the childish nature of this "pirates! pirates! pirates! arghhh" crap is easily dispensed with -- well, not so easily, evidently -- in looking at what a fucking disaster we have been at doing anything in any way to resolve the failed state of somalia...

that's where obama has to bridge this pirate bullshit in an adult, responsible, and world-leadership way...

all the rest is a disappeared white woman who happens to be a sea captain...

The funny thing I noticed about the coverage was that after the rescue, CNN was talking about how it was a leadership success for Obama, whereas on Fox News (where all the "leadership test for Obama" talk started), Obama wasn't mentioned at all.

Pirate-fighting seems like one of those things that our all-singing-all-dancing drones would be really helpful with. Just camp a few out over the shipping lanes, and anytime a boat approaches the lanes from the side (in an interested-in-ships way, not an interested-in-traveling way), alert all the ships in the area.

If that's not enough, escalate, perhaps pay those boats some "friendly" visits, with a destroyer or two.

Steve,

You're inclined to give the credit for the job accomplished to the people who actually did the work. Conservatives, however, all know that nothing is done unless the leader directs and controls it - unless he is Republican and incompetent as Bush was. Then you simply laud the occasional moderate action that passes for success and ignore the great massive failures like destroying the financial system and economy, then ignoring the problems he had created for the last year or so of his occupation of the presidential job slot.

Does this "success" mean that Obama should get a pay raise to, oh, say $25 million a year? Oh, wait, I forgot. He's a Democrats. Democrats aren't worth being paid. Again, ask the conservatives, especially as they consider what labor is worth to the auto companies (or any other.) Or American Airlines where the executives get multi-million dollar bonuses each year for surviving massive financial losses, while the pilots, mechanics and air crew take pay cuts repeatedly just to save the company.

Sure this became a test of leadership for Obama. But since he is a Democrat, the media and other conservatives will never admit that anything he might succeed at is a test. Since the event turned out successfully, it will disappear as a test. Something else will be determined to be "the" test of leadership. If the new "test" succeeds, it, too, will disappear into the media black hole. Only events that fail will remain visible as "tests of leadership."

Let's not forget, and esp not forget to constantly remind everyone on all sides, that in the big scheme of things, this entire episode was only a "50 cent crime", and not a "$5,000 crime". There are numerous hostage-at-gunpoint situations in this country in any given year, and the local police typically handle them. Our president didn't act "presidential"; he acted as he was supposed to: as a sheriff, prudently. Time to move on.

While those destroyers are paying "visits", dr2chase, how about having them stop a few of those illegal poaching fishing ships controlled by tainted money in Europe.

However, this was an excellent rescue, although, Shrub would have just put on his play scuba gear, played AquaMan and taken action in hand.

As someone mentioned in the last thread, wingnuts are so impervious to reality that Redstate.com had the headline "Captive Captain Saves President Obama".

Despite limited and conflicting reports on the details of the original hijacking, the standoff and the rescue, the wingnuts are now pushing the line that the only reason the incident wasn't over with days earlier was indecisive and overly restrictive terms of engagement foisted on the military by Obama. They claim that it was only a lack of authorization that prevented the navy from rescuing the captain when he jumped overboard on Friday and that it was only his courage in jumping overboard again on Saturday (note reports from the scene now indicate he was tied up and did not jump overboard a second time) gave the navy the opening to take out the pirates.

They conveniently ignore the fact that as good as Navy Seal snipers are, there is always a risk taking a shot at hijackers who are in close proximity to a hostage or hostage, particularly when both the firing platform and the target are bobbing up and down in the waves. Also ignored is that the pirates have generally avoided killing hostages up to now and that this outcome runs the risk of escalating the level of violence in future pirate attacks, particularly on American flagged vessels. So while the final outcome is emotionally satisfying and was probably necessary due to the risk to the captain, it was worth trying to avoid it if practical.

this entire episode was only a "50 cent crime", and not a "$5,000 crime"

It's time to stop thinking in these terms. This was the second container vessel hijacked in a week. The other, a german vessel, is still being held with 24 hostages. The idea that 4 men with AK47's can take over a ship like these, means a Cole-style attack would be even easier. Since the two main focuses of Al-Qaeda are US military and trade, that should make this a top priority.

tanstaafl beat me to it. Red State The Weekly World News of blogdom. Next up Obama secretly staged the whole incident to make himself look good.

BHO's shameless kowtowing to the Europeans and the Muslim world had emboldened the Somali pirates to attack a US ship. BHO was responsible for the attack in the first place. And now , the fact that force was necessary tro free Phillips means that all future hostages will be in more danger. Their blood will be on BHO's hands.

Remember the rules:

Rule 1) When convenient, piracy = terrorism = Al Qaeda

Rule 2) When an event like this unfolds 'favorably', it is not due to the president (when he/she is a democrat)

Rule 3) When an event like this unfolds 'unfavorably', it is the fault of the president (when he/she is a democrat)

Rule 4) Rethugnicans get to determine whether an outcome is favorable or unfavorable

Rule 5) The corporate media will agree with the rethugs

The resolution of this yesterday must be severely disappointing to David Gregory. He spent a large portion of "Meet the Press" discussing, with rethugs, how Obama must be 'soft on piracy'!

Al, you're pretty goddamned dumb, aren't you?

Danp, do you seriously believe any al-Quada types could get anywhere close to a US Navy vessel since that infamous Cole attack? The Somalian pirates have not gone after any military vessel. Plus, where is the al-Quada tie-in with these former fishermen, turned pirates? This is not to say al-Q types have not tried to insert themselves into the Grover Norquistesque non-goverment mess called Somalia, but, the pirating?

The true leadership of Obama, was that he kept this ridiculous pirate non-sense in its place. Never elevated it to his primary concern like Shrub would have. His main focus while all this was going on was still on the economy, health care, the Bush wars, etc.

Presidents have incidents and contingencies all the time, but they still have to do their job. I'm so glad our armed forces are finally under competent leadership again.

Conservatives will probably start blathering that Somali pirates are an example of why we need to continue funding the F-22, the future combat vehicle and a missile defense system. We can't let the world think America's gone soft.

Those Navy marksmen were just firing Zell Miller's "pea shooters." That's no good when you're entire democratic form of government is on the line.

1.) Solution to the pirates: (a) Blockade their ports; (b) when their "we're-gonna-mess-with-you-ships" try to come out and play, send them back to their primordial-ooze ancestors.

2.) Solution to the redstate trolls: See 1 (above).

GOP = Self interest, other destruction. The Grand NO Party. No constructive ideas. "No", Obama didn't have a role in this success, "No", we won't vote for the stimulus bill, or the budget bill, "No" we can't take care of our sick and our old and our veterans in the richest country in the world. No, no, no.

I heard a right-wing hack say on the radio this morning, "What if some Acorn-type, left wing rabble-rouser shows up at our 'tea party'?" The tea-party of 'no' commences, and the big, bad, macho wingnuts are scared of a bunch of anti-war, peace-loving, equality loving, diplomacy promoting left wingers!!! /These guys are so transparent, and so full of sheeite, it makes me wonder how they sleep at night.

Of course, none of us wil really know how our President is perceived, until we find out on which side of the bed Tweety Bird has awakened. Stay tuned for "Hardball". However, even that depends upon the force of and direction of the wind as Chrissy motors to the studio. Could it be another of his "Stevens never should have been prosecuted" days or "McCain would have wasted all of those guys, but, Obama?".

berttheclock - No, what I think is that if they sunk a container vessel or two with 1100-2500 containers of cargo, it would seriously disrupt trade and be a major political and financial nightmare.

What if international trade wasn't quite as important as we're making it out to be? What if a lessening in shipping were part of the solution for the problems associated with fossil fuel caused, CO2 buildup, in the atmosphere?

The real leadership test would have come if any of the snipers' shots had accidentally killed Phillips. Then Obama would have had to take the blame for authorizing the use of force.

And I'm pretty sure he could've explained why he made exactly the right choice.

Al, you're pretty goddamned dumb, aren't you?
Posted by: Ken

Al's a parody troll.

At some point over the last few days, the hostage standoff with Somali pirates became a leadership test for President Obama. I'm not sure how or why, and I'm less sure this makes sense, but it apparently happened anyway.

Makes even less sense when you realize that according to wingnut logic, the mighty US Navy can't even deal with four lightly-armed pirates in a liferaft without getting the fucking president involved....

Yes, the conservative double standard.

Early in his Presidency Bush was challenged by the Chinese who captured a U.S. military plane. He rattled his sabre. They literally cut the plane to pieces.

Imagine how conservatives would react if, in the above paragraph, "Obama" were substituted for "Bush". It's not hard to imagine is it?". Yet in 2001, they just acted like the whole incident never happened.

Similarly, first assholes like troll "Al" want to blame the wanton Somalian piracy -- which has been going on since 2005 -- on Obama. When the rescue mission succeeds, they want to pretend that it succeeded in spite of Obama.

Yes, these are the same people who want to pretend the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a great success -- ignoring all their pre-invasion statements about how easy it was going to be.

Meanwhile, a simple analysis of the rescue operation indicates that if Obama had any effect at all on the operation -- and there is no evidence that he did -- it would have been to stress to the commanders to do exactly what they thought was most likely to succeed, and to ignore any political or media pressures for fast action.

Which is Obama's style. He provides the basic guidelines and let's the experts execute their plans. Ironically the last president to operate in this manner -- that is, to not interfere with the details -- was GHW Bush. His military operations also tended to go very well.

So conservatives wanted the hostage situation to be a leadership test for President Obama. Good thing for President Obama, the U.S., and mankind, that conservatives are not cognitive enough to be careful for what they wish, because they get it

For President Obama, last week's confrontation with Somali pirates posed similar political risks to a young commander in chief who had yet to prove himself to his generals or his public.

Note the bizarre right-wing framing inherent in this unsourced and disturbing assertion that the president somehow has to "prove" himself to his generals. Where I come from, the generals simply have to obey the president since he's the legitimate executive authority, and no further proof is needed than the fact that he won the fucking election.

It's a situation with all upside risk and downside lack of credit. If the rescue attempt failed, Obama would be screamed at. Since it succeeded, we need to ensure that he gets the credit, modest and circumscribed, that he is due.

Oddly enough, it seems conservatives wanted it this way.

Steve, I am generally not aggressively cynical by nature, but jeeze….. It seems to me that many conservatives made this an issue because of the likelihood of, at least partial, mission failure. They made a test case out of a difficult, if not overly important, situation that they knew could be challenging to handle with complete success.

But guess what?

This was a minor incident not very different from say a bank holdup and hostage taking in Pocomoke city. The right clearly salivating at the prospect of failure so they could attack the president made complete jackasses of themselves yet again. Watching a couple of them yesterday morning very clearly hoping for some sort of national failure was unseemly in the extreme. It was no different from the desire for economic failure and just as damaging. They just don't seem to be able to help themselves.

Obama could personally discover a cure for cancer and Beck/Hannity/Limbaugh would twist it into something negative. "Unhinged" is becoming an apt moniker for the Right side of the political & cultural divide.

Hmm... I wonder why Somalis hate us - could it be because we illegally invaded the country on Jan.8 2007?

The United States began arming, training, and financing the armed forces of the Ethiopian dictatorship in preparation for an invasion of Somalia, despite the fact that such an act of aggression is a clear violation of the UN Charter, which – as a signed and ratified international treaty – both Ethiopia and the United States are obliged to uphold.

After weeks of clashes on Somali territory, Ethiopian forces launched a full-scale invasion on December 24. Four days later, Ethiopian forces advanced to Mogadishu, installing the TFG in government offices. Since that time, violence and lawlessness have returned to the Somali capital. Fighting between various armed factions has reignited, roadblocks manned by various militias have sprung up to extort money from passing motorists, and the peace enjoyed under ICU rule has come to an end.

As ICU forces retreated southward, the U.S. Navy tightened its blockade of the Somali coast. On January 8, the United States launched a series of strikes in southern Somalia. Despite initial claims by U.S. officials that the air strikes killed senior al-Qaida officials implicated in several notorious terrorist attacks in East Africa, it now appears that the scores of people killed were primarily civilians, along with some ICU militiamen. The attacks have set off waves of anti-American anger in Mogadishu and elsewhere.

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3909

Most of the hostages, like most of the merchant marine workers of the world, are Filipino, and they're still stuck. I am sure the French mounted the rescue effort that it did because the hostages were civilians, including two women and a child. Somalia is hell on earth for everyone without a gun, but it is truely gruesome for women and children.

It would be a sad day for hostages, but until international shipping companies foreswear the payment of ransom, piracy will continue unabated.

Other alternatives include blockading Somali ports and mounting some kind of convoy system for ships, that would allow the military to intervene when pirates come near.

BHO's shameless kowtowing to the Europeans and the Muslim world had emboldened the Somali pirates to attack a US ship.

Oh, yes, absolutely. The pirates spend much of their time on shore watching Fox News and are really following American politics.

The tying of this incident to Obama's leadership is foolish. In a way, this kind of incident is the same thing that has been happening, on a smaller scale, in major US cities for decades - a criminal hostage situation. Obama did what any leader would have done. To be fair, I think McCain would probably have handled it exactly the same, as would have Bush - militarily, I mean. The difference is the rabid "anti-cheerleaders" of the right that pounced on it as some kind of rite of passage.

I do think that as international hostage situations go, it was a lot less nuanced and diffcult to handle than the captured US plane in China, back before 9/11 - which I think Bush rather bungled. Not that the right wingers criticizing Obama now would remember.

So how soon before the loony right starts spinning this as "Obama orders the murder of Somalia citizens"?

I should have added: the Somali pirates who attacked this boat had no idea what the nationality of the crew members or the captain was and they manifestly don't care. Though the problem of piracy may require a political solution, the pirates are not politically motivated with respect to the ships. It is pure commerce, no more and no less comparable to a mafioso force on water. If you can overlook the horrendous moral bankruptcy of the mafia enough to enjoy mafia movies now and again, then you can "get" what motivates pirates. Seeing it as "political" is stupid.

Cool: "Yet in 2001, they just acted like the whole [Hainan Island] incident never happened."

As I recall, it was quickly overwhelmed by other news that year. What was it again? Oh yeah -- shark attacks!

steve duncan: "Obama could personally discover a cure for cancer and Beck/Hannity/Limbaugh would twist it into something negative."

Heh. Took me about two seconds to imagine: "...By keeping all those old cancer patients alive, Obama's blowing a hole in Social Security!"

I may have my history wrong, but isn't the reason we have a Jefferson Memorial and even remember the guy is that he successfully took on the pirates in North Africa? I mean really would Jefferson even be a footnote in history if the pirate thing had turned out badly?

ROFL, excellent snark terry.

Yeah, I felt like Nelson hah-hahing Newt Gingrich yesterday morning on George Stephanapoulos.

But....
You know, this had a happy ending but I'm afraid that it's going to complicate things. What happens to the next American taken hostage?

NY Times had good rundown today on the problems the shipowners face as far as arming their crews. Oil tankers could become deadly infernos if a crew has to exchange gunfire with pirates.

And don't forget, the piracy began because Somalia can't control its own waters and international trawlers were invading the local fishermen's space and depriving them of their livelihoods.

The so-called "Barbary Wars" resulted in hundereds of deaths and other casualties, and I doubt there is even an accounting of how many crew members on merchant vessels were killed. Of course, this was before we saw these things in our living rooms in real time. We might want to think twice before repeating this history.

From: Republican National Committee
To: non-RINO's in mass media
Re: Somalia piracy

Though it's natural your first reaction to the resolution of this conflict might be joy, gratitude, praising the Navy SEALs, etc., we request that you please suppress your approval of this outcome. President Obama approved the successful action, therefore loyal conservatives must, in all good conscience nitpick, cavil about and pooh-pooh the significance of the achievement. Please internalize and disburse the following ideologically correct talking points:

1. "Resist Tyranny!" Note the slippery slope irresistably connecting U.S. Naval action against lawless pirates with the institution of FEMA re-education camps.

2. "Get the Federal Government OFF OUR BACKS". Characterize the Somalians as entrepreneurs, simple fishermen "making lemonade" despite their impoverished circumstances. Interview the most attractive, English-speaking relatives of the pirates.

3. "Obama = Uncle Tom." Why is Obama siding with whitey against working class black people? Use black on-air talent to interview reliable Republican UT's in appropriate (i.e., urban hip-hop) settings to raise this issue.

4. "2nd Amendment uber alles." Observe wryly that if every merchant vessel was armed as well as the average Oklahoman we wouldn't have this piracy problem in the first place. Suppress information suggesting this would cause the cost of liability insurance to skyrocket.

5. "Rove Rule #1." Downplay Captain Richard Phillip's selfless heroism until we devise a way to spin that as a character flaw.

6. "Blame Bill." Work Pres. Clinton's failure in Mogadishu into the report as much as possible.

Get to work, dittoheads!

Now republicans can demand that Obama DO something (lest the US appear weak to terrorists) about the pirate menace in Somalia, conveniently forgetting that pirates have been kidnapping people and hijacking ships off the Somali coast for years. It was a problem throughout the Bush presidency, but, as usual, republican memory is short (about 3 months).

I'm certainly no fan of Jonah Goldberg but at least hie said this obvious here:

corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGYzYjE0MmIyYzY1MDQ4MzEzMTEwZDFkZTNlYTI1YWQ=

Later Goldberg noted that his National Review readers hammered him with emails complaining about this Corner post. I guess integrity is such a rare event for Goldberg that he had to restate his praise for President Obama on this one. Good for him!

I know I should be thinking about all of the political implications, but I'm still stuck on, "Damn, our snipers are good!" Shooting at night from the back of a ship into a lifeboat simultaneously and successfully killing all three targets? Those guys definitely deserve a medal of some kind, if only for their sharpshooting skills.

Good to see the libtards are still busy with their political charades. The saddest part is that these fools actually believe their own BS. Self delusion is essential for liberals to survive life and reality. Without it, they would be reduced to curling up in a corner, sucking their thumbs and blaming Bush.

Liberalism is a mental defect.

In some ways, the Maersk Alabama incident is similar to the capture (by the Cambodians) and recapture of the Mayaguez in May 1975, immediately after the withdrawal of the final U.S. forces from Vietnam. President Ford wanted a show of force to signal U.S. willingness to defend its interests, and perhaps this week's show of force will help secure the Indian Ocean sea lanes.

As I recall, it was quickly overwhelmed by other news that year. What was it again? Oh yeah -- shark attacks!

And Condit! That was the summer that CNN became the Condit News Network. And a good thing, too, because he was sure guilty as hell.

Oh.

Wait a minute.

Well, anyway, it was good to pick on Condit because a young white woman in his employ was mysteriously killed, and there were rumors that he was having an affair with her, and he was a Democrat.

That last clause is, of course, essential. Because if a young Congressman is rumored to be having an affair with a young white woman in his employ, and she is mysteriously killed (say) in his district office one night, but he is a REPUBLICAN, the thing to do is for the media to hush it up and to quietly arrange for him to not run for re-election.

Then, after a suitable mourning period, to give him a job as a host of a cable news show.

Think I'm making it up? Google "Joe Scarborough" and "murder".

You know of course that if Bush had been president and this went down the same way, the nutters on the right would have written the story like Bush himself fired on the pirates and saved the day. Cpt. Codpiece to the rescue!!!!

"[T]he truth is that it's hard to see how things could have gone better for the young president."

Exactly so.

Kudos to the crew of the Alabama.

Kudos to the captain of the Alabama for risking his life to save his crew.

Kudos to the Administration for talking and preparing military action simultaneously, and for delegating authority to the military on the scene.

Kudos to the Navy SEALS for good shooting (bobbing lifeboat and rolling fantail, and all that.)

It's important that Obama did well when he might have done badly. It's not a "defining moment", but it's important.

Next up: pirates raise the stakes by killing some hostages?

I would not surprised if the ACLU did not sue the Navy seals for violating the Pirates civil rights and if lots of the loony left did not support them in the law suet!

You'd think by now Democrats would understand the need to not bring a knife to a gunfight.

Absolutely give Obama the credit for ending this standoff, which by the way is in part a result of eight years of Bush doing little to end piracy. That's something that will take world cooperation and guess who is better suited to pull that off?

Second let's use this little victory to put Desert One in the ground, that issue we've been beaten about the head and shoulders with the last 30 years.

Obama needs to build a stack of chips as high as he can, while he can, in order to accomplish the difficult tasks ahead. Please don't be foolish, make the other side concede in every forum possible that Obama won this one through his leadership as the CINC.

Authorizing the use of force was correct--the folks on the ground have the best perspective, but using it seemed a bit hokey to me. After several days without incident, one wonders if the captain was really "in imminent danger." If the snipers were to take out the pirates, taking out three at once when one had a gun "pointed at the captain's back" seems a high risk and possibly unnecessary use of deadly force. As I understand it, the boat was in tow and one pirate negotiating on the destroyer. The pirates have nobody to blame but themselves, but one wonders if there isn't a component of Obama not being able to afford looking wimpy and snipers eager to practice their trade.

'McClatchy reports that Vice Adm. William Gortney, commander of the US Fifth Fleet, "said US Navy SEAL snipers perched at the back of the USS Bainbridge - a guided-missile destroyer floating about 30 yards off the 28-foot lifeboat where Phillips was being held -- opened fire on the pirates when one of them pointed an AK-47 rifle at Phillips's back." Gortney said "the SEALs felt Phillips's life was in 'imminent danger.'"'

An oil painting of Barack Obama nude on a unicorn crushing a boat full of pirates with a monstertruck

Thank you.

KTinOhio: "President Ford wanted a show of force to signal U.S. willingness to defend its interests, and perhaps this week's show of force will help secure the Indian Ocean sea lanes."

But it backfired, since the operation to rescue the Mayaguez crew cost more lives than it saved. D'oh!