Navy Saves Captain From Pirates! Watch Phillips Thank Them

I think there should be a standing order in the ROE that says its ok to fire on pirates at the first sign of agression.

You can see the relief on his face. He has a second chance at life! I wonder if he will switch careers now?

I've been following the pirate stories in the news lately, and am supremely annoying with all the snickering and the yo-ho-ho-ing and the YARRRRRGH-ing that is implied in some stories, and that is voiced outright in the comments on most stories.

Dude, they are terrorists. And I wish to the polyfather that the media would just start calling them that.

If the story had been "Maersk Alabama Captured by Terrorists" I don't think anybody would be scoffing or questioning the seriousness of this.

Oops. While I am supremely annoyed, I would hope that I am not supremely annoying.

I'm sick of the news. I'm sick of the media choosing sides. Somalian Pirates are in existence because the British keep allowing toxic waste to be dumped off the coast of Somalia, and they're not doing anything to stop it.

Its sickening to see that fisherman are being killed because they're telling imperialist governments to stay away from their shore. I don't think it was right for them to take hostages, but at the same token, if there was a good legitimate reason for a U.S. vessel to be off the coast of Somalia, then by all means, why don't you let the people know.

This is how world wars start. Then when we cheer on these "heroes" who are only sweeping up their muddy footprints to conceal their true motives and actions, we essentially let the crookedness continue.

On a smaller scale, that is exactly whats going on in Detroit.

ladychaos, I'm interested in your post. I haven't heard about a correlation between toxic dumping and piracy. Was there an article you read about this that explains more? It just seems like a bizarre cause and effect. I mean, the pirates do this for money right?

seabee, I totally understand what you are saying, and I freely admit that I'm guilty of it. It's hard not to think of being a kid on the Pirates of the Carribean ride at Disneyland.

The word pirate is romanticized in a way that the word terrorist will never be. I would prefer to leave the word "pirate" out of it so that I can reflexively think "ARRRR" every time I hear it and not feel guilty.

I won't say this is a typical source of my news, however, I've read on several different accounts about the pirates all doing what they do to protect Somalia's coast. There was also mention of preventing illegal fishing, which is causing starvation as well. Here are links:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-vazquez/on-pirates_b_186015.html

Correction: The UN, not the British. Typing whilst tired...lol.

Why on earth would the British ship nuclear waste all the way around the horn, just to dump them off the Somali coast? You have the Mariana Trench available. I think that story has some serious holes in it.

If you would have read the articles, you would have noticed that its not the British (see UN...I had to correct myself) that are dumping, but instead random European Countries. The problem lies in the fact that Somalians have complained about it, and nobody is willing to put any pressure on these companies to stop, which is why these fisherman took matters into their own hand.

Being that the story is coming from a couple of sources, which to my knowledge have no immediate connection/relation to each other from the topic, it looks like the media once again is taking sides unfairly.

But to directly address why people wouldn't use Mariana's Trench - shorter travel. Somalia is much closer to Europe than the trench is.

And honestly, we shouldn't be dumping anything in Mariana's Trench. Talk about killing wildlife. And we wonder why we keep finding these abnormal species in desolate areas...

*Companies, not countries. Ok, I think I need to go to sleep.

I'm glad that Cpt. Phillips is well.

@ seabee - I would not call this terrorism. It is plundering and holding to ransom. Besides, news sources often opt for more accurate terms (like "piracy"); the word "terrorist" is biased and accusatory. The U.N. can't even agree upon a definition. Just ignore the ignorami.

@ ladychaos - Thank you for addressing another side to this problem.
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Articles that may be of interest:

'Toxic waste' behind Somali piracy
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2008/10/2008109174223218644.htm...

Somali pirates living the high life
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7650415.stm

Somalia’s Piracy Offers Lessons in Global Governance
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=12210

No these pirates are terrorists.

International waters don't belong to anyone, we have just a right to travel through there as anyone else. However, they have NO RIGHT, no matter WHAT is happening to attack an innocent ship, take someone hostage, demand money etc etc....

I heard that pirates made 81 million last year this way, and we're saying its because they're PO'd at toxic waste?

I don't buy it.

But it doesn't really matter because as long as we don't fight back it will just keep happening.

Obama did fight back.
And some of the pirates may question why an American patriot like yourself would criticize their concern and defense, of their people "after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died".
Our own recent history says we'd take action as well and some people would get very rich.

So you're equating our military with Somali pirates?

I'm curious, how much of that 80 million do YOU think went to helping out the poor in that country? Cuz I would be willing to bet not much at all.

It's nice to make excuses for this bad behavior though. Thats why it will continue. As long as we keep telling them its ok and they're not wrong, they'll keep attacking and people will keep getting kidnapped and it will just go on and on and on...

BTW, pirates off the horn of Africa is nothing new, it happened before the tsunami, so what is the excuse for those incidents?

No one's saying it's okay - people are saying it's not simply black and white, this side is good, that side is bad.

I said nothing about our military - I referenced motivation for action and the rewards some people reap.

re: Obama fighting back.

I think the crew disagrees, they just played video footage on the news of a pretty PO'd crewmember saying how they were under attack for a full week before Obama did anything.

That is not fighting back.

Steph I really don't understand. When these terrorism type incidents happen, you seem to be most concerned with defending the attackers. Why is that?

Yes, I understand they are people. Yes, I understand they have problems. But I thought violence isn't supposed to be the answer? And if thats not the case, and violence IS ok sometimes, then why is that sometimes usually only when it comes to criminals? Instead of, say, an innocent citizen defending themselves and their homes from a burglur?

Wow, I'm surprised to see so many closed minded people.

As I mentioned before, the kidnapping was wrong, and like most good things, greed tends to be a tainting factor.

But think about it like this: When America was trying to gain its independence from the British, weren't they taking over boats and burning things to the ground, and creating civil unrest? Weren't they triple taxing imports? You can argue and say that the Boston Tea Party was an act of terrorism, and that the extreme tariffs were going in the pockets of government officials. But we don't.

Sadly, there is so much corruption within the UN as well as our individual governments.

But you do have to ask: what the hell was the boat doing off the coast of Somalia in the first place? Were they trying to sneak a few illegal fish? Or were they hoping to be captured by pirates to create a media frenzy targeting these individuals, to frame them only to create a bad guy/hero story. After all, how long has the world been talking about these Somali pirates? Its not like its a new occurrence. Seriously, if they had any sense before (assuming their innocence), don't you think they'd take something to protect themselves with? Or at least let someone know their whereabouts and why they're going so someone can keep a close eye.

Talk about holes in a story...

"Somalian Pirates are in existence because the British keep allowing toxic waste to be dumped off the coast of Somalia, and they're not doing anything to stop it."

The Pirates that were interviewed on NPR a couple months ago were saying that they take over ships because of MONEY. He said that you can't make that much money being a fisherman, and there is no other industry in their country, so they are trying this because the financial pay off is so much greater. They get drunk and randomly target ships, it had nothing to do with dumping.

Regardless if "imperial nations" own the ships that pass through, they should not be over taken. I don't see how you can justify the murder of innocent people in international waters. I do think that dumping in the ocean is a bad thing, but they are not hijacking the ships that are dumping. They killed a French hostage a little while ago. It seems quite a stretch, IMO.

Haus, it is my understanding that they had to wait to get the Navy Seals into the area. When you have to put a plan into action, sometimes it takes time, and it takes time to move ships into place. Not to mention talks with the Somalian government. Obviously it was handled well, otherwise we would have a dead hostage like the French received recently. I am sure that "crew member" would have liked things to move faster, but he probably also didn't want his captain to die, right?

"But you do have to ask: what the hell was the boat doing off the coast of Somalia in the first place?"

Weren't they bringing FOOD AID to suffering countries??? I think it is a HUGE assumption to imply that they were there to illegally fish.

Here is why they were by Somalia:

"Among the ship's cargo were 400 containers of food aid, including 232 containers belonging to the U.N.'s World Food Programme that were destined for Somalia and Uganda."

Jillness, I'm not saying that they're not money hungry. I'm just bringing to the attention their initial reason for being out on the sea.

My intention is to play devil's advocate, and not take sides.

Has anybody caught though that the media is always making the wealthier nations look like they're innocent and doing the right thing? Just like how nobody bats an eye at British revoking the right to a democratic process in Turks and Caicos because they feel that their government isn't doing the right thing?

Funny how our own federal government hasn't stepped in to take over in Detroit due to corruption, but its ok for one country to just rearrange another country's government.

Flawed system.

Jillness, I wasn't assuming. I was literally asking because I was unaware of their intentions...

But again, if they were with the UN food program, and Somali pirates were such a big threat, then why didn't they have some sort of protection?

Why did it have to be Navy SEALS? We have ships in all sorts of areas with specials ops of all kinds - Army, Marines. We have heliocopters, and all it takes is a phone call. We have expeditionary units in the seas in that part of the world for just this type of problem.

I see what you're saying Jill, but what I'd like to hear from Obama today is "Here's what we did..." and "In the future we've put XYZ in place to solve this problem faster"

Thats why I think there needs to be some change in the ROE, because if there was, this wouldn't have gotten far at all.

Maybe it was handled ok, but it probably could have been handled a lot better, I just want to know that those practices are going to be in place, that's all.

LC - re: protection, I wondered that myself, but this was a Navy, so they had the capablity to fight back, but they need the ok. They didn't have the ok, hence why we need to change the rules of engagement for these types of ships so there is a standing order that says you can defend yourself if under attack by pirates.

As for civilian merchant ships, they often don't arm themselves, I don't think many really thought about it much before, besides there is liability in arming a ship and you have to have trained security personnel that you have to insure and are expensive.

Hopefully this will send out a huge warning call to these ships and they will start to plan accordingly.

Also its important to remember that these ships aren't just off the coast, this particular one I beleive was 450 miles off the coast, you don't use a small inflatable dingy to go 450 miles on open sea. They must have had a mother ship somewhere where they were launching these smaller boats from.

they = the pirates

Haus, your standards seem arbitrary. Obama gave the ok for our military to do what they needed to do. If the military chose to wait, then maybe they had good reason. Especially since they managed to kill the hijackers with out harming the hostage, it seems they knew what they were doing.

Yes but what I'm saying is that its not usually the military that chooses to wait, they usually have the plan and they have to wait to get the ok. So my question is why did the Ok take so long? I don't think thats an arbitrary question at all. We've had swifter action in the past, why did this take a week?

But regardless of why it took a week, how are we going to avoid this happening in the future? And what are we doing that will make force available to use in a shorter time frame if neccessary?

Thats all I really want to know. No reason to Monday morning quarterback, just want to know how we're not going to make the same mistakes again.

I realize that these boards originate in San Fran., so I do expect a liberal slant on a far amount of items. That's cool. I read anything I can get my hands on.

That being said, I wasn't surprised to find that a previous poster linked to HufPo. What did surprise me was the link to Alex Jones at Prison Planet. I thought only the "bitter-cling to your guns and religion" folks in flyover country read him. (Which includes me. )

Oops. Forgot this one. Bad brain bubbles today.

It's a little scary that some folks are on Al Jazeera, looking for news concerning Islamic terrorists. Yes, yes, I know all the arguments and that people can read what they choose. But, this little girl is proud to be a kafir and I'm no dhimmi!!!

*Note* The links that I posted were actually sent to me from a very conservative law student that I was having a conversation with about this. She was pointing out that there are two sides to every story, which is essentially why I posted them here.

"When these terrorism type incidents happen, you seem to be most concerned with defending the attackers. Why is that?"
It's your interpretation Haus.

Whenever anything comes up involving the U.S. and anyone asks if the other side has any valid points you read it as Death to America.

I was always taught that there are at least two sides to a disagreement, and that the stronger side should always try and be certain that the use of its strength against a much weaker opponent is well-thought out and justified.

@ hausfrau - You appear to believe that these men are out solely for monetary gain--not for any political, religious, or ideological reasons--and that is not terrorism. I acknowledged with the BBC News link that the reasoning for piracy has shifted (as some pirates have even publicly acknowledged). That is why they will leave without incident when approached by a patrolling vessel. It is a business with a veil of "justice". A business run by warlords. They are not trying to change their world; on that we agree.

The only reason this would continue, is if we ignore our share of the blame. All I am proposing is that we help them to help ourselves. To do that, we must learn why this problem erupted in the first place.

``What we [Operation Allied Protector] are doing is a short-term response. The long term has to come from Somalia and the situation there is not good,'' [Cmdr. Craig Baines of the HMCS Winnipeg] said.
http://www.canada.com/Canadian+warship+commander+says+deterrence+thwarti...

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Re: Al Jazeera - you can find the same information elsewhere. If you don't trust the source, seek the information elsewhere. That is what I did with Prison Planet. That is how I found the article.

By the way - 'BBC in news deal with Arabic TV'
"[Al-Jazeera's English-language internet site] aims to launch next month, and the BBC could end up overseeing the project and providing training and safety advice." (17 January 2003)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2668007.stm Scary.

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steph, I like your last point. It is very well worded.

Steph I'm really impressed that you were taught that there are 2 sides of every story considering that you so often only see one side, the side you agree with.

I certainly don't act like its death to America, but I do think we should protect our own men and women first. That should be our first priority and I expect, well actually, DEMAND it be the first priority of our President.

There is a fine line between understanding the behavior of the opposition and excusing it. Many people don't seem to understand that and when they think they might be trying to understand, they end up excusing and enabling, and what happens? Nothing changes. I also take issue with this idea that we are the stronger party. In general yes, but in that situation no. I doubt you'd think that the person getting mugged is the stronger party just because they have more money or education and therefore should try to understand the person holding them at gunpoint.... then again, maybe you would think that...

laka - The definition of terrorism according the US Federal Criminal code is :
"...activities that involve violent... ... that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State and... appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and ......(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States......(C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States..."

So yes, if they are just out for money then they are just criminals, but if they are out because they want to change the policies of their govt or how govts act towards them then (as suggested by commenters here) then they are terrorists plain and simple.

Sitting where I am in the world, I can't pretend to know exactly what was behind the decisions in terms of responding to this event.

However, isn't this the first time in a while that a country hasn't just paid the $$ to get their ship back and cowered to the demands?

We have an entire crew alive, dead pirates, a ship in perfect condition.

Now, I'm not saying that maybe we couldn't have done better, because like I said, I'm hardly privy to these decisions.

However, it seems a little nitpicky and perhaps a little presumptuous to say that Obama was just sitting around for a week.

Given how the other recent pirate situations have turned out, I'd call this a rousing success.

In fact, I'd say it's one of the only recent highlights of the administration.

Haus, according to their definition, the Iraq war was an act of terrorism. How does it qualify?

* The US used military force to influence the Iraqi government. Being that these were armed forces, you can call that intimidation.

* They affected the government by assassinating Saddam Hussein.

*It occurred primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

Now I love my country, as most of you do, however, I have no problem pointing out where there is bias in the law (which is what I'm in school for). That definition could only get more biased by including "an act against citizens of the United States". The inclusion of "United States" in the clauses shows that there tends to be an unbalanced power struggle among imperialistic nations and smaller nations.

...just saying.

There are so many flaws in that argument that I don't know what to say.

The Iraq war wasn't unprovoked, if you remember we were attacked first. Now granted, there is some disagreement there about whether or not it was an appropriate response.

But if you leave 9/11 out of it, Iraq had violated hundreds of sactions all with the clause that military action could be used against the genocidal maniac of Saddam Hussein.

I think its dangerous to ignore who started the fight when it comes to these situations. All countries have the right to protect themselves and by calling them terrorists for protecting themselves all we do is give creedence and justification to the REAL criminals.

To call the Iraq war an act of terrorism is gross over simplification that takes into account almost no facts surrounding the decision to go in. If we're operating on such a truly basic level, then I could say that the shoe thrower was a terrorist and that incident was terrorism.

Haus, Osama Bin Laden, as well as Al Qaeda at the time were stationed in Pakistan. Not to mention, they are a group of rebels. Granted, the Iraqi government was not willing to cooperate with us, but at the same time they were still NOT behind the 9/11 attacks.

I take it you're a conservative.

...also, would it be wrong for me to point out how our government under the Bush regime cared more about international affairs than making sure our own government structure was set. Talk about sanctions being broken, please, again, look at Michigan's situation. There's so much corruption in half of the city governments, it pains me to work with half of these people.

Look either way, when you look at something so simply and invoke moral relativism, that is destructive.

Its like when people say everything is a cult because the cult definition is so vague. All that does is take away from the serious problem of ACTUAL cults. Its not worth anything, theoretical arguments aren't worth anything. Realistic arguments are.

Moral relativism will be the downfall of our civilization.

I wouldn't have to look at things in such a simplistic view if you didn't make so many over-generalizations of the various comments posted that you feel to be "too liberal".

I'm pretty sure I have enough brain power to understand that governmental processes are not as simple as black and white. Like I mentioned before, if you would have cared to read, I'm offering a counter point so people can get a better understanding of the situation. If I'm taking sides on this situation, its not for me to air on a public blog, especially because there can be various repercussions that are not completely worth it.

I just wish people would take the time to stop being arrogant for their nation, and instead look at the problem from all sides to solve all problems. After all, that is what the UN is supposed to be doing, yet they are not.

Example: If the pirates are indeed pirating to gain money to give back to their country so they can afford to buy imported food because of toxic spills and illegal fishing, maybe the UN needs to send investigators and clean up crews to help them re-gain their local food sources so they wouldn't have to do such a thing. Yet, the UN has made no such statement of doing so; and have actually turned a blind eye on these people. I swear it seems like the imperialistic nations are the ones that like to "adopt" charity cases like Madonna. They seem like the good guy when they are bringing these starving people food, but they're not getting to the root of why they are starving.

This is why I offered a counter point. If you want to dissect my argument to prove your political alliances, then fine. Just don't make comments that we liberals think in a certain way because you're not trying to hear us for what we're really saying.

"The Iraq war wasn't unprovoked, if you remember we were attacked first. Now granted, there is some disagreement there about whether or not it was an appropriate response."
It's never appropriate to respond to an attack by retaliating against a bystander, whether you feel you have good reason to like that bystander or not.

"I certainly don't act like its death to America, but I do think we should protect our own men and women first. That should be our first priority and I expect, well actually, DEMAND it be the first priority of our President."
No one says protecting our own shouldn't be the first priority. But that doesn't mean 'shoot first and ask questions later'.

"I also take issue with this idea that we are the stronger party. In general yes, but in that situation no. I doubt you'd think that the person getting mugged is the stronger party just because they have more money or education and therefore should try to understand the person holding them at gunpoint.... then again, maybe you would think that..."
We have far greater military might, and our forces have far more comprehensive training than any pirate - that's indisputable.

"Steph I'm really impressed that you were taught that there are 2 sides of every story considering that you so often only see one side, the side you agree with."
Pot/kettle, for sure.

LC I certainly didn't mean to offend you and I read every one of your comments so I don't know why you think I didn't. I was meaning in the general "you". And where did I ever say the comments here were too liberal? You might see what I say as arrogance, but I think if your butt was on the line you might think differently, as the crew members did.

Steph - I never said shoot first and ask questions later. But I think waiting for another country's approval to protect our own is ludicrous and I think most people would agree.

And though we have far greater military might, when we have innocent people who can't use their weapons being held at gunpoint, sorry but we are not the powerful ones in that situation. If we were, that Capt wouldnt have been taken hostage to begin with.