PrintApril 11, 2009
Let us thank the Somali pirates
Flashback: It's 1979, and President Jimmy Carter is facing a hostage crisis, with American diplomats being kidnapped by Islamist "students" in Tehran. Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew our Cold War ally, the Shah of Iran, with the tacit of the Carter Administration, because it thought of the murderous Ayatollah as "some kind of saint," in the words of former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young.
Jimmy and Zbig have been trying to explain their disastrous ignorance ever since; and because they are mentally stuck in appeasement thinking, they have infected the Obamanites with the same plague bacilli.
Flashforward to 2009, and an American merchant marine captain is being held hostage by Islamist pirates off the coast of Somalia. It's a repeat of 1979, and the world is watching to see if Obama is going to be any more effective than Jimmy Carter was.
Obama may think this is a "distraction". The rest of the world sees it as a test. And so, far Obama is flunking. The world will draw its own conclusions very quickly
Thank heavens for the pirates! Why? Because we must know as soon as possible if the Obamanites are as incompetent and foolish as they proudly claim to be -- or whether they can summon up the guts to try to rescue the captain. We have plenty of special ops forces who are trained for hostage rescue. The West has forty years of experience in knocking over hostage takers, as Israelis did in Entebbe. But similar methods have been perfected by now, as shown most recently in Colombia, where US forces advised the Colombian government how to deal with another hostage situation.
It always comes with real risk, both to our own troops and to the hostages. And yes, Mr. Obama, we may have to knock some pirates' heads as well.
If Obama fails to take action, watch for Russia to make a move on the Ukraine. China will get more aggressive toward Taiwan. Iran will openly throw sandals at Obama effigies, and the rest of the world will realize -- uh-oh, no more cop on the international beat. North Korea will launch another missile over Japan -- pahdon me, another satellite launch will somehow go astray, heading toward Hawaii.
That means one of two things: either the aggressors start winning, or somebody else has to play the international cop -- the role the United States has carried for sixty years.
So who do you want to play the world's cop?
Russia will happily volunteer do it for Europe, since Europe won't do it for itself. China could squeeze concessions from Japan and South Korea to stop the Norks. And in the Middle East it will either be Israel -- which can protect the Arab countries from nuclear attack by Iran -- or it will be the mad mullahs of Qom. I would guess that the Israelis will bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, with the covert help of Arab Gulf states.
Welcome to the age of American weakness. The whole world, we were told in the last eight years, wanted to bring the US down a notch or two. Well, just be careful what you wish for.
Maybe we should thank the Somali pirates for testing Obama this early in the new administration.
