U.S. military at dawn on Thursday, September 9th forcibly boarded a German owned freighter, the Magellan Star. Somali pirates had hijacked the ship, had 11 crew members as hostage, and were demanding ransom. Here's what happened... The 11 crew members that had been held hostage had locked themselves in the engine room. The crew members were too frightened to open the door, because they didn't know for sure if it was the Marines. So, a Marine cut a small hole in the door, pulled the U.S. flag off his cammies, and pushed it through the hole in the door. Then, the crew knew they had been rescued. No one was killed in this operation, and all of the pirates have been arrested.
Oh great, now the Muslims are going to be in an uproar again about how the United States is oppressing them. They'll be complaining about how the United States never oppresses Christian pirates and about how they are singled out for persecution because of their religion. They will probably sue the Marine Corps for scaring them. The Obama administration will give them the rights of American citizens and they will be tried in American courts. Eventually it will be determined that their civil rights were violated and they will be given large cash payments and resettled in some third country that we bribe to accept terrorists. Oy vey... haven't we been through this cycle enough...
Disclaimer: The U.S. military believes in providing equal arrest and conviction opportunities for all pirates without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or marital status in accordance with applicable Federal, state, and local laws.
I agree. These pirates aren't anything that a freighter crew with a few Remington SP-10s couldn't fix.
Freighter crews don't tend to be dependent weaklings, and yet a lot of freighters are being captured by these pirates. Either these pirates have better tactical skills than you're assuming or something else is going on here. Perhaps the freighter crews are unarmed due to gun control regulations in some of the ports they visit?
This video doesn't show very much of it, but at least it's something... [video=youtube;GL_Z7dG66lM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL_Z7dG66lM[/video]
I don't think it's even an issue of the foreign ports being restrictive, except maybe in the case of American ships. Most countries have laws preventing their own citizens from possessing much more than a pea shooter, so freighter crews don't even have the chance to get a gun that would get them denied entry at the foreign port. It's unfortunate that so many governments won't let their own citizens carry guns, since piracy is its own example of just how effective an armed civilian crew can be in combatting another crew. Like I said, freight crews with Remington SP-10s would fix this whole problem of piracy.
Freighters aren't fast and the pirates can out run them most of the time. Most people on the freighter aren't looking for a fight as they have different objectives in life usually. I'm kind of surprised the marines went in on this one, but it does make sense since they are part of the Navy I guess.
Basically that's the original role of the Marines... combat component of the Navy. The word "marine" has to do with being on/in the water. The USMC officer's sword is a replica of the Mameluke sword, presented to Lt Presley O'Banion when a handful of Marines kicked the Barbary pirates butts (which is where "the shores of Tripoli" came from in the Marine Hymn). Up until that point the then fledgling US had paid tribute to the pirates along that coast (as did other nations)... but the time came to end that practice and Jefferson (?) sent the Marines instead of gold. [Darn those anti-entrepreneural presidents.] Anyway, it had been announced that the USMC is working back into a more traditional marine role. Guess this is an example.