House of Eratosthenes

An American ship captain was freed unharmed today in a U.S. Navy operation that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, a senior U.S. intelligence official said.

One of the pirates was wounded and in custody after a swift firefight, the official said.

Capt. Richard Phillips, 53, of Underhill, Vermont, was safely transported to a Navy warship nearby.

Negotiations broke down because the Americans wanted the pirates brought to justice.

“The negotiations between the elders and American officials have broken down. The reason is American officials wanted to arrest the pirates in Puntland and elders refused the arrest of the pirates,” said the commissioner, Abdi Aziz Aw Yusuf. He said he organized initial contacts between the elders and the Americans.

Two other Somalis, one involved in the negotiations and another in contact with the pirates, also said the talks collapsed because of the U.S. insistence that the pirates be arrested and brought to justice.

Phillips’ crew of 19 American sailors reached safe harbor in Kenya’s northeast port of Mombasa on Saturday night under guard of U.S. Navy Seals, exhilarated by their freedom but mourning the absence of Phillips.

Let’s give credit to the current leadership folks, it’s only fair. At least for now, it would appear the “order over chaos” thing was upheld. Perhaps it’s an only-Nixon-can-go-to-China moment…like Clinton signing welfare reform or Bush practicing compassionate-giveaway-conservatism. However it came about, it seems the good guys won on this one.

Good. I’m glad. Wish more pirates got killed, but I’ll take it. Congratulations and a hearty thank-you to the noble warriors involved.

Update: …and in the spirit of that final note, a brief sketch of that brave skipper.

[Richard P.] Phillips, who was the captain of the Maersk Alabama, gave himself up as a prisoner in exchange for the safety of his crew of 19 when the container ship was attacked by pirates armed with AK-47s en route to Kenya. His crew took back their ship, but some of the pirates escaped with Phillips as a hostage in a lifeboat.

The U.S. Navy and FBI followed the pirates and tried to negotiate Phillips’s release, but his captors threatened to kill him if they mounted a rescue attempt. Phillips tried to escape Thursday, but was quickly recaptured.

The 55-year-old Vermont resident and father of two was well aware that pirate activity in the area has reached crisis proportions, with more than 40 ships hijacked last year alone.

The juxtaposition of this post with the Strunk & White controversy is striking. Note the examples of bad writing in the People article. The first sentence seems to be about “AK-47’s en route to Kenya.” The second appears to say that the pirates took a lifeboat (which coincidentally contained a Naval captain) hostage.

I agree with you about Elements of Style, of course, although for what I suspect are different reasons. Strunk & White was published when I was 14, and had already been taught better than to write sentences like the above.
- rob | 04/12/2009 @ 22:14
I was reading the story at Fox News, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,514822,00.html

I especially loved this part:

“Every country will be treated the way it treats us,” said Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding a Greek ship anchored in the pirate den of Gaan, a central Somali town.

Oh, I get it. So other countries have been seizing your ships and holding their crews for millions of dollars in ransom. And here I thought a bunch of Islamist thugs were sailing around off the Horn of Africa trying to make a quick buck by stealing other people’s property and putting innocent lives in danger.

“In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying,” he told The Associated Press by telephone. “We will retaliate for the killings of our men.”

Bring. It. On. They want escalation? We’ll deal with them the way we do with the fedyaeen in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m sure the US Navy’s warships and other military assets in the area are more than eager to put a few more bullets through your diseased, lice-bitten heads.

Maybe it’s time our Special Forces launched a raid on the known pirate bases along the Somali coast, blew up the skiffs, sank the motherships docked there, and killed everyone hanging around. It’s also high time that Every Last One of the ships passing through that area started carrying a fully-armed security team equipped with automatic weapons, night vision, and RPG’s, just like the pirates have. Maybe after a few dozen more of these dirtbags are gunned down trying to board a freighter (or better yet, blown out of the water on approach), they’ll think about finding another way to earn a living. Paying these ransoms off does nothing but make these people stronger.

F—ing scumbags. I hope our military kills every one of them. I’d like to pin a medal on the chests of those Seals that took the shot.
- cylarz | 04/13/2009 @ 02:51

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Obama Better President Than CarterSunday, April 12th, 2009

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Sunday, April 12th, 2009