Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Time for Some Major Killing

News reports say that pirates killed the American hostages they took when they captured their yacht. Two pirates also died, so it is unclear to me if we tried a rescue mission or whether there was a split amongst the pirates.

Our Navy should sink the ship with a barrage of missiles that makes it clear that there will be no survivors to even think of trying to rescue.

Then send the video footage to the pirates ashore. Tell them we're coming.

Then we should destroy every port facility used by pirates and sink every boat that even looks like it belongs to pirates.

Then we should work with India to really work out a mission ashore.

We need to take the gloves off. It is shameful that we tolerate piracy in this day and age.

UPDATE: It was not a rescue attempt. The pirates initiated an attack on one of our ships and then shot the hostages:

U.S. naval forces who were trailing the Americans' captured yacht with four warships quickly boarded the vessel after hearing the gunfire. They tried to provide lifesaving care to the Americans, but they died of their wounds, U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida said in a statement.

A member of a U.S. special operations force killed one of the pirates with a knife as he went inside of the yacht, said Vice Adm. Mark Fox, commander of U.S. naval forces for the Central Command.

Fox said in a televised briefing that the violence on Tuesday started when a rocket-propelled grenade was fired from the yacht at the USS Sterett, a guided-missile destroyer which was 600 yards away. The RPG missed and almost immediately afterward small arms fire was heard coming from the yacht, Fox said.

We really need to make the career choice of piracy a high-mortality occupation.

UPDATE: Here's that briefing.