Somali pirates attacked a U.S. ship for the first time in recent history. The American crew was unarmed (due to international law, cargo ship crews must be unarmed), but refused to give up their ship easily, wresting the ship from the Islamic attackers, and sending the Somalis fleeing.
Captain Richard Phillips, however, in order to secure the safety of his crew, allowed the pirates to take him as hostage. The Maersk Alabama was attacked hundreds of miles off the Somali coast, and though it is the first American vessel to be attacked, it was the 66th overall attack since January.
Glenn Beck, today, on his Fox News television program reminded us that from a historical point of view, this is nothing new. After all, the first foreign war that the United States fought as a nation was against Islamic Pirates. It is from this war during the early 1800s that the verse regarding the Shores of Tripoli in the United States Marine Corps anthem comes from. The term Leathernecks, which is a term that refers to Marines to this day, came from the leather collars the Marines wore around their necks during that war Thomas Jefferson reluctantly engaged in as a means to protect their necks from Islamic attempts to behead the Marines. The growing problem with Muslim pirates was one of the reasons Thomas Jefferson owned a Koran. He had procurred the Islamic holy book so that he may study his enemy in the hopes of discovering a means to defeat them readily.
Over two hundred years later we find ourselves still having to fight off Islamic pirates, and I believe if swift and decisive military actions are not taken to protect our vessels, this problem will only worsen.
President Obama, however, will probably want to try to negotiate with the pirates, apologizing for our prosperity, and promising a bailout to them so that they won't have to be criminals anymore.
Why not? That's what Obama does with everything else!
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