Here it is! The Liberals ammunition for deriding the US and the Navy.McClatchy Newspapers, MALINDI, Kenya -- A relative of one of the pirates, who said he spoke with the men by satellite phone at about 3 p.m. -- four hours before the Navy opened fire -- said they "were getting scared" and trying to persuade the Americans to let them go in return for the captain's release.
Consequences of one's actions are tough when the actions are stoopid.
"They were trying to save their own lives," said the relative, Hassan Mohammed Farah, speaking by phone from Haradheere, a coastal town in central Somalia where pirates are known to operate. "The only thing they could bargain with was the captain, but the Americans would not accept."
If they hadn't taken him in the first place and had stuck to their agreement to trade the Captain for the other pirate they wouldn't be dead, either. Lie to me once and I won't belive you again.
The pirates had appealed by satellite phone to other pirate groups to sail captive ships and hostages to the scene of the standoff, to put some pressure on the U.S. forces. But Guled Farah, who belongs to another pirate group that had hijacked a German ship last week, said that the presence of the U.S. vessels scared them off.
"Their little boat was surrounded," Farah said by phone from Haradheere. "We couldn't go to help them, and for that we are sorry."
Poor little Pirates. My heart bleeds. Then again, it's probably just the Chili.
The rescue marked a dramatic conclusion to a saga that began Wednesday, when the pirates attempted to hijack an American-owned container ship, the Maersk Alabama, which was delivering food aid to Africa. It was another in a surge of pirate attacks this year off the coast of Somalia, Africa's most anarchic nation, with a coastline the length of California and no military force to police it.
The ship's unarmed, 20-man crew banded together to beat back the pirates, who escaped in one of the Alabama's lifeboats with Phillips, the captain. The Alabama arrived Saturday in the Kenyan port of Mombasa, its original destination, where crew members described Phillips as a hero. One said that Phillips "jumped" on one of the pirates after the pirate was led into the ship's engine room.
On Sunday, crew members, who've not been permitted formal interviews with reporters, shouted to journalists from the ship that the pirates had never taken control of the vessel. They said that as soon as the pirates entered the ship's bridge, Captain Phillips passed control of the vessel to the ship's engine room and disabled the steering mechanism on the bridge.
Out of Ammo? What the hell, did they use up shooting at seagulls? Cry me a frickin' river.