According to CBS News, this was the same unit that killed bin Laden.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57365428/seals-free-u.s-dane-hostages-in-somalia
That’s exactly what the Russian special forces did. They caught a bunch of Somali pirates that attacked one of their ships, they caught them, rounded them up, gathered all the guns and such, then left them on their own boat and torched it.
I’d be a bit more for the old maritime law of hanging em from the yardarm.
The thing is, I’m normally a due process kind of guy. I can totally see where just the accusation could be overdone, or someone could be framed for that kind of thing with an abuse of power. At the same time, I’m not immune to the feelings of frustration and rage at the current status where piracy is rampant. They are dangerous thugs putting good people’s lives in danger. They hijack ships, take people hostage at gunpoint, even beat or shoot them. Then they ransom them back. Get money, do again. The job has a low cost of entry, a low risk to the pirates, and the payoff is pretty high. That is why it is so rampant.
Try to change the economics of Somalia. Right. That worked last time we got involved there. So the next most effective method is make the risk outweigh the potential reward, make the likelihood of reward lower. Unfortunately, that puts the hijack victims in the middle by making their risks higher. It’s a difficult math.
Kudos to everyone involved in this effort. Ultimate in ideal outcomes. All bad guys dead, all good guys safe. Win win.
Unless you’re a fish.
How about we send out decoy boats, that look like regular merchant ships, but for whom the “crew” is a covert military unit?
I thought of that too, but it’s a huge sea and there are thousands of ships that pass through it unhindered every day. The chances of getting pirates to attack the one or few ships that are packed with a jack-in-the-box surprise is unfortunately very slim.
Yeah, you might get lucky, but that won’t happen that often. You could try arming commercial vessels, but that has risks as well.
The current methods are station lots of naval vessels in the high target areas to do patrolling, and to try rapid response to distress signals. Or to mount commando rescue raids.
I honestly wonder if it isn’t at least partly due to new technology.
How did they determine the exact number and identity of the people. Peep in windows?
How did they manage to enter Bin Laden’s compound, kill him, and recover a treasure trove of intelligence, without sustaining any casualties? It seems like they might have had some idea of the positions of guards and others before entering.
I think we may be seeing the results of some cutting edge surveillance technology. Infrared or microwaves through walls or tiny drones or something.
(Not to subtract from the bad-assery in any way!)
I mean, these people (the American woman and Danish man) went to Somalia on their own volition. Is it the job of the US to rescue everybody taken hostage?
I’m glad that the two were rescued.
Bt anybody going to a place like Somalia needs a head examination.
Suppose things went wrong?
It’s not like they were tourists. They were working for a legitimate NGO doing good works.