Negotiations Break Down in Standoff With Pirates (NYT)

[jefferson_dem]

Ok. All bets are off now. This likely won't end pretty...

Negotiations Break Down in Standoff With Pirates
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Negotiations over the American captain taken hostage by Somali pirates broke down on Saturday, according to Somali officials, after American officials insisted that the pirates be arrested and a group of elders representing the pirates refused.

Somali officials said the American captain, Richard Phillips, and the four heavily armed pirates holding him hostage remained in a covered lifeboat floating in the Indian Ocean about 30 miles off Gara’ad, a notorious pirate den in northeastern Somalia.

The negotiations broke down hours after the pirates fired on a small United States Navy vessel that had tried to approach the lifeboat not long after sunrise Saturday in the Indian Ocean.

It was the first such approach since the standoff began on Wednesday, and the vessel returned to a nearby Navy destroyer, the Bainbridge, after the pirates fired warning shots in the air, according to an American military official.

<SNIP>

On Saturday, a group of Somali elders from Gara’ad, mediating on behalf of the pirates, spoke by satellite phone to American officials, according to Abdul Aziz Aw Mahamoud, a district commissioner in the semiautonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia. The elders proposed a deal in which the pirates would release Captain Phillips, with no ransom paid, and that the pirates would then be allowed to escape.

But Mr. Abdul Aziz said that the Americans insisted that the pirates be handed over to Puntland authorities, and the elders refused. By noon local time, the Americans cut off communications with the elders, he said.

<SNIP>

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/world/africa/12somalia.html?_r=1&ref=africa&pagewanted=print

[Skink]

1. Couldn't they just hit these guys with some kind of nerve agent?

:popcorn:

[DontTreadOnMe]

2. better plan

It would be easy to bombard the small boat with sound waves, that induce sickness and vomiting, causing a human to feel very weak, but not killing anyone.

I am worried that the US Gov't is not handling this better... and faster.

[BeatleBoot]

3. Sounds like the end of negotiations to me

"...the pirates fired on a small United States Navy vessel that had tried to approach the lifeboat not long after sunrise Saturday in the Indian Ocean."


It is what it is.


An ending that, while sad, has now become necessary.


Too many dumb fucks in this world, that's for sure.

[David Dunham]

4. We should threaten to napalm the pirates if they harm the captain

[atreides1]

6. I don't think it'll matter to them

Their choices are now limited to being arrested or dying, and from the sound of things they're ready to die.

[jefferson_dem]

5. MORE - Obama Closely Monitoring Pirate Hostage (ABC)

Obama Closely Monitoring Pirate Hostage
U.S. Navy Is Tracking Pirates Holding American Hostage in a Lifeboat
By JOHN HENDREN
April 11, 2009 —

While the Pentagon is directing the military response, President Obama is getting personally involved in one of his first major national crises.

As U.S. Navy vessel continued to track a handful of Somali pirates in a lifeboat on Saturday, the president received several updates, both written and over the phone. A White House interagency group on piracy met throughout the day as the president's aides monitored the military response.

"If he handles this poorly and we wind up not only losing a captain but seeming to give in to terrorism, there will be the possibility of a narrative that people and critics can tell about how he is supposedly weak in protecting the country's security," Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst with The Brookings Institution, told ABC News.

<SNIP>

An American military rescue effort would likely mean Navy SEALs approaching the boat at night, underwater. But an assault on desperate pirates is a last resort.

"The last thing they want to do is put those terrorists in a position where they have no options left other than to take this man's life," Couch said.

With the pirates' lifeboat now just 20 miles from the Somali shore, the Navy could soon find it has no other option.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7315815&page=1

[opihimoimoi]

7. Anerican Navy blew it...strayed too far away from lifeboat..when Capt jumped

into the sea,,,,,it was an opening for cover fire to commence....no one thought of what happens if Capt gets free and jumps into open water.....sad.....now he has good odds to die....

[jefferson_dem]

8. This is a complex standoff, involving more moving parts than what's obvious.

The Reuters report said other nations (Philippines, in particular) want assurances that their hostages being held by the Somali pirates will be secure if the US goes ape-shit on their asses. They are also requesting UN support. That may not happen...