By now, everybody has heard about the pirates and a US ship around Somalia.
"Pirates operating off Somalia's lawless coast yesterday issued a direct chal lenge to American naval supremacy, seizing a US-flagged vessel for the first time in nearly 200 years. "
This is a good opportunity for Pres BO to show the world that he can punch as well as apologize.
Pres BO should get someone at The White House to do a little research.
Some of us are old enough to remember the USS Pueblo, The Mayaguez and The Achille Lauro.
In 1975, Pres Ford had to deal with The Mayaguez.
Pres Ford sent in the Marines, beat the crap out of the men seizing the ship and everyone was returned.
It did not make Pres Ford popular in Europe or other leftist circles.
It did save US lives and sent a message: Don't mess with ships flying the stars and stripes!
In 1985, Pres Reagan had to deal with another crisis, The Achille Lauro:
"In an instant Reagan decided this would not stand.
Flying back to Washington on Air Force One, Reagan demanded to know what was possible for him to do, turning to a young Marine Lieutenant Colonel named Oliver North to coordinate his options.
Options in hand, the President acted.
From the decks of the aircraft carrier Saratoga, F-14 Tomcats launched, ordered to divert the Egyptian charter plane carrying the terrorists not to Tunisia but to a NATO air base in Sicily.
They were ordered not to shoot, but rather "persuade" by whatever airborne means other than shooting down the plane, which, of course, carried others than the terrorists.
Shortly afterwards the word was flashed to the White House: the plane had been "acquired" by the F-14's.
The Americans instructed the pilot to accompany them to Signolla, Italy, the site of the NATO base.
They did.
The Italians objected -- they didn't want this problem in their lap.
They began scrambling F-104's from the Italian air force to keep the America jets and their captured prey out of Italy.
Arguments ensued.
The President picked up the phone and called the President of Italy.
He got what he wanted, saying he was prepared to just do it -- land the planes at the base -- regardless.
The plane landed, bad guys in hand.
"Good enough" snapped Reagan.
The four terrorists went to jail, although the mastermind, Abu Abbas, got away.
To Iraq, where he died during the American invasion."
For the record, Pres Reagan was not popular in Europe. They used to call him a "cowboy" and someone who did not listen to our allies.
Of course, there is always the USS Pueblo, where Pres LBJ allowed North Korea to seize a ship without consequences.
We understand that we are dealing with pirates today rather than communists (Mayaguez or Pueblo) or terrorists (Achille Lauro).
However, the point is the same.
You can not allow lawlessness. You either kill pirates or they will take more ships.
Why are pirates running around and causing trouble?
The answer is that the world has allowed this to happen.
However, the Somali pirates have never attacked or seized a US ship before. This is a good chance to show these pirates that the US will not tolerate such behavior.
P.S. By the way, re-read the part about Abu Abbas escaping and ending up in Iraq.
Just remember that the next time that someone tells you that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the terrorism that killed Americans, such as Leon Klinghoffer.
Mr Klinghoffer was an elderly man on a wheelchair enjoying a vacation on a cruise ship. He was killed in front of his wife and thrown overboard.
