Here's my concern: Why hasn't President Obama issued some kind of statement expressing outrage about an American ship being attacked by pirates and an American captain being held hostage? He could have at least expressed sympathy for the family of the hostage.
What a sickening lack of leadership. Is he afraid of offending the pirates? Does he think the most powerful country in the world might one day need the help of the failed state of Somalia? Is this part of his "we're not at war with Islam" thing? Are we sending a message that this behavior is acceptable or that the president just doesn't notice? Is this like the AIG bonuses where he just needs some time to think about it first? If anyone else is mad about this, I suggest going to the White House website and sending an email about it. I'm not a Bush fan but at least he would have said something.
Because the impoverished have nothing else to turn to than violence-- I suppose.
The USN needs to increase patrols along the Horn of Africa. It's a major shipping lane and we have the largest of the handful of blue water navies still operational.
We need to deal these pirates a blow, and make sure that no ships, regardless of the flag they fly, get attacked by these cowardly assholes.
Because the impoverished have nothing else to turn to than violence-- I suppose.
The last time a US ship was hijacked was more than 200 years ago. Our response was the Tripolitan War. After we kicked ass on those pirates, they did not hijack another American ship again.
So far Obama is doing exactly what I would have expected from him.
A Carter Re-run.
I don't expect him to do this. I expect him to do his diplomatic BS job until the hostage is released and then unleash holy terror upon specified targets as a warning and retribution. Nothing has deterred "the enemy" from harming American citizens than a good show of violence and display that we can get to anybody.
........There is a reason that Americans are the least messed with in these backwards nations. "Revenge" and lesson enforcement is something we do well when the cameras aren't rolling. I'm sure the rest of their pirate brood are swearing their names for crossing the line.
....because we are the world's policeman and it is our duty to make sure the rest of the world gets its diapers changed on a regular basis? Aren't we criticized and accused of pretending to be the world's policeman? Aren't we told by our "friends" that we should poke our noses into world affairs less? After all, the real threat to global peace is America; haven't you heard?
With the American Navy floating around the world guarding all the major shipping lanes and patrolling the oceans for American protection, maybe the glorious French..or China...or Russia...or Germany could do for the rest of the world "no matter what flag they fly" for a change.
I found it hugely ironic how the world jumped on the "I hate America" band wagon for years over a damn dictator we were supposed to continue falling over for and now looks towards America to solve yet another global issue for them. And if we do as the US Sailors and Marines did to the Barabary Pirates 200 years ago then we will merely be scoffed at for doing it for ourselves no matter how much the rest benefit under our wing.
I don't expect him to do this. I expect him to do his diplomatic BS job until the hostage is released and then unleash holy terror upon specified targets as a warning and retribution. Nothing has deterred "the enemy" from harming American citizens than a good show of violence and display that we can get to anybody.
........There is a reason that Americans are the least messed with in these backwards nations. "Revenge" and lesson enforcement is something we do well when the cameras aren't rolling. I'm sure the rest of their pirate brood are swearing their names for crossing the line.
The money spent on boats and guns could have been used to start a legitimate business with an inventory.
The garbage has nothing but themselves to blame. We were there to feed them and to stand them upright and they returned the world's good will with violence and mayhem. The strong man rules parts of Africa because the weak remain divided and afraid.
Remember the recapture of the USS Philidelphia by the first US Marines. The Philidelphia had been captured and its crew taken hostage. The crew was removed from the ship and taken to Tripoli. The Marines recaptured the ship which had run aground in the harbor then set fire to the ship so the muslem jihadist pirates could not use it against us. After this they went ashore and capturied the city of Tripoli. This took place on Febuary 16, 1804.
I don't forsee Obama launching attacks on Somali pirates, won't happen. It'd be great if he did, made it clear we won't tolerate such behavior, but Obama won't do it.
Not without the UN approving and supporting it, and they won't.
This brave captian will get hauled back to shore, and ransom will set him free, and that's how this plays out.
Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and seizing slaves.
The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages had a high casualty rate. It was typical of Muslim raiders to kill off as many of the "non-Muslim" older men and women as possible so the preferred "booty" of only young women and children could be collected.
Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of Muslim men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and to have as many concubines as their fortunes allow.
Boys, as young as 9 or 10 years old, were often mutilated to create eunuchs who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle East. Muslim slave traders created "eunuch stations" along major African slave routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated that only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived after the surgery.
When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.
Because American commerce in the Mediterranean was being destroyed by the pirates, the Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties with the four Barbary States. Congress appointed a special commission consisting of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, to oversee the negotiations.
Lacking the ability to protect its merchant ships in the Mediterranean, the new America government tried to appease the Muslim slavers by agreeing to pay tribute and ransoms in order to retrieve seized American ships and buy the freedom of enslaved sailors.
Adams argued in favor of paying tribute (appeasement) as the cheapest way to get American commerce in the Mediterranean moving again. Jefferson was opposed. He believed there would be no end to the demands for tribute and wanted matters settled "through the medium of war." He proposed a league of trading nations to force an end to Muslim piracy.
In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain.
The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote to appease.
During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.
In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."
For the following 15 years, the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.
Not long after Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, he dispatched a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress.
Declaring that America was going to spend "millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American Marines and many of America's best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast.
The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all saw action.
In 1805, American Marines marched across the desert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves.
During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbling as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by Marines, finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy.
Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn, with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, We fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea."
It wasn't until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total defeat of all the Muslim slave trading pirates.
Jefferson had been right. The "medium of war" was the only way to put and end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a "visionary" wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own Muslim book of jihad.
A lesson can be learned from the way Jefferson handled jihadist pirates. Its been said before that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. This is evident today as Europe, Russia, and others pay ransom to appease pirates. I agree with GySgt, we must attack the ports that these pirates use and put an end to this once and for all. But we should not have to do it alone, the Russians and Chinise should join us in this effort.
Here is another intresting fact about this international incident. The Alabama was raided by jihadist pirates the U.S flagged cargo ship was cruising the Indian Ocean en route to Mombassa. The 21 Americans in the crew were trying to deliver tons of food and other agricultural materials for the World Food Program, to be distributed among destitute Muslims in that Kenyan port city, and beyond.
Thats right the evil Americans were delivering aid to African muslims. This brings to mind the aid to Africa that was tripled by President Bush. Something that Bush didn't get credit for from his political enemies and most of the world outside of Africa. In fact the United States has done more for human rights and aid to feed the worlds starving masses than any other nation on earth.
I think we do this whole African-Aid stuff all wrong to begin with. We drop it in their countries and expect them to share....
Hell no, Warlords make mad bank off of aide.
How do you sugest we do it? Have the military distribute it.
It is American interests that were hit this time, so yes, America needs to get involved, and deliver another ass kicking to pirates on the high seas. Seems that they have forgotten the lesson we gave them a little over 200 years ago.
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