So, which lefty will be the first one to say that Obama's decision to use force will just cause more terrorism? That's all we heard after Afghanistan and Iraq.NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Navy snipers on the fantail of a destroyer cut down three Somali pirates in a lifeboat and rescued an American sea captain in a surprise nighttime assault in choppy seas Easter Sunday, ending a five-day standoff between a team of rogue gunmen and the world's most powerful military.
It was a stunning ending to an Indian Ocean odyssey that began when 53-year-old freighter Capt. Richard Phillips was taken hostage Wednesday by pirates who tried to hijack the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama. The Vermont native was held on a tiny lifeboat that began drifting precariously toward Somalia's anarchic, gun-plagued shores.
The operation, personally approved by President Barack Obama, quashed fears the saga could drag on for months and marked a victory for the U.S., which for days seemed powerless to resolve the crisis despite massing helicopter-equipped warships at the scene.
Negotiations with the three pirates were growing heated, Vice Adm. Bill Gortney said.
One of them pointed an AK-47 at the back of Phillips, who was tied up and in "imminent danger" of being killed when the commander of the nearby USS Bainbridge made the split-second decision to order his men to shoot, Gortney said. Navy snipers took aim at the pirates' heads and shoulders, he said. The lifeboat was about 25-30 yards away and was being towed by the Bainbridge at the time, he said.
A fourth pirate had surrendered earlier in the day and could face life in a U.S. prison.
The rescue was a dramatic blow to the pirates who have preyed on international shipping and hold more than a dozen ships with about 230 foreign sailors. But it is unlikely to do much to quell the region's growing pirate threat, which has transformed one of the world's busiest shipping lanes into one of its most dangerous. It also risked provoking retaliatory attacks.
"This could escalate violence in this part of the world, no question about it," said Gortney, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.
Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding the Greek ship anchored in the Somali town of Gaan, said: "Every country will be treated the way it treats us. In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying," he told The Associated Press. "We will retaliate (for) the killings of our men."
Jamac Habeb, a 30-year-old self-proclaimed pirate, told the AP from one of Somalia's piracy hubs, Eyl, that: "From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill them (the hostages)."
"Now they became our number one enemy," Habeb said of U.S. forces.
There is an answer to threats against the United States. No U.S. flag ship should be allowed to operate in the dangerous parts of the world without armed defenders aboard. I realize the International Law of the Sea supposedly prohibit arms aboard civilian merchant ships, but if I was Obama I'd announce that effectively immediately the law has been amended whether anyone else likes it or not.
The pirates won't knowingly go after a ship with armed defenders. They may be crooks but they're not stupid.
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