroyer ordered not to save a fellow American and to spare the lives of the criminals?

Guess where I stand.

Unless a special detail was assigned Marines do NOT serve aboard Destroyers normally.

 

[garyd]

Nope but there are still a hell of a lot small caliber close defense weapons available now since the USS Cole incident

 

[editec]

Is it a US flagged ship?

NO?

Then it's not up to us to solve the problem, is it?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Is it a US flagged ship?

NO?

Then it's not up to us to solve the problem, is it?

It has a US crew and WE are the main Naval presence in the area. Last I checked it is the duty and responsibility of the US Government to safe guard, aid and protect US citizens across the planet. Now if this were IN a foreign Country you would have a point,as then the responsibility falls to the host Nation and we are limited in available responses.

This however is in International waters with US Naval presence.

 

[del]

Is it a US flagged ship?

NO?

Then it's not up to us to solve the problem, is it?

it is a us flagged ship with a home port of norfolk, va.

it is owned by a danish corp and operated by a us based subsidiary

MV Maersk Alabama - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[garyd]

Since Piracy was in it's infancy it has always been the duty of whatever maritime power was in area to deal with pirates regardless of what vessel was in distress or whose flag it was flying.

 

[Ravi]

I think we should give Obama a cutlass and a pair of speedos, drop him in the drink from a helicopter and watch him single-handedly defeat the pirates on prime time news.

 

[del]

I think we should give Obama a cutlass and a pair of speedos, drop him in the drink from a helicopter and watch him single-handedly defeat the pirates on prime time news.

you obviously haven't seen him bowl.