Thomas Jeffeson Barbary PiratesFollow

Samy,

I'm not saying he does, or did; but believe it or not ship boat captains operating in those seas make bank. It wouldn't surprise me if the captain did have access to the 2 million the pirates requested.



Jophed,

I listened to Rush a bit earlier as well. I guess you missed the part where Rush predicated this exact outcome friday. Situation solved, media praises obama, polls go up, Obama lifts restrictions on Cuba. It's really not that difficult to see. Of course this is no different than any other president in the history of the country taking credit for a military success. Of course when W did it the media lambasted him; i.e. "mission accomplished".



Edited, Apr 13th 2009 1:51pm by hangtennow

You're out of your mind.

They have to say that though. Piracy of the sort they are using works only if the threat of violence/loss appears to be greater than the cost of fighting the pirates. Of course they'll say this, if only to try to convince other governments to keep paying them.

The most likely short term result of this will be that the pirates will just not target US flagged ships. It's not good for their business. The long term effects of that get pretty interesting (in a good way).

Yeah, it would be funny to watch him land in the middle of Baghdad square in an F-35B, wearing an AF jumpsuit and throwing up peace signs.

Just a brief history lesson, not that history has anything to tell us about today's piracy.
The United States had no navy until 6 frigates were authorized to be built in 1794. Until the frigates were built we did what many nations did, we paid them off. Even the Brits paid them off, because if they were not attacking English ships, they would go searching for other Non British ships. (Nothing like making the world safe for your businessmen.)
When we finally got a navy big enough to do something, after fighting a few battles in the Caribbean with the French in the Quasi War, we went to Tripoli and Algiers in 1805. We were so successful that we had to go back in 1815 and do it again. During that ten year period we were again paying off the pirate nations, even agreeing to build them a frigate!
The USF Constellation was one of those ships in 1815. It was the predecessor of the ship I work on.

Now to deal with another part of U.S. history.
The port of Charleston was well know for buying goods from the passing "merchant" ships without asking for bills of lading or other proof of ownership.
Yep they were dealing with pirates because they were making money off it.
Blackbeard was finally killed by a force raised by the royal governor of Virginia
who was tired of the pirates raiding his coast and making money for the merchants in South Carolina. (I have condensed the history quite a bit here.)

Don't believe everything you hear :)

Treason is specifically mentioned and defined.

US Constitution, Article III

Constitution Defines, it, US Code assigns a penalty.


TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 115 > § 2381

Edited, Apr 13th 2009 8:44pm by TirithRR

Don't take any of this as me speaking for or directly agreeing with Varrus, but the reasoning isn't so much about Obama's actions in this particular case, but the concern that he may wimp out with regard to this issue going forward.

The threat from the Pirates in response to this is just one indication of the problem. That will presumably generate pressure from other nations to condemn the US action in this case. Heck. Technically, we were in violation of UN Resolution when we acted against them. Crazy, but true...

While we're all cheering Obama for making the right decision and our soldiers for pulling it off flawlessly, the rest of the western world is right now working out how to prevent us from doing it next time. They are concerned with the hostages currently being held by the Pirates and that this may reflect badly on their attempts to get them back. Most of the world is still more than willing to just keep appeasing these Pirates.

If Obama sticks to his guns on this issue, I will be among the first to praise him. Part of the reason for making statements like the one(s) Limbaugh made is to guilt our leaders into doing the right thing. It's one thing to do this when it's an isolated incident. It's another thing entirely to follow that up with a policy. Will this be the "one time" we stand up to the Pirates? Or will Obama take advantage of this gift situation he was given to shape global policy in a direction that prevents acts of Piracy from being an everyday occurrence?

We'll just have to wait and see...

No.

3 more Somali hijackings. Clearly Obama's plan is working to perfection. Oh and bbc was going to show the connection between the taliban and the somali pirates, or so the commercial said. Anyone happen to catch that piece?

Taliban are prolly going to now try to recruit some of these pirates to Jihad now. It's logical. the enemy of my enemy is my friend.. et cetera.

Prollt all kinds of deals going to start happening.. Taliban supplyigthe pirates with better weapons and equipment,
giving us more of a reason to KILL ALL THE POOR PEOPLE.

Git'er DONE

But kelvy they already have one of the best assault rifles ever made and lots of RPG's. Yeah sure they could use a rocket or 2 but they really don't want to sink the ship and its valuable cargo.

I am betting they will step up the attacks to make as much money before the arrival of more navy ships. Or the visit of Seal teams to their land neighborhood to help in construction of new housing for them.

Edited, Apr 14th 2009 9:52am by Jonwin

Jonwin,



Sounds an awful lot like unilateral military action to me. Have we gotten persmission from europe yet?

Why should only americans have to assume the burden in dealing with this issue? When can we expect military support from the UK and Europe?

I thought our military was stretched thin enough as it is? On top of this didn't we just send more troops to afghanistan?