Savage on Piracy

"For the first time in 200 years, a US merchant vessel has been taken by priates. Now, the brave American crew of this merchant vessel, the Maersk Alabama, was able to overpower the pirates and retake the ship--but in the process, the pirates escaped with the captain of the ship, Richard Phillips. ... First of all, why was the crew on board this vessel not armed so they could prevent this sort of highjacking? ... On top of that, some idiot ship owner whose boat was taken over last year got on Fixed News and said that these crews shouldn't be armed. With idiots like this in positions of power, it's no wonder that these pirates sense weakness and prey on our vessels. .... It seems that our Navy has become nothing more than an extended form of welfare so that certain groups in our country can have better access to health care. ... I told you months ago ... that the US Navy was created in the early 1800s to combat the Barbary pirates that were attacking our merchant ships from North Africa. .... Back then we had real statesmen who were willing to take real action. Today we have Hillary Clinton. She's not angrily demanding the release of the captain and threatening to use the full force of the US military to wipe them off the face of the earth. Instead she's going to partner up with other countries in order to stop the problem. ... And now we hear the FBI is assisting the Navy in securing the release of the captain from the pirates. This is not a law enforcement issue; this is a military issue. We don't want police action; we want combat action", Michael Savage (MS) at World Net Daily, 10 April 2009, link: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=94503.

I agree with MS. Our current posture is absurd. All US merchant ship crews should be armed with: telescope sighted rifles, semi-auto rifles and hundreds of hand grenades. My guess: the first time a pirate ship is fired on and some pirates fall to small arms at say 300 meters from the intended target, it will leave. If not, dropping say six hand grenades over the side at the pirate ship might convince the would be pirates the crew was serious. The Navy can support the merchantmen if all else fails. We should then sink the pirate ship. We should video pirate ship sinkings and take no survivors. Then inform all would be Somali pirates, WE WILL KILL YOU. NO PRISONERS. NO ARRESTS. DEATH, FOLLOWED BY DOUSING YOUR CORPSE IN BACON GREASE. If we do this three or four times, my prediction: piracy off the Somali coast will decrease 90%. After I began writing this post three Navy Seals killed three of the four pirates, each with a single rifle shot. Well done Seals.