Given that I'm not a sailor and never go anywhere near Somalia , I'm quite comfortable in replying to the pirates: Bring it Bitches!

All that does is get them officially labeled terrorists :evil:

So now that the White House can talk about Obama's role in the successful rescue, will Glen Beck et. al be rescinding their assinine blatherings?

I'll give Obama props for ordering the rescue, just as I gave him props for sending military escorts to ships being harrassed by the Chinese in the South China Sea.

However, I could go the route - just for fun - of saying something like all he has done is create an atmosphere for creating more pirates and by making them angry is only going to make the situation worse. What were a few scattered bands of untrained pirates will now become united in their anti US sentiment. I think we should talk with the pirates and try to understand them and why they are doing this. I bet the ransom they get is going to health care and education.

I don't believe that, by the way.

That would make sense if, in response to Somali pirates attacking US ships, he invaded Kenya and deposed the government there in the name of stopping Somali pirates. And then labeled anyone who came to the aid of Kenya as Somali pirates so he could justify indefinitely imprisoning them.

If one of those seals had missed and accidentally killed the hostage (or allowed the pirates to kill the hostage) I wonder if those praising the action would still think it a great thing (and how hard Obama would be working to avoid any decision making responsibility).

But, it seems Obama's first siege face-off has come off better than Clinton's did.

Definitely a fine display of shooting (though next time they'll have to try to up it to scaeagles difficulty level and do it while surfacing from a dive) and I'm glad it came off ok.

On the plus side, if it does eventually require putting the Marines back to their original use we'll probably get another Josh Hartnett movie out of it.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this triggers more violence by the pirates towards their hostages but that does not invalidate the appropriateness of a this action.

My way would have been more cool. Admit it.

I'm sure they really wanted to do it that way. But since you thought of it first they couldn't make the movie version as it would be stealing your idea - therefore they came up with plan B. And as they say - the rest is history.

Obama 1
Pirates -3.

We shouldn't prosecute the kid who jumped ship. We should do the Captains Courageous route and make him work on a navy boat to get his head on straight. Then, when he goes back to Somalia . . . well, he'll probably become a pirate again, but until then it would make a good movie.

The real version was insane enough - choppy seas, far off, momentary glimpse of their heads.