Pirates and President Pantywaist
Written by Jack Kelly
Friday, 10 April 2009
The opening stanza of the Marine Corps hymn is: "From the Halls of
Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we fight our country's battles in the air,
on land and sea."
The "Halls of Montezuma" refers to the assault on Chapultapec Castle
on September 13, 1847 during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), by the small
Marine contingent led by Captain Silas Casey in Gen. Winfield Scott's
army. Ninety percent of the officers and NCOs who led the assault were
killed. The red stripe on the dress uniform trousers of Marine officers
is in commemoration of the blood their predecessors shed that day.
(For those who love historical coincidences, the Marines attacked along a route
up the mountain that had been picked out by an Army engineer, Major Robert E.
Lee. Immediately behind the Marines was a company of soldiers led by Lt.
Ulysses S. Grant. And the first Marine to reach the castle parapet was George
Pickett, later to lead Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. )
"To the shores of Tripoli" refers to the Marine role in Thomas
Jefferson's war against the Barbary pirates. The "Barbary
coast" was a collection of Moslem mini-states on Africa's Mediterranean
coast stretching from present day Algeria to present day Libya. The
principal source of revenue for the Barbary states was attacking shipping in
the Mediterranean, stealing their cargoes, and hold the crews for ransom or
selling them into slavery.
The European powers of the day thought it cheaper to pay tribute to the Barbary
states than to attack the pirates, and in 1784, the U.S. Congress followed
suit. This was opposed by Mr. Jefferson, then the minister to France, who
thought paying tribute would lead to larger demands. "It will be
more easy to raise ships and men to fight these pirates into reason, than money
to bribe them," Mr. Jefferson wrote in a letter to the president of Yale
University in 1786.
Thomas Jefferson favored forming an international coalition to fight the
pirates, but the Europeans wouldn't go along. When he became president in
1801, Mr. Jefferson refused Tripoli's demands for an immediate payment of
$225,000, whereupon the Pasha of Tripoli, Yussif Karamanli, declared war
on the United States.
This turned out to be a big mistake for Mr. Karamanli. President
Jefferson dispatched naval forces to the Mediterranean, and sent one of the
most remarkable of American heroes, William Eaton, to Egypt to raise an army to
attack Tripoli. The only Americans Captain Eaton had with him were seven
Marines led by Lt. Presley O'Bannon.
Mr. Eaton led the seven Marines and a motley force of about 500 Arab and Greek
mercenaries on a 500-mile trek across the Libyan desert to attack Tripoli's
capital of Derna, which was captured on April 27, 1805 in large part because of
the reckless courage displayed by Lt. O'Bannon and his Marines. The dress
sword Marine officers carry is modeled on the Mameluke sword an Arab prince
presented to Lt. O'Bannon after the victory.
American naval forces commanded by Commodore Edward Preble and Captain Stephen
Decatur had successes against the other Barbary states. On June 5, 1805,
the Pasha signed a surrender treaty and President Jefferson told Congress the
threat posed by the Barbary pirates was at an end.
Seizures of U.S.-flagged ships on the high seas have been few and far between
since Jefferson's time, thanks largely to his forceful response. Until
this week, when Somali pirates seized the aid ship Maersk Alabama.
The crew recaptured it, but at this writing, the surviving pirates still hold
the ship's captain.
Piracy is thriving along the Somali coast today for the same reason it
flourished along the Barbary Coast for 300 years. "The number of successful
pirate attacks has increased almost fourfold since 2007, after the pirates
received several multimillion dollar ransom payments in early 2008," the
Intelligence Community said in its 2009 threat assessment.
The only effective way to deal with pirates is to kill them, as Thomas
Jefferson did with the Barbary pirates, and the Royal Navy did a century
earlier with the pirates of the Caribbean. The U.S. military has plans
for dealing with the pirates, which need only the president's approval to be put
into action.
Ever since Mr. Obama was in London for the G20 meeting last week, then went on
his "Spring Apology Tour" as my friend Ralph Peters calls it, the
British press has been scathingly contemptuous of him. The London
Telegraph now refers to him as President Pantywaist
In dealing with the Somali pirates, will Mr. Obama act like Thomas Jefferson or
live up to his new nickname?
Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant
secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national
security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Having spoken to some SEAL pals here in Virginia Beach yesterday and
asking why this thing dragged out for 4 days, I got the following:
1. BHO wouldn't authorize the DEVGRU/NSWC SEAL teams to the scene for
36 hours going against OSC (on scene commander) recommendation.
2. Once they arrived, BHO imposed restrictions on their ROE that they
couldn't do anything unless the hostage's life was in "imminent" danger
3. The first time the hostage jumped, the SEALS had the raggies all
sighted in, but could not fire due to ROE restriction
4. When the navy RIB came under fire as it approached with supplies, no
fire was returned due to ROE restrictions. As the raggies were shooting
at the RIB, they were exposed and the SEALS had them all dialed in.
5. BHO specifically denied two rescue plans developed by the Bainbridge
CPN and SEAL teams
6. Bainbridge CPN and SEAL team CDR finally decide they have the OpArea
and OSC authority to solely determine risk to hostage. 4 hours later, 3
dead raggies
7. BHO immediately claims credit for his "daring and decisive"
behavior. As usual with him, it's BS.
So per our last email thread, I'm downgrading Obama's performance to D-.
Only reason it's not an F is that the hostage survived.
Read the following accurate account.
Philips’ first leap into the warm, dark water of the Indian Ocean hadn’t
worked out as well. With the Bainbridge in range and a rescue by his
country’s Navy possible, Philips threw himself off of his
lifeboat prison, enabling Navy shooters onboard the destroyer a clear
shot at his captors — and none was taken.
The guidance from National Command Authority — the president of the
United States, Barack Obama — had been clear: a peaceful solution was
the only acceptable outcome to this standoff unless the hostage’s life
was in clear, extreme danger.
The next day, a small Navy boat approaching the floating raft was fired
on by the Somali pirates — and again no fire was returned and no pirates
killed. This was again due to the cautious stance assumed by Navy
personnel thanks to the combination of a lack of clear guidance from
Washington and a mandate from the commander in chief’s staff not to act
until Obama, a man with no background of dealing with such issues and no
track record of decisiveness, decided that any outcome other than a
“peaceful solution” would be acceptable.
After taking fire from the Somali kidnappers again Saturday night, the
on-scene-commander decided he’d had enough.
Keeping his authority to act in the case of a clear and present danger
to the hostage’s life and having heard nothing from Washington since yet
another request to mount a rescue operation had been denied the day
before, the Navy officer — unnamed in all media reports to date —
decided the AK47 one captor had leveled at Philips’ back was a threat to
the hostage’s life and ordered the NSWC team to take their shots.
Three rounds downrange later, all three brigands became enemy KIA and
Philips was safe.
There is upside, downside, and spinside to the series of events over the
last week that culminated in yesterday’s dramatic rescue of an American
hostage.
Almost immediately following word of the rescue, the Obama
administration and its supporters claimed victory against pirates in the
Indian Ocean and [1] declared that the dramatic end to the standoff put
to rest questions of the inexperienced president’s toughness and
decisiveness.
Despite the Obama administration’s (and its sycophants’) attempt to spin
yesterday’s success as a result of bold, decisive leadership by the
inexperienced president, the reality is nothing of the sort.
What should have been a standoff lasting only hours — as long as it took
the USS Bainbridge and its team of NSWC operators to steam to the
location — became an embarrassing four day and counting
standoff between a ragtag handful of criminals with rifles and a U.S.
Navy warship.