Shooting pirates from 25 meters away on rolling seas is extremely difficult.

Shooting pirates from 25 meters away on rolling seas at dusk is even more difficult.

Shooting 3 pirates at the exact same time from 25 meters away on rolling seas
at dusk is even more than extremely difficult.

Yet American sea captain Richard P. Phillips has been freed from the Somali pirates
who had held him captive since Wednesday by just such an act.

Captain Philliips, who’d been held in a lifeboat in the Indian Ocean since Wednesday,
was rescued uninjured by U.S. Navy SEALS who shot and killed three of his captors.
Each pirate was shot in the head.

A fourth pirate who was aboard the USS Bainbridge negotiating for ransom money
was taken into custody. It’s the first time in modern history that the United States
has in custody a pirate who carried out an attack on a U.S. citizen.

No one knows what will become his fate. It’s a very sensitive issue.
(Perhaps they should ship him off to Guantanamo).

President Obama laid out the conditions for which our forces can act and in which
they cannot act and then wisely delegated authority to the commander on the ground.

The commander of the USS Bainbridge made the final decision for the Navy Seals
to take out the pirates after seeing that one of the pirates had an AK-47 leveled
at Captain Phillips’ back.

Fortunately, it turned out to be the correct decision.

Captain Richard P. Phillips voluntarily give himself up as a hostage in exchange
for the safety of his crew of 19 when the container ship he commanded, en route
to Kenya, was attacked by pirates armed with AK-47s.

Captain Phillips, his crew (which fought with the pirates and took back their ship),
the commander of the USS Bainbridge, the Navy Seals and the rest of the people
involved in the rescue are all HEROES.

American and the rest of the world should be proud of them all!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 5:03 pm and is filed under Misc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.