The Story of a Successful Rescue (and the Obama Adminstrations Attempt to
Claim Credit)
After four days of floating at sea on a raft shared with four Somali
gunmen, Richard Philips took matters into his own hands for a second time.
With the small inflatable lifeboat in which he was being held captive
being towed by the American missile destroyer USS Bainbridge, and Navy
Special Warfare (NSWC) snipers on the fantail in position to take their
shots at his captors as soon as the command was given, the captive captain
of the M.V. Maersk-Alabama took his second leap in three days into the
shark-infested waters of the Indian Ocean.
This diversion gave the Navy Special Warfare operators all the opening
they needed. Snipers immediately took down the three Somali pirates still
on board the life raft, SEAL operators hustled down the tow line
connecting the two craft to confirm the kills, and a Navy RIB plucked
Philips from the water and sped him to safety aboard the Bainbridge, thus
ending the four-day-and-counting hostage situation.
Philips first leap into the warm, dark water of the Indian Ocean hadnt
worked out as well. With the Bainbridge in range and a rescue by his
countrys Navy possible, Philips threw himself off of his lifeboat prison,
enabling Navy shooters onboard the destroyer a clear shot at his captors
and none was taken. The guidance from National Command Authority the
president of the United States, Barack Obama had been clear: a peaceful
solution was the only acceptable outcome to this standoff unless the
hostages life was in clear, extreme danger.
The next day, a small Navy boat approaching the floating raft was fired on
by the Somali pirates and again no fire was returned and no pirates
killed. This was again due to the cautious stance assumed by Navy
personnel thanks to the combination of a lack of clear guidance from
Washington and a mandate from the commander in chiefs staff not to act
until Obama, a man with no background of dealing with such issues and no
track record of decisiveness, decided that any outcome other than a
peaceful solution would be acceptable.
April 13, 2009 - by Jeff Emanuel
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After taking fire from the Somali kidnappers again Saturday night, the
on-scene commander decided hed had enough. Keeping his authority to act in
the case of a clear and present danger to the hostages life and having
heard nothing from Washington since yet another request to mount a rescue
operation had been denied the day before, the Navy officer unnamed in all
media reports to date decided the AK-47 one captor had leveled at
Phillips back was a threat to the hostages life and ordered the NSWC team
to take their shots.
Three rounds downrange later, all three brigands became enemy KIA and
Phillips was safe.
There is upside, downside, and spin-side to the series of events over the
last week that culminated in yesterdays dramatic rescue of an American
hostage.
Almost immediately following word of the rescue, the Obama administration
and its supporters claimed victory against pirates in the Indian Ocean and
declared that the dramatic end to the standoff put paid to questions of
the inexperienced presidents toughness and decisiveness.
Despite the Obama administrations (and its sycophants) attempt to spin
yesterdays success as a result of bold, decisive leadership by the
inexperienced president, the reality is nothing of the sort.
What should have been a standoff lasting only hours as long as it took
the USS Bainbridge and its team of NSWC operators to steam to the location
became an embarrassing four-day-and-counting standoff between a rag-tag
handful of criminals with rifles and a U.S. Navy warship.
On Friday, April 9, as the standoff reached the end of its third day, I
called on President Obama to take action to free the American hostage from
his Somali captors. I outlined three possible operational tactics that
could be used to do so; number 1 was the following:
(1) 2 helos, 2 snipers each: pop the [pirates] in their heads, then
drop a rescue swimmer to escort the hostage up to one of the choppers.
This works best if the hostage is aware of what is happening and can help
without getting in the way say, by hopping overboard as the gunships
near, to divert attention and get out of the line of fire.
(This was written before the USS Bainbridge tethered the life raft to its
stern, an action which eliminated the need for helicopters.)
However, instead of taking direct, decisive action against the rag-tag
group of gunmen, the Obama administration dilly-dallied, dawdled, and
eschewed any decisiveness whatsoever, even in the face of enemy fire, in
hopes that the situation would somehow resolve itself without violence.
Thus, the administration sent a clear message to all who would threaten
U.S. interests abroad that the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue has no idea how to respond to such situations and no real
willingness to use military force to resolve them.
Any who think they werent watching every minute of this are guilty at
best of greatly underestimating our enemies.
Like the crew of the Alabama, which took swift and decisive action to take
back their own ship rather than wait for help from Washington that they
knew could not be counted on, Captain Phillips took matters into his own
hands for the second time in three days, leaping into the water to create
a diversion and allowing the NSWC team to eliminate his captors. The
result, of course, was the best that could possibly be expected: three
pirates dead, the captain unharmed, and a fourth Somali man who had
surrendered late Saturday night in custody.
One thing that will bear watching will be what the Obama DOJ attempts to
do with the captive pirate. My money is on a life of welfare checks, a
plot of land (in a red state, naturally), and voting rights in Chicago,
New York, and Seattle.
In all seriousness, though, who knows? Obama could decide to get tough on
the last surviving participant in the first pirating of an American ship
since Thomas Jefferson sent the U.S. Marine Corps to root out and destroy
the Barbary pirates.
However, given the administrations track record to date, I wont be holding
my breath on that one.
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Mr. Emanuel, a special operations military veteran, is a columnist, a
pulitzer-nominated combat journalist, and a director emeritus of
conservative weblog RedState.com
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