STUMPTALK: Obama and the pirates

By Jerry McDonough / Chronicle contributor

June 01, 2009 04:57 pm

— With reference to the MILNET and a retired SEAL it seems as though our president is not as transparent as he promised, but then did we expect more?
The unfolding facts as I have been able to discern them go something like this. A C-17 military cargo plane made the 18-hour trip to the Somali area from the Norfolk home of the SEALs that fateful Thursday night following the Wednesday hijacking and made a parachute drop in total darkness along with their equipment near the USS BOXER assault ship. The SEALs then staged for the operation that very Thursday night. The SEALs are on 24-hour alert and are prepared to go anywhere in the world within four hours of notification, a fact which surprised our President and his people. It took the FBI 12 hours just to get packed as they tried to explain to our president that the FBI was totally untrained for this type of operation. It then took the FBI 14 more hours to arrive in the Somali area to be transported to the USS BOXER. Apparently our president did not trust the military and preferred “his” people, the FBI and Attorney General Holder, to carry out negotiations and rescue.
When the FBI said they were untrained for this operation, they meant it. They never practiced shooting from a rolling, pitching, yawing, surging, swaying heavy platform such as the SEALs had been doing since the 1950’s. The SEALS consider this type of shooting to be an art form rather than an acquired skill, or as SEALs say that when you are in the “bubble” and “in tune” with the harmonic motion and with practice, one is “able to put three .308 slugs inside the head of a quarter at 100 meters, in day or night.”
The USS BAINBRIDGE arrived silently very early Thursday morning, or as a crew member of the captured ship said, “….to see the Navy slide in there like a greyhound” was the “….proudest moment of my life”.
The Navy SEAL team briefed the captain of the USS BAINBRIDGE on how they could rescue the prisoner with rescue swimmers, but that plan was nullified by our President because it endangered the prisoner and would kill the pirates. Apparently, neither he nor any of his advisors had a military background, limiting their ability to make sound military decisions. When the SEALs took provisions to the captors and the prisoner and were fired upon, they reported they could take out the pirates, but again our President refused authorization because the prisoner was not in immediate danger.
Finally, the USS BAINBRIDGE took the captors under tow with the captor’s permission using a 30 meter tow line, or what the SEALs refer to as “shooting fish in a barrel.” There would be no more negotiations. The FBI knew that the international law of the sea gave the captain of the USS BAINBRIDGE authorization above that of our president and it was finally the captain’s operation. Easter Sunday morning, the captain saw the captors holding a gun to the head of the prisoner and declared “imminent danger” and he was obligated to act under the law. It was all very professional, “On my count …. 3, 2, POP, Bang”! Game over – NAVY 3, Pirates nothing. Our military IS very good whether our president believes it or not.
Stumptalk is published weekly in the Crossville Chronicle. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the Chronicle publisher, editor or staff. Phil Billington serves as coordinator of this column. He may be reached at stumptalk@charter.net.