While an American cargo vessel Captain bobs up and down on the Indian Ocean, surrounded by a motley crew of shakedown artists, the mighty USS Bainbridge stands idly by while the FBI negotiates with the Somali pirates for the return of a kidnapped American citizen.
President Obama is the Commander-in-chief of the US military. It’s time for him to earn his pay, make the decision to take out the pirates in the lifeboat and then hit the pirate’s home bases with a force of highly trained and lethal Marine Recon and Navy Seal units.
If this ends in needless tragedy for the American Captain and his family, all because the Community organizer-in-chief is in way over his head, I sincerely hope the electorate will remember this when they enter the voting booths in November of 2010 and again in 2012.
~~John Cronin~~
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/04/09/2009-04-09_us_military_prepared_for_battle_with__somalia_pirates.html
BY: JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
U.S. military commanders have already prepared battle plans for ending the scourge of piracy on the high seas off Somalia if President Obama pulls the trigger, sources told the Daily News Wednesday.
The Navy sent a warship to intercept Somali pirates Wednesday who hijacked a U.S.-flagged freighter, as commanders weighed military options for nailing the brigands’ bases.
Retired U.S. Ambassador Robert Oakley, who was special envoy to Somalia in the 1990s, said U.S. special operations forces have drawn up detailed plans to attack piracy groups where they live on land, but are awaiting orders from the Obama national security team.
“Our special operations people have been itching to clean them up. So far, no one has let them,” Oakley told the Daily News.
The veteran diplomat, who also was ambassador to Pakistan, said teams of Army Delta Force or Navy SEALs “could take care of the pirates in 72 hours” if given the order to strike.
“They have plans on the table but are waiting for the green light,” Oakley said.
A Special Operations Command spokesman at McDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., declined comment.
A U.S. intelligence official, though dismissive of the pirates having any terrorism links, said “there is a more intense focus” now on these criminal gangs.
America’s stealthiest warriors have been involved in combat operations in the Horn of Africa for years - operating from secret bases in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia and Manda Bay, Kenya.
The Navy launched an antipiracy command in January, Joint Task Force 151, which includes contingents of SEALs and Marines who specialize in boarding and seizing hijacked ships.
But Somalia-based pirates terrorizing shipping lanes on the high seas have expanded their zone of fear in recent weeks beyond the Gulf of Aden into waters off Somalia, a failed state providing them a lawless sanctuary.
That prompted the commander of the Navy’s Combined Maritime Forces, Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, to issue a special maritime advisory this week warning his forces “are unlikely to be close enough to provide support to vessels under attack.”
“The closest military ship could be days away,” he said.
The Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia and Kenya equal an area roughly four times the size of Texas, the Navy pointed out.
Meanwhile, Navy officials said the guided missile destroyer Bainbridge steamed toward the Maersk Alabama - which is owned by a Danish firm but has a 20-man American crew and flies the Stars and Stripes - which was seized 280 miles southeast of Somalia.
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