Dayo Olopade of The Root snapped an exclusive photo of President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton showing America’s strength and resolve while tackling the pirate crisis
He won’t say a word! Capt. Richard Phillips is still being held hostage, and after a failed escape attempt, the pirates are demanding $2 million for his release:
The Somali pirates holding Capt. Richard Phillips hostage demanded $2 million in ransom yesterday, hours after the hero skipper tried to save himself by jumping from their boat and nearly swimming to safety.
The 53-year-old American managed to make it to within sight of a US Navy destroyer that’s shadowing the pirate craft. But his captors soon realized he was missing, fired their rifles at him and pulled him back into their small craft.
Phillips was unhurt, but the pirates later told hostage negotiators from the Navy and the FBI that they would kill him if the United States tried to take him back by force.
The bumbling buccaneers then tried to improve their vulnerable position by calling in a small fleet of four captured vessels that are filled with other hostage seamen from around the world.
MM:
So much for restoring America’s standing in the world. The London Telegraph’s Gerald Warner dubs Obama “President Pantywaist.”
Barack Obama: President Pantywaist – new surrender monkey on the block
President Barack Obama has recently completed the most successful foreign policy tour since Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. You name it, he blew it. What was his big deal economic programme that he was determined to drive through the G20 summit? Another massive stimulus package, globally funded and co-ordinated. Did he achieve it? Not so as you’d notice.
Barack is not the first New World ingenue to discover that European leaders will load him with praise, struggle sycophantically to be photographed with him and outdo him in Utopian rhetoric. But when it comes to the critical moment of opening their wallets – suddenly it is flag-day in Aberdeen. Okay, put the G20 down to inexperience, beginner’s nerves, what you will.
On to Nato and the next big objective: to persuade the same European evasion experts that America, Britain and Canada should no longer bear the brunt of the Afghan struggle virtually unassisted. The Old World sucked through its teeth, said that was asking a lot – but, seeing it was Barack, to whom they could refuse nothing, they would graciously accede to his wishes.
So The One retired triumphant, having secured a massive contribution of 5,000 extra troops – all of them non-combatant, of course – which must really have put the wind up the Taliban, at the prospect of 5,000 more infidel cooks and bottle-washers swarming into the less hazardous regions of Afghanistan.
Then came the dramatic bit, the authentic West Wing script, with the President wakened in the middle of the night in Prague to be told that Kim Jong-il had just launched a Taepodong-2 missile. America had Aegis destroyers tracking the missile and could have shot it down. But Uncle Sam had a sterner reprisal in store for l’il ole Kim (as Dame Edna might call him): a multi-megaton strike of Obama hot air.
“Rules must be binding,” declared Obama, referring to the fact that Kim had just breached UN Resolutions 1695 and 1718. “Violations must be punished.” (Sounds ominous.) “Words must mean something.” (Why, Barack? They never did before, for you – as a cursory glance at your many speeches will show.)
President Pantywaist is hopping mad and he has a strategy to cut Kim down to size: he is going to slice $1.4bn off America’s missile defence programme, presumably on the calculation that Kim would feel it unsporting to hit a sitting duck, so that will spoil his fun.
Watch out, France and Co, there is a new surrender monkey on the block and, over the next four years, he will spectacularly sell out the interests of the West with every kind of liberal-delusionist initiative on nuclear disarmament and sitting down to negotiate with any power freak who wants to buy time to get a good ICBM fix on San Francisco, or wherever. If you thought the world was a tad unsafe with Dubya around, just wait until President Pantywaist gets into his stride.
UPDATE: Pirates seize U.S.-owned, Italy flagged tugboat
NAIROBI, April 11 (Reuters) – Pirates seized a U.S.-owned and Italian-flagged tugboat with 16 crew on Saturday in the latest hijacking in the busy Gulf of Aden waterway, a regional maritime group said.
Andrew Mwangura, of the Mombasa-based East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, said the crew were believed to be unharmed on the tugboat, which he added was operated from the United Arab Emirates.
Click the link for updates as the story develops.
How long will it take Hillary to laugh at this one?
Linked with:
- Detroit Public Schools plans closures, layoffs (Thanks Obama) « Goodtimepolitics
- Pirates Raid, Leaders Played
- Apparently Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration find the Somalia Pirate/Hostage situation funny | Fire Andrea Mitchell!
- Blow Them Out Of The Water « Track-A-’Crat: The Roll Call of Democratic Delinquency
- Somali Pirates and Brave US Hostages Showcased in Smart Political Cartoon, ‘Day by Day’ « Frugal Café Blog Zone
- Pardon Me, But Why Are These Pirates Still Alive? | All American Blogger
- Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator
- Taking care of Pirates…the right way! « Red Dot in a Red State’s Blog
Trackposted to Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Rosemary’s Thoughts, third world county, Allie is Wired, Political Byline, The World According to Carl, The Pink Flamingo, Leaning Straight Up, CORSARI D’ITALIA, and Stageleft, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
I saw this photo in a newspaper and the babbling idiot that wrote the accompanying article wrote about nothing other than how wonderful it was seeing two once bitter political rivals peacefully conversing. Oh, yes, how wonderful!
I haven’t seen one MSM source yet report anything critical about Obama’s disastrous pandering trip to Europe, or his total lack of leadership on this pirate deal.
Gawd, what a loser. I just hope we can survive the next 3.6 years with something left of this nation.
No updates?
Bob, there are all kinds of updates in the form of new posts.