Dutch NATO forces rescued 20 hostages off the coast of Africa last week without loss of life. They thwarted a pirate attack, confiscated the booty, but must release the captured pirates owing to International Maritime Law. Contrast this with American cowboy rules of engagement.
Several US Navy warships faced a solitary lifeboat on which three teenage Somali pirated held hostage Maersk Alabama captain Richard Phillips. The covered lifeboat remained tethered to the stern of one of the Navy ships while negotiations, we’re told, progressed.
Going into day three, before the American TV audience could lose interest, US Navy Seals rescued the captive Phillips at a cost of a 100% casualty rate to the pirates. Although the DoD did not initially want to reveal its anti-pirate tactics, spokesmen have admitted that the “daring rescue” was in effect three precisely-simultaneous sniper shots to the heads of the three captors. The fourth pirate already having been entrusted to the US ship’s custody for medical care. The captain freed, the wounded pirate’s collateral was thus gone, and his grant of safe-passage was rescinded.
The official story is that US infrared imagery revealed that the American captive’s life was in danger. One of the pirates was holding a gun to his head, and this act prompted the snipers to intervene. Negotiations, apparently, were not proving fruitful. I’m guessing that this account reflects the exact opposite of what happened. The navy snipers had been holding their fire until the moment Captain Phillip was NOT in a pirate’s crosshairs.
Although the Somali pirates were just teens, I bet they knew from brutal experience, what most of us know from violent television, that holding your gun to a hostage’s head is the only way to prevent your rivals from gunning you down. Trapped in a lifeboat, the pirates knew that high powered US weaponry would be trained upon each of their heat silhouettes. The moment their captive was not in the predicted trajectory of the crossfire, nor threatened by a collateral death-spasm squeeze of a trigger, the pirates would be toast.
The rescue operation began with a greater-than-three number of US snipers aiming weapons at the little boat. The more the better, to assure that at every instant, complicated by the rocking and turning of the lifeboat in the waves, at least one sniper could claim one pirate, without the hostage laying vulnerable to leeward bullets. The images in the sniper scopes were wired to a director’s console, where the determination could be made when all three targets were spoken for, and the order could be given to fire. The last hurdle remained for the pirate who held his gun on the hostage to drop his guard for just an instant, lest he squeeze off a round into the hostage. Wanna bet that’s what happened?
Great marksmanship, no question. Plenty of training no doubt. We can take nothing away from the heroism shown in braving responsibility for jeopardizing Captain Phillip’s life. It is probably also a common law enforcement strategy. Although that doesn’t make it legal.
Unless the US Navy releases the targeting footage, we are unlikely to confirm the true sequence of events. But where the pirate’s gun was pointing makes a difference. The Navy is explaining that it acted because Phillips’ life was at stake. Otherwise, shooting people who are not shooting at you is considered underhanded.
The Dutch navy forces bay have bellyached that they had to turn loose their captured pirates, instead of leaving them imprisoned somewhere, but the Dutch had seized them in Somali waters, where the pirates operate as their nation’s only Coast Guard. The Dutch NATO commandos prevented an attack, and liberated the detainees being held by the de-facto Somali border agents, and their directive ended there.
The US on the other hand, executed three “Somali Pirates,” regardless the varying degree of culpability the individuals might have had.
Without a day in court, that’s extra-judicial murder. If you consider these were three African youths, it looks like a lynching.
Let’s take note, by whose account to we know what happened out on the high seas? Do we know even that these were pirates? Says who? I am simply playing devil’s advocate. Do we know these four youth weren’t stowaways? Perhaps they had been Shanghaied and attempted an escape via the Maersk Alabama’s lifeboat. Do we know what happened really? That’s what courts are there to decide.
Everything the American TV audience knows is from the mouths of the US military. What do we know? These youths might have been human-trafficking cargo, en route to or from war zones. They might have broken free, running straight into the Maersk’s convenient cover story that all inconvenient incidences can be labeled pirate attacks. Have we anybody’s word who has not been lying to us about war crimes everywhere, about the use of torture, about the true magnitude of renditions and secret prisons?
These black youths might just as well have been the captive sex slaves of the porky white contractor mercenaries who were planning to kill them while in the act of buggering them, but the damn Negroes slipped free. So the Navy Seals had to come play cleaner to the embarrassing mess. I exaggerate to emphasize: what the fuck do YOU know?!
“This is how the USA handles pirates” was basically our statement. Americans stateside cheered and grabbed their dicks. But overseas, and on the seas, the sentiment is much more wary. The US Navy has escalated the war on piracy. Now the rules of engagement for both sides is going to be shoot first, ask questions later.
Are the Somalis quaking in their pirate boots? When the news hit about what the Navy Seals did, the self-styled privateers of the Somali Coast redoubled their attacks on foreign ship traffic.
“The US on the other hand, executed three “Somali Pirates,” regardless the varying degree of culpability the individuals might have had. Without a day in court, that’s extra-judicial murder. If you consider these were three African youths, it looks like a lynching.”
Extra-judicial killings are legal under specific circumstances outlined by international law, although, this case has nothing to do with extra-judicial killings and everything to do with taking out terrorists in self-defense.
“SELF-defense?” Did Phillips shoot them?
“Terrorists?” Is that your bogeyman for everything of which you disapprove?
“Taking out” is an idiom which reflects an uncivilized irreverence.
Dan, ya gotta bring more to the table than blimp-neck clichés.
““SELF-defense?” Did Phillips shoot them?”
Are you serious? He was held hostage, assaulted and his life threatened. If a child is abducted and held hostage by a 250 lb man, is the child expected to kill the abductor?
““Terrorists?” Is that your bogeyman for everything of which you disapprove?”
What do you call pirates armed with AK-57s and threatening to kill the ship’s crew? Just a bunch of good kids out for some mischief?
“Taking out” is an idiom which reflects an uncivilized irreverence.”
Is there a more polite word for killing terrorists you’d prefer? How about forced expiration?
“Dan, ya gotta bring more to the table than blimp-neck clichés.”
You “gotta” learn some basic law.
Actually, the US is kind of at war with Somalia, ‘Dan’. You might have missed that perhaps? These so-called pirates really in some ways are about all that Somalia has in the way of a Navy these days, with the half of the country being starved to death by the US foreign policy directed against them.
What ‘Dan’ is really defending though is Israel in his comments, since these Somalian ‘pirates’ seem to be brethren of the Palestinians held in the Gaza concentration camp run by the Israeli and US governments. That’s why he has to come in with his support for ‘selective assassinations’ since outright torture and murder is the foundation of the US/ Israeli ‘Peace process’ there and everywhere.
“Actually, the US is kind of at war with Somalia, ‘Dan’. You might have missed that perhaps? These so-called pirates really in some ways are about all that Somalia has in the way of a Navy these days, with the half of the country being starved to death by the US foreign policy directed against them.
Actually, Saudi Arabia is kind of not at war with Somalia, yet Somalian pirates captured a Saudi tanker last year, and, they are holding 300 sailors from various parts of the world hostage. You might have missed that perhaps?
The Roman lawmaker Cicero defined piracy as a crime against civilization itself. The recognition of pirates as enemies of the human race is reaffirmed in British and American law and in numerous treaties, making piracy the foundation of international law for more than 2,000 years.
“What ‘Dan’ is really defending though is Israel in his comments, since these Somalian ‘pirates’ seem to be brethren of the Palestinians held in the Gaza concentration camp run by the Israeli and US governments. That’s why he has to come in with his support for ’selective assassinations’ since outright torture and murder is the foundation of the US/ Israeli ‘Peace process’ there and everywhere.
Piracy is terrorism, no matter the ethnicity of the pirates. Both crimes involve bands of thugs that separate themselves from their nation-states and form extraterritorial enclaves; both aim at civilians; both involve acts of homicide and destruction, as the United Nations Convention on the High Seas stipulates, “for private ends.”
This particular incident was handled in a way that would have been acceptable tactics anywhere in the world. When a hostage is threatened by armed captors, on land or at sea, their lives are forfeit.
On land it would be a SWAT team or the FBI. Here, it was U.S. special forces, who are not bound by posse comitatus on the high seas, operating from a warship, which has express authority under international law to engage a known pirate or pirate seized vessel.
The pirates don’t deserve much sympathy. They were the aggressors, used armed force to put innocents in harms way taking them as hostages for personal gain, and knew the risks. If they didn’t want to risk being shot, they shouldn’t have seized the ship and taken hostages.
Also piracy, this piracy anyway, is neither war nor terrorism. The pirates don’t claim to be in it for anyone but themselves. They don’t even seriously pretend to be enforcing sovereign rights or maintaining the law. These aren’t primarily political acts. This is simply armed robbery at sea, with some organized crime style retaliation for those who would interfere with their crime turf thrown in. It certainly has nothing to do with the foreign policy of any country apart from its anti-piracy policies.
“The pirates don’t claim to be in it for anyone but themselves”
There is evidence that the Somali pirates give a part of their ransom money to Al Shabaab, a Somali rebel group linked to Al Qaeda. Andrew Mwangura, head of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Program, said as much in announcing that Al-Shabaab use piracy to fund terrorist activities onshore.
I am neither defending piracy nor terrorism but rather attacking both. So you poor people don’t get in such a huff, Please. In fact I am opposed to both and simply do not have that selective double vision about it that so many Americans suffer from.
You are both of the genotype that can see small pirates, but have trouble seeing the bigger ones! But with our medical system in place here in the US, I doubt that either of you will be able to get to a doctor to be treated for it? A pity…
“What ‘Dan’ is really defending though is Israel in his comments, since these Somalian ‘pirates’ seem to be brethren of the Palestinians held in the Gaza concentration camp run by the Israeli and US governments. ”
That’s quite a leap, drawing an equivalency between Somalian pirates and Palestinians. I’m sure the Palestinians would thank you for such a flattering comparison. As for being held in “concentration camps”, that situation is a consequence of a history of corrupt Palestinian leadership pocketing foreign aid dollars as well as anti-emigration laws prohibiting Gazans from leaving and the Arab League policy of denying Palestinians citizenship.
‘Dan’, why should a Palestinian be granted citizenship in say??? Morocco per your desire and belief? That would kind of like Mexico being asked to grant citizenship to say??? Argentinians if they had been thrown out of their lands in Tierra de Fuego… And after you answer that question, explain to me why almost 1,000,000 Russians should be given Israeli citizenship over the decade of 1990-1999, while Palestinians who are people indigenous to the area now called Israel, are left thrown out of their own Homeland?
“Dan’, why should a Palestinian be granted citizenship in say??? Morocco per your desire and belief? ”
The vast majority of refugees immigrated to Palestine pre-’48 War from as far as Morocco and other parts of northern Africa, as well as closer to home, from Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. The population of Palestine during Ottoman rule was minimal due to stagnant economic conditions and unarable land. Between 1880 and 1947, the Arab population of Palestine had skyocketed by 400%, largely due to a booming economy brought about by Zionist/Jewish immigrants and Arab immigrants wanting to take advantage of increased employment opportunities and improved living standards. So, in effect, Morocco and other states are the homelands of today’s Arab refugees, or, more precisely, descendants of those refugees.
“And after you answer that question, explain to me why almost 1,000,000 Russians should be given Israeli citizenship over the decade of 1990-1999, while Palestinians who are people indigenous to the area now called Israel, are left thrown out of their own Homeland?”
Why won’t the Arab nations allow the nearly 1 million “indigenous” Arab Jews expelled from their homes in 1948 and made into refugees return to to their homes? Estimates place the value of their possessions at $300 billion. Where are their reparations? What’s food for the goose is food for the gander, no?
As I indicated, most “Palestinian” refugees are not “indigenous” to Palestine, having immigrated from other parts of the Middle East. Demographers have calculated that about 95% of todays Palestinian refugees are descendants of refugees, not refugees, themselves, further negating their right of return. Lastly, Israel has a right to control its immigraton policy, as does every sovereign state. Gaza, for instance, has banned Jews. Jordan does not allow Jews to purchase property and most Arab states ban Jews entirely. If Israeli policy extends to Russian Jews, Ethiopian Jews or little green Jews from Mars, that is Israel’s right.
This Made in Jewish Israel thesis that Palestinians are not really natives in their own lands is such silly and absurdest nonsense that you contradict it in in the same breath with the following equally silly and absurdest counterpoint to your own theme! I quote yourself, Mr Israeli Salesman…
‘Why won’t the Arab nations allow the nearly 1 million “indigenous” Arab Jews expelled from their homes in 1948 and made into refugees return to to their homes? Estimates place the value of their possessions at $300 billion. Where are their reparations? What’s food for the goose is food for the gander, no?’
Let’s us return to your Nazi-like mindset once again, Mr Mouth for the Jewish State…
‘What’s food for the goose is food for the gander, no?’
It is this sort of cavalier tripe as you excuse Zionist slaughters and robberies that gives rise to today’s Zionists, of both and Christian and Jewish form, to being constantly compared to Nazis. You are earning this comparison on a daily basis and it is just pathetic. Yesterday’s Jewish community turns over in their own graves, I think, to see you disgusting people now representing themselves in this manner.
How is that? Jewish people in the multiple Arab countries by and large deliberately left for Israel AND AFTER the Jewish expulsion of these 1,000,000 or so indigenous Palestinian Arabs were thrown out by Jewish immigrants. Instead of allowing them to return to their own properties, the Jewish settlers then invited millions of Russians, Poles, American citizens, Romanians and so on to take their place. PLUS, these Palestinians now made refugees, even in utter poverty had children and now number more than before, even as the Jewish settlers did quite the same.
yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! Long John Silver rocks!!
Hey, Andy Hook. I like how you stick to the pirate’s patch on this one. But just like in Peter Pan, others have other intentions, so make ’em walk the plank, I say.
Now if I can only find my shadow once again? Tinkle! Oh, Tinkle, don’t act up so!
“Jewish people in the multiple Arab countries by and large deliberately left for Israel AND AFTER the Jewish expulsion of these 1,000,000 or so indigenous Palestinian Arabs were thrown out by Jewish immigrants. ”
Your figures are inaccurate, as is your historical narrative.. UN estimates of Arabs who left Israel, most of whom left of their own volition, not expelled, is about 700,000, not the 1,000,000 figure you cited. Prominent Arabs, such as Jordan’s King Hussein, and others, have openly criticized the error in judgment of the Arab leaders in causing the average Arab to panic over the impending war and in imploring them to flee. This is all well documented. That 700,000 figure is bogus as the UN counted anyone who lived in Israel merely 2 years before the ’48 war as a refugee, thus, inflating their estimate. It’s likely less than 600,000 Arabs fled. However, many of them were immigrants and not “indigenous” to Palestine primarily because prior to Jewish immigraton, it was very difficult to live in Palestine. Mark Twain recorded his travels to the region and wrote of only seeing barren, desolate land and no people.
Further dispelling the “indigenous Arab” myth: Most Arabs/Palestinians couldn’t afford to own land in Palestine with the Ottoman Turks instituting Tanzimat land reforms that placed much of the privately owned land in the hands of the Arab aristocracy. That land was, in turn, sold to the Zionist immigrants, leaving the Arab fellahin as basically sharecroppers. In actuality, the Palestinians were dispossessed by their own Muslim and Arab brethren. In the end, during the Mandate period, Jews came to actually own more land than the Palestinians. So, in the final analysis, both Jews and Arabs immigrated and settled in Palestine and few were truly indigenous.
As for your claim of Arab Jews deliberately leaving their homes, this is historically counterfactual. Those Jews were forced out of their homes and out of their countries, leaving behind an estimated $300 billion in property. In fact, UNSCR 242 calling for a resolution of the refugee issue includes the Jewish refugees as well as Arab refugees.
Today’s Palestinian “refugees”, for the most part, are descendants, spouses, descendants of spouses, whatever, of the original refugees and are not refugees themselves. My grandfather was a refugee from Poland, however, do I consider myself a refugee? Of course not! Would I have even a remote chance of returning to Poland and taking back my grandfather’s home? Absolutely not. The case for Arab right of return is equally without merit and will never happen. Those Arabs who did not flee Israel in ’48, however, are citizens of Israel today.
“Instead of allowing them to return to their own properties, the Jewish settlers then invited millions of Russians, Poles, American citizens, Romanians and so on to take their place.”
And, instead of allowing Jews to return to their own properties, millions of Arabs took their homes and their belongings. Refugees historically repatriate elsewhere. Harping on Palestinian refugees returning is an exercise in futility as no large refugee group has ever been granted rightof return in the historyof the world. There are approx. 10 million ethnic German refugees who didn’t return to their homes in Poland, Yugoslavia and elsewhere, and resettled. All told, about 150 million refugees since WW II have resettled. The Arab Jews resettled in Israel after the ’48 war. The Palestinians do not have unique rights in this regard.
See, with modern internet software, it only takes a shadow less than 10 minutes to find its host, Andy. Pour us some more rum, Mate.
(Tinkle Bell, it was you who pulled the 1,000,000 figure off the top of your head, then 2 seconds later you have the nerve to come along and say I used an inaccurate figure when I didn’t contest your own numbers? …Lol… You’re a genuine trip! I can just imagine your Polish lawyer routine you’ll do once you graduate from law school? )
I referred to nearly 1 million Jewish refugees, not 1 million Arab refugees.
Oh dear. So Jewish people who are descendants 1,000 generations removed from the Jewish diaspora (and evidence suggests European Jews are not, actually those descendants) would have negated, 1,000 times over, their “right of return” by your logic.
“Oh dear. So Jewish people who are descendants 1,000 generations removed from the Jewish diaspora (and evidence suggests European Jews are not, actually those descendants) would have negated, 1,000 times over, their “right of return” by your logic.”
In this case, it would not be considered right of return, it would be right to citizenship. Israel was established to provide an open door to Jews around the world. The descendants of refugees born in Gaza have a homeland in Gaza and those descendants of refugees originally from among the 22 Arab nations should try to make a claim for repatriation.
All this convoluted Bullshit by ‘Dan’ the Zionist Megaphone really only reduces down to his belief that in the Jewish case Might Makes Right, so Fuck Off! If he would just say that clearly in so many words though and save us from having to listen to the nonsense he comes up with? Good grief!
Sovereignty makes right.
Israeli spam machine guy, I would love to continue talking about Jewish State Israel with you day and night 24/7, but there are other things in the world other than your own narcistic self…
Pirate mother’s Obama mercy plea http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8009319.stm
And “America was in violation of principles of truce in warfare on the high seas,” from the Gardian UK.
Eric this is your piece, but this is Dan’s thread! I don’t understand how you reverted to calling him names because he is more knowledgeable than you? Face it man, he kicked your ass.
Face it, Man, ‘Dan Chinitz’ was using an automated software spamming system when this material was psoted. TimmyTom, we don’t allow Israeli government political spam to be machine gunned onto this site.