Posted by
Joe Kennedy on Saturday, April 11, 2009 1:07:57 PM
What do Clint Eastwood and Barack Obama have in common? Absolutely nothing! One of my pet peeves with many screenplays is the scene where the bad guy is holding the victem close to him with a gun to his or her head and telling the good guy to drop his gun....which he does to protect the victem. LOL. The reason for Eastwood's iconic popularity is he would drop the bad guy with a shot between his eyes. If Eastwood had a part in the "Mexican standoff" with the Somali pirates there would be a dwindling number of pirates left alive each day. The current hit movie "Taken" with Liam Neeson comes to mind as well. While such responses are considered "cowboyish" by all too many of our policy makers and internattional critics it is instructive to see the French "going Israeli" on the pirates who recently captured the French yacht.
Why are we negotiating with pirates? We went down this disasterous road before which is why we have an American navy. It is a bridge to nowhere. As a giggling Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointed out, we confronted such piracy "a long time ago in Morocco". Talk about "the gang who could't shoot straight", it was not Morocco, it was Libya (specifically Tripoli - now Tarabulus) where the Navy and the Marines came into their own. (Just think, this bunch was critical of Sarah Palin's African geography!) With rules of engagement that essentially emasculate our armed forces it is not surprising that the pirates are so bold.
Between the pathetic pirates, the North Koreans, the Iranians, the Taliban, Al-Quida, the Middle East, drug gangs in Mexico (and moving North), China, Russia, ad nauseam the world is, as it always has been, a dangerous place. At a time when we are so vulnerable the last thing we need is a bunch of transnationalist social engineers at the helm of the ship of state who all fancy themselve Gandhi. Gandhi diplomacy only works when the target is a civilized society like Great Britain. If Gandhi had used his strategy with thugs like the ones we confront today he would have ended up with a gasoline filled tire draped around his neck and a one way ticket to obscurity. Obama can't afford to play Gandhi or hide behind the UN's skirts in Somalia or anywhere else. Perhaps he should watch a few "Dirty Harry" flicks.