Our attention these days is drawn to the Horn of Africa, where another drama has played out to its conclusion even as the fate of the Maersk Alabama’s captain continues to unfold:
One French hostage has died and four others have been freed in a rescue operation by French troops on a yacht off Somalia, French officials say.
Two pirates were killed in the operation and three were captured, the French presidency said.
Officials said the rescue was launched when talks with the pirates broke down and threats became “more specific”.
There are two lessons in all of this. First, regardless of their tendency to be but indifferent allies when their friends are hard pressed, the French refuse to be trifled with when it comes to banditry and terrorism wreaked upon their own citizens. The second is an manifest tendency among sheltered elites to put more faith in their own innate elitism than the shelter that enables it.
It’s not known, as yet, whether the man was killed by his captors or by French military forces who stepped in after negotiations broke down. What is known, is that the yacht was operating in a place it had no rational reason to be:
(The) families on board the yacht, which was reported to be heading down to Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania, were urged not to travel through the Gulf of Aden. A spokesman for the French foreign ministry said Florent Lemacon and his wife Chloe were “repeatedly warned” not to travel through the area.
“It is difficult to understand why these warnings were not heeded,” spokesman Eric Chevallier said…
Speaking to French newspaper Ouest France, Mr Lemacon said they wanted to change their priorities in life.
“We don’t want our child to receive the sort of education that the government is concocting for us. We have got rid of the television and everything that seemed superfluous to concentrate on what is essential,” he said.
It’s difficult to see this as anything but simple-headed vanity, even if it’s possible to be sympathetic with the underlying sentiment. It reminds me of poor, young Christopher McCandless, who so took for granted the existential advantages of civilization that he determined to venture out into a state of nature to live in Alaska, and starved to death. Or Timothy Treadwell, who convinced himself that he had a special relationship with the grizzly bears that ultimately devoured him. These were people so used to being protected that they were no longer even aware of the forces that stood between them and entropy.
What is essential, of course, is to preserve one’s life as best one can, and to protect one’s family. To live in the world as it is, and not as we might wish it to be. To decline the luxury of woolly-headed romanticism, endangering other peoples’ lives in the process.
A life entirely without risk is not worth living. But only fools rush in…
What’s at least as shocking as the elitism is the fact that some pirates survived the rescue.
Those of us in ranching states, or reared with livestock nearby, understand this. A steer may be ultimately a steak in the grocery and the parting of a few bills brings it to your table, but until it’s in that wrapping and in that freezer it’s something that’ll kill you if you let it.
Same with weather. A foot of snow in New York and they shut the state down, at least for a day or two. People rush to the supermarket for bread and milk. Which, if they’d build up a weeks supply or so and keep it there’d be no need. The supermarket, they know, has about a 2-day supply on the shelves, and there’s no alternative once that runs out.
-20 degree days, among other things, make a person recognize that no matter your status in life, no matter how respected and powerful, there are forces at work that quite honestly don’t give a damn and are as happy to kill you as anybody else that might be unprepared.
I can kind of agree with this guy, I dropped the sattelite TV that pinched my wallet every month, there were maybe three channels I watched on occassion and most evenings I’ve far better things to do.
So giving up TV? Yeah, all for it. Thinking that places me in a state of nature all equal with every other predator on the planet? That’s sheer stupidity shining right on through.
Me may have dominion over animals, as the good book says. The animals have not yet read that book.
– Max
Max/ If you’re still here, my bit about health-care is @#21 under “NO NOTION” on 30 MAR.
Let’s see if I have this right. We have a SEAL Team about 1 mile away from a dinghy that is out of gas with an American Merchant Marine Captain held as hostage by a couple of shitheads.
Said dinghy is out of gas and adrift.
SEALS swim that mile underwater before breakfast and shoot a few hundred or thousand rounds before they get breakfast.
So what’s the problem here? Besides 0bama, I mean.
The Asian Badger:
You noticed.
There is a certain sort of naivete that goes along with elitist thinking – especially those who are liberal-minded elitists. They seem to believe that, “I would never hurt anyone so why would anyone ever want to hurt me?”
I have heard these same types espouse “talking” with the Taliban and its ilk – “We have to sit down with these people and talk to them to understand them in order to have peace with them.”
What those people fail to realize was well-summed up by Max Damage. There are forces in this world that can and will kill you, if you give them the chance.
I’m reminded of a Western movie where the hero Conagher shot a young “bad guy” in the stomach and the wounded man asked for his help, which would have required Conagher to get out from cover and exponse him to fire from the man’s comrades.
Conagher told the young man that he was “gut-shot” and there was nothing anybody could do for him.
The wounded man said, “You’re a hard man, Conagher.”
Conagher’s reply? – “It’s a hard world, kid.”
“So what’s the problem here? Besides 0bama, I mean.”
I’d bet anything you’d like to put up that there are ROE’s in play that take the tactical decisions away from the on-scene guys. They likely have to ask permission to shoot (or anything else for that matter) from two or three steps up the chain. If that weren’t true, they would have lit that lifeboat up like a Roman Candle when the Captain jumped off,but it probably takes 20-30 minutes to get permission to do the obvious.
What sort of pride can we take in our country’s “protection” of its citizens, when even the French, who have oft times irritated us diplomatically [sorry Lex and other French ancestried folks] have the stones to send in commandos and rescue the hijacked sailboat in the Gulf of Aden. Sacre Bleu! And we can’t rescue the brave captain of a very large American-flagged ship and bring an end to this mess.
We look like dopes here. We have a splendid Navy, with three ships on site right now, great numbers of brave and skilled warriors and top-flight technology ready to go. And Washington is sitting on its thumbs.
Look, idiots in charge of our government. You solve a crisis one step at a time. You’re all kvetching about the second or third steps along the way before you tackle the first. First, you suit up our SEALs and send them underwater to the lifeboat, drill holes in the bottom of it and sink it, snaffling off the pirates as they come out, saving our brave captain of the Alabama and carrying him back to the nearest warship. That solves the immediate crisis, and frees our forces to do whatever your little hearts would desire. If you can figure it out.
Come on now, guys. Cowboy up, for God’s sake. And for Captain Phillips’ sake. And while you’re at it, Mr. Obama, read a little American history. You are strangely uninformed about it. Now you’re trying to don the mantle of Teddy Roosevelt. Why don’t you Google ‘Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” It’s a start anyway.
Marianne, who is seriously disillusioned here
The Barbary Pirates (along with French Privateers) were the reason the U.S. Navy had it’s raison d’etre and built the original Six Frigates. Fighting piracy is how it all began, with the swashbuckling exploits of Steven Decatur (Read Six Frigates-Ian Toll). It was no holds barred compared to the current ROE’s. We tried to buy off the Dey of Algiers and appeasement didn’t work. History repeats and ir seems we walks softly and carry no stick.
Today, despite warships in the area, pirates are still running amok, and have captured an Italian ship. After pirates attacked a U.S. flagged ship it legitimized deadly force. As Asian Badger said: Send in the SEALS. Bring out the “big stick”.
Things that won\’t be reported here or in the right wing press. The crew that retook the hijacked Maersk Alabama belongs to Seafarers International Union (ie they\’re unionists). The crew members of the Maersk Alabama received anti-piracy training from (where else?) their union.
[...] Lex has coverage of the multiple warnings the French sailing yacht received not to sail through the Gulf of Aden. As [...]