There Is Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself: Franklin D. Roosevelt
Take a good hard look at the picture below. It is the USS Bainbridge with a Somali dingy in the foreground. The P-3 Orion aircraft that are also in the area are not shown. This is a lot of firepower for the size and scope of the mission. It is a great show of force by the Obama administration, that as we see is not instilling much in the way of fear within the Somali pirates that have U.S. citizen Captain Richard Phillips as a hostage. They have made the demand of $2 MM for his return.
My question to the Obama administration is what Plan B is. These pirates have nothing, and "when you ain't got nothing you ain't got nothing to lose" (Bob Dylan 1965). They live in a failed state and are being directed to do what they do by business interests on shore. These men I am sure are considered expendable by their employers and are therefore in a desperate situation.
The pirates want what they want which is money and they want it much like they have gotten it in every hijacking they have done in the past. They made the mistake this time of targeting a U.S. flagged vessel for the fact that it has brought world attention to the problem that before has been a story buried on page 5.
We can bring an aircraft carrier to the region, but unfortunately for this extremely brave Captain who behaved as a captain will, the only real deterrent going forward is to attack the boat, hopefully save the Captains life, but in the process indicate that going forward there will be no negotiating with terrorists.
A pirate with all of romantic thoughts back to the age of Captain Hook, is a terrorist plain and simple. I realize this sounds callaus, and if it was me or a family member or friend of mine I may hesitate to say it.
The Obama administration is now being put in the position of its second foreign affairs test having failed the first one over the North Korea missile launch. The longer this standoff drones on, the weaker we will look. The more we try and negotiate and fail, the weaker we will look. There is no time for U.N. threats or to get a coalition of our allies together, but it is now the time for swift, definitive action out of this administration that says to the world, do not f__k with the United States.
We have not heard much from the President on this issue, and there are hopefully high level talks that are being conducted, but these are the types of situations where the American public needs to hear what the President has to say. He has not been shy in his first days in office as I seem to see him every time I turn on my T.V. Where is he now?
My hopes and prayers go out to this brave Captain's family and friends
and I hope to God that he comes out of this okay, but we need to exert our force and resolve this situation.
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