Talks, the Snipers

Saturday the normally guns-ablaze Wall Street Journal editorial page called for patience in dealing with the pirate hostage situation off the coast of Somalia. Turns out they were right. To a point.

By sundown Sunday cargo ship captain Richard Phillips had been held for four days by four pirates on a small boat adrift in the Indian Ocean about 20 miles off Somalia. With each passing day calls for a military solution increased, first in the blogosphere and then in some of the mainstream media. And a military solution is what finally ended the standoff and freed Phillips.

It’s great news for Phillips and his family, for proud Americans, for sailors passing through the area, and for the Obama Administration which got through it’s first potentially problematic international “crisis.” But did it prove that the U.S. should have just blasted the briny bastards in the first place? Probably not.

Late last week the French military staged their own largely successful rescue (one hostage was killed but four others were saved) but only after exhaustive negotiations had broken down.

Likewise U.S. snipers took out the pirates holding Capt. Phillips only after negotiations failed and when one of the pirates pointed an automatic weapon directly at Phillips.

Letting this play out until there was no viable option was smart. That was the Navy’s call. Treating this like a hostage crisis and calling in the FBI was also smart. That was the kind of thing the last Administration might not have done.

This episode was a small but meaningful test for Barack Obama. He promised to be a different type of Commander in Chief than the last — more patient, more reasoned, less trigger-happy. Treating this kind of thing as a law enforcement matter used to get mocked by some commentators. But that’s what this was and just as NYPD snipers have to take over after negotiators fail, Navy SEALs had to kill the pirates in order to save Capt. Phillips once talking hit a dead end.

It might have been more satisfying in the fantasy movie version to have the pirate’s lifeboat blown to pieces by a missile seconds after Navy divers pulled Phillips over the side to safety but life isn’t 24. Armchair generals take note.

While plenty of people wanted to make this about the testing of a new American president it was clear from the outset that it was nothing of the sort.

First of all the pirates in this case (4 on one boat) apparently happened upon the Maersk Alabama as they returned from a failed hijacking attempt made, as is usually the case, with other pirate boats. There is no evidence they targeted the Danish-owned ship because it was American-flagged — or even knew it. Therefore the notion that these four punks (one was a teenager and the others barely older according to Navy sources) were in this to test Obama is a ridiculous fantasy.

But Somalia is not finished with President Obama. The piracy will continue even if none of the relatively small number of American-flagged cargo ships is likely to be attacked again. Far worse though, the lawless nation may very well become a far more dangerous haven for terrorist training camps. That has nothing to do with piracy and has no solution as simple and satisfying as the one the Navy executed this Easter Sunday.

A Modern Blackbeard

Face it. The most natural American gut reaction to the news about Somali pirates holding an American ship captain hostage is, blow them the f*ck up! And that’s pretty much what the always-level-headed editors at the New York Post advocated on Saturday.

We would urge Washington to bring the melodrama to an immediate end — irrespective of the consequences to the hostage. Failing to do so would paint the Navy — and America — as impotent, making US-flagged vessels even more tempting targets for Somali cutthroats.

In other words, Nuke ‘em!!!!! Oddly, cooler heads prevailed at Rupert Murdoch’s other calm-cool-collected editorial page, the Wall Street Journal.

Amid the crisis Wednesday for the Maersk Alabama cargo ship, Capt. Phillips calculated without hesitation that he would put his life at risk to save the lives of his crew members. He traded one life to save many. In some corners of the nation, that honorable act is also well understood as a show of American strength. General David Petraeus, now head of the U.S. Central Command, will surely seek a way in turn to save Capt. Phillips’ life. That may require patience.

Wow! The WSJ editors urging patience? What’s next? An editorial promoting national health care? Actually the remarkable divergence of opinion between America’s two generally lock-step conservative papers is telling. The Obama Administration finds itself in a murky mess where even the Pentagon is apparently split about how to handle the Somali pirates.

The White House has said the world needs to come together to deal with the larger issue of a lawless country almost ideally situated geographically to wreak havoc on critical shipping lanes. Agreed, but coming back to the subject at hand, hasn’t the world already joined to try and stop the pirates? India, Russia, France, Germany, Portugal, Canada, and others have naval ships patrolling off the 1,880 miles of Somali coastline yet the number of attacks has skyrocketed since last summer — there have been at least 80 attacks since July.

As the administration correctly points out, the problem is Somali pirates aren’t some unified entity that’s easily or even profitably attacked in their beach towns. Indeed the greater threat apparently comes from an Islamist group that is fighting Somali’s Ethiopian-backed government. The Washington Post has a lengthy look at Al-Shabab and why two U.S. Presidents have been reluctant to act with force. It helps to explain why these gangster pirates (which Al-Shabab seems to condemn) have flourished despite the international naval armada — they’ve been a nuisance but not a national security threat.

Now, however, by attacking the rare American-flagged cargo ship (see more on why there are so few, here) the Somali Sopranos of the Sea have attracted the kind of attention they really didn’t want. They hold nearly 250 hostages but until they took one American their business was pretty safe. No more.

The Obama team is well aware that (relatively) minor events like this can balloon into public opinion crises fast. It’s been 3 days (as of Saturday afternoon) since Captain Richard Phillips gave himself over to the pirates to save his crew and ship. At some point patience may prove impractical for both tactical and political reasons and the navy may have to act more assertively.

For now though, Obama has political cover to wait since only the most bloodthirsty armchair warriors are shouting for a military response — even if Captain Phillips dies as a result. Nice, huh?

Ahoy There!

There a few things more certain in life than this: Hyper-partisans (left and right) will twist everything and anything to fit their worldview. Today’s case in point comes courtesy of Red State and a contributor who speculates that the Somali pirates who have attacked and apparently captured an American-flagged cargo vessel did so because they know Barack Obama is a wuss.

While the author is correct no U.S. flagged vessel has been successfully attacked by pirates to this point it’s worth noting how few American-flagged vessels there are any more. The number of major cargo ships flagged (registered) in the U.S. is fewer than 200 because it is so much more expensive for shipping companies to register in the U.S. than in countries like Panama and Liberia which have low costs (and large fleets as a result — check page 36 of this report if you’re really really interested).

It’s also worth noting American-flagged and owned vessels have been attacked since piracy took off in 2005 during the time when the presumably frighteningly-tough-as-nails President George W. Bush was in the White House including two U.S. Navy ships, two large passenger cruise liners, and two large bulk cargo ships. Perhaps the best reason to question the author’s premise was Saturday’s attack on an Israeli cargo ship.

If these guys will attack an Israeli ship they’ve either never heard of the Raid on Entebbe or they’ll go after any ship they see. I’d bet on the latter.

The Magic 30 Percent

Speaking of that wuss of a President, the evidence is now awfully solid that the Republican game plan (the Party of No) has accomplished one thing: It has built and maintained Obama’s disapproval ratings…at 30%.

A new Marist Poll out right now (check out their new website too) gives Obama an approval rating of 56% with 30% saying they disapprove of the job he’s doing. Those numbers are in line with a series of other polls in the last month even if the approval number is on the lower end of the range. And while some might argue the bloom is off the rose, a quick look at Real Clear Politics’s or the Polling Report’s running averages of all polls proves the point.

Both averages put Obama’s approval rating at a steady 60%+ since January while his disapproval rate has gone from the teens to around 30% where it plateaued in mid-February. That should concern the GOP since Obama only got 53% of the vote in November to John McCain’s 46%. That means 16 percentage points worth of McCain voters still don’t buy the GOP’s opposing message (and most don’t buy Obama either).

The worst news for Republicans is in these numbers from the Gallup Poll:

Since his Inauguration Obama’s support among Democrats and independents has stayed roughly the same. Only Republicans have become more dissatisfied. With self-identifying Republicans dropping to levels rivalling post-Watergate, the GOP clearly needs a new plan. Unless they really enjoy being in the minority.

Number Crunchers Rejoice!

Bucolic Columbia County

If you can’t wait for the actual votes to get counted in the special election upstate to replace Kirsten Gillibrand in the House, Nate over at 538 has some analysis that indicates Democrat Scott Murphy could end up winning this most-Republican-district-in-New-York. What’s interesting is where the most absentee ballots are coming from: Columbia County, which we explained several times could prove pivotal because of all the second-home NYC residents who vote up there (where their votes obviously count far more because there are actually two parties in Columbia County).

Republican Jim Tedisco has been making the rounds to conservative radio shows and columnists making noises about Democratic intimidation of local election boards but as a weekend resident in the district (who does NOT vote there) I can tell you that any intimidation would probably be by the election board members. These are hardy peeps in the 20th who are unlikely to take any crap or suggestions from anybody. Further the notion that the state Board of Elections would be denying military ballots in order to favor a Democrat is equally absurd.

Remember this: Tedisco is being represented in any court action by former Republican Congressman James Walsh. Walsh is one of the four members of the State Board of Elections. So give it rest guys.

We should know who gets the distinct privilege of representing me (on weekends) in a week — or sooner.