Four armed Somali pirates get kicked off a US container ship by unarmed crewmen, with one pirate getting captured and forced to make a deal to escape to a lifeboat, worst pirates ever.
Same four Somali pirates manage to tie up a US Navy destroyer, a frigate, and an amphibious assault boat for days by taking one hostage, maybe they're not a stupid as we originally thought.
Obama has done the right thing, meeting a blatant act of piracy against the US with overwhelming force. At the same time, the need to revisit and revise the US military for the 21st century as Obama is doing has turned out to be far more vital than most of us thought. A $140 million F-22 Raptor is useless against pirates stealing merchant ships and taking hostages, after all. What heppens next needs to be an object lesson in America's war colleges. The FBI's Hostage Resuce Team has been consulted. It seems to me our military should have more units capable of dealing with that when American citizens face hostage situations in foreign countries or international waters.
These are the threats we'll face over the next several years, from so called non-state actors, pirates, thugs, and terrorists. Given the financial meltdown and the unstable economic picture, we'll see a lot more of this. After all, the pirates are doing this for money...lots and lots of money.
Refighting the Cold War with stealth fighters and aircraft carriers and supertanks? Not so much need for that.
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