4 thugs and a fool

Somali pirates, driving speed boats and armed with various light arms, hijacked an American flagged ship off the horn of Africa. Just another day in the middle east region. The biggest difference is that this is an American ship. This represents a clear escalation of intensity by the pirates. This group of thugs is openly challenging the US by attacking one of her ships... This day has an even more interesting twist. The American vessel's crew resists the pirates, and retakes the boat. (Who said the American spirit is dead?)

The captain of the ship, in a bid to lesson the risk to his crew, volunteers to go into a lifeboat with 4 of the highjackers (prior to the crew's brave endeavor to retake the ship). Enter a US Navy warship, armed to the teeth with huge guns, missiles, and a cadre of the most highly trained military personnel on the planet. The lifeboat filled with 4 pirates and the captain of the Maersk Alabama, runs out of fuel and drifts at sea. Navy personnel secure the Alabama, and get the freighter to safer waters. This leaves only the 4 pirates and the American hostage in a small boat with no fuel, and a US Navy vessel in the area.

In a sane world, this confrontation would already be over, and Special Forces teams would be decimating the camps of these pirates, and any other pirates on the Somali coast. The US must take aggressive and strong action to make certain that this type of incident does not happen again. But this is a new era of Hope and Change. Having just returned from the great appeasement tour of Europe, President Obama has already shown to the world that he views America as the source of all that is wrong with our otherwise peaceful and pristine globe. No doubt the pirates have noted this, along with the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, and every other rogue nation that wishes harm to our country.

This President needs to send a strong, and immediate message to the world. An overwhelming military response to this act of piracy and terror should have already taken place. But this is not a sane world. This is the World of Obama. We will negotiate with these 4 reprobates in the out of fuel boat. We will fawn over them to find their grievances, and likely apologize for any percieved slight. We may even pay a ransom, and refer the matter to an international court for the violations of maritime law. The President will show our country to be weak. A paper tiger without the will to defend her self interests, her citizens, or her honor.

And some day, in the not too distant future, Americans will die due to another terrorist attack somewhere in the world. The bad guys will know that we will do nothing in response, except hold hearings in the Senate and protest loudly to the UN. We don't want to be percieved as a bully on the world stage, after all. Heaven forbid we should safeguard our self-interests like any other nation on earth would do (with the possible exception of the French, but that is another story for another day). It will take years to undo the damage already done by this President to our nation and to the Constitution he has sworn to protect and defend. It is looking like it is going to be a very long 4 years.