Yo Ho Ho and Feed the Sharks

Crime doesn't pay, and apparently piracy's no longer a free ride either.**** From the AP:

Somali pirates vow retaliation after captain freed

By MALKHADIR M. MUHUMED and MOHAMED SHEIKH NOR, Associated Press Writers Malkhadir M. Muhumed And Mohamed Sheikh Nor, Associated Press Writers – Sun Apr 12, 9:17 pm ET

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Somali pirates on Monday vowed to retaliate for the deaths of three colleagues who were shot dead by U.S. Navy snipers hours before in a daring nighttime assault that freed a 53-year-old American captain.

The Navy Seals late Sunday rescued freighter Capt. Richard Phillips, who had been held by pirates on a lifeboat that drifted in the Indian Ocean for five days.

"Every country will be treated the way it treats us," said Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding a Greek ship anchored in the pirate den of Gaan, a central Somali town.

"In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying," he told The Associated Press by telephone. "We will retaliate for the killings of our men."

He gave no details and it was not clear in what way the pirates could retaliate, though some fear they could take their revenge on the hundreds of other foreign nationals they hold on seized ships.**** My father spent 35 years in the Navy. I've been aboard aircraft carriers. I've stood on a flight deck while F-14s and other aircraft took off and landed. It's a humbling experience. The amount of death and destruction they can unleash is nearly beyond comprehension.Abdullahi Lami has no f@#$ing idea of the firepower that he's calling down on himself. It's profoundly terrifying and humbling, and I wouldn't wish anyone to be on the receiving end of it (and I likeviolence). These men kill more people by 9:00AM than the rest of America does in a whole day.In addition, the abilities of special operations teams are not only as impressive as Hollywood would have us think; they far exceed what we see in the movies. Those snipers parachuted into the sea to meet the destroyers.The only way piracy is going to stop in the Horn of Africa is for a few more examples to be made of people. As an educator, I heartily endorse this approach. It's called experiential learning.This is the international signal for "Please blow my ignorant f@#$ing head off"...Don't start whining about law and order and fair trials. If you take over a ship with a gun and point that gun at people and either threaten to shoot, or do in fact shoot someone, don't be so stupid as to think its unfair to have the same done to you."His f@#$in' head came apart likethis !!!"Once you make it known that you are willing to indulge in a behavior, you forgo the right to be upset if and when someone does it to you."Feed the dog, will ya, honey? I'm gonna go feed the fish..."Last night, the sharks ate well because someone's reach exceeded their grasp. Death to the dumb, and thank God for that.If the people you commit a criminal act against are better, better-equipped, or just plain meaner than you, well, tough teats. That's what you get for opening the playing field in the first place.

One of my favorite anecdotes about this sort of stuff comes fromDanny Coulson's No Heroes,a book about the founding of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team.

The feds originally looked to military special forces for a counter-terror model, and toured some special operations facilities to see what sort of things they did that might be useful for the FBI.

Then-FBI director WilliamWebster“nodded sagely and took a closer look at the array of guns and gizmos. There seemed to be something missing. He turned a puzzled face to Major General Richard Scholtes, commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, who oversaw Delta,SEAL Team Sixand other DOD counter-terror activities. ‘I don’t see any handcuffs,’ Webster said. ‘We don’t have handcuffs,’ Scholtes responded crisply. ‘It’s not my job to arrest people’" (pp.136-37)Bang bang, you're dead Go sleep in Davey Jones' bed.

"Handcuffs? Handcuffthis! Get me another beer..."