Real Hero Was Ship Captain - Obama Indecisive

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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