{"id":4569,"date":"2009-04-13T05:14:31","date_gmt":"2009-04-13T10:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4569"},"modified":"2009-04-13T05:14:31","modified_gmt":"2009-04-13T10:14:31","slug":"sealed-delivered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4569","title":{"rendered":"Sealed, Delivered"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not the one to gainsay President Obama’s performance in the Somali hostage crisis that ended yesterday with three dead pirates and a rescued captain.\u00a0 I imagine the President believes he has a lot of diplomatic eggs to balance in thinking of taking these sorts of actions (even though the pirates don’t represent a country).<\/p>\n

But Jeff Emanual has no problem speaking up:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Philips\u2019s first leap into the warm, dark water of the Indian Ocean hadn\u2019t worked out as well. With the Bainbridge in range and a rescue by his country\u2019s Navy possible, Philips threw himself off of his lifeboat prison, enabling Navy shooters onboard the destroyer a clear shot at his captors \u2014 and none was taken. The guidance from National Command Authority \u2014 the President of the United States, Barack Obama \u2014 had been clear: a peaceful solution was the only acceptable outcome to this standoff unless<\/em> the hostage\u2019s life was in clear, extreme danger.<\/p>\n

The next day, a small Navy boat approaching the floating raft was fired on by the Somali pirates \u2014 and again no fire was returned and no pirates killed, thanks again to the cautious stance assumed by Navy personnel due to the combination of a lack of clear guidance from Washington, and a mandate from the Commander in Chief\u2019s staff not to act until Obama, a man with no background of dealing with such issues and no track record of decisiveness, decided that any outcome other than a \u201cpeaceful solution\u201d would be acceptable.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After taking fire from the Somali kidnappers again Saturday night, the on-scene commander decided he\u2019d had enough. Keeping his authority to act in the case of a clear and present danger to the hostage\u2019s life, and having heard nothing from Washington since yet another request to mount a rescue operation had been denied the day before, the Navy officer \u2014 unnamed in all media reports to date \u2014 decided the AK-47 one captor had leveled at Philips\u2019 back was a threat to the hostage\u2019s life, and ordered the NSWC team to take their shots.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

All’s well that ends well.<\/p>\n

But as Emanuel describes it, it had every opportunity not to end well.<\/p>\n

Ah, well.\u00a0 As Vice President Biden told us, there are all sorts of crises spooling up for The One.\u00a0 Hang on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not the one to gainsay President Obama’s performance in the Somali hostage crisis that ended yesterday with three dead pirates and a rescued captain.\u00a0 I imagine the President believes he has a lot of diplomatic eggs to balance in thinking of taking these sorts of actions (even though the pirates don’t represent a country). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4569\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}