Defense Secretary: Killed Somali Pirates Were "Untrained" Teenagers

[tekisui]

Source: ChinaView

WASHINGTON, April 13 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Monday that three Somali pirates who were killed by the Navy's Seals to end a hostage crisis were "untrained" teenagers.

Addressing an audience at the Marine Corps War College in Quantico, Virginia, Gates said that the slain pirates, aged at between 17 to 19, were heavily armed but inexperienced.

They were shot dead on Sunday at the end of a five-day standoff with the U.S. military after they attacked a U.S.-flagged cargo ship about 400 kilometers away from Somali and held an American captain as hostage.

"As long as you've got this incredible number of poor people and the risks are relatively small, there's really no way in my view to control it unless you get something on land that begins to change the equation for these kids," Gates told students and faculty members.

He also noted that there is no purely military solution to piracy in the region.

The discussion on anti-privacy did not halt with the successful rescue of the captain, as President Barack Obama vowed to combat the rise of piracy off the coast of Somalia on Monday.

more: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/14/content_11181063.htm

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Well thank god they're dead.

Let's hope they learn to stay off my lawn.

[thewiseguy]

63. And thank god the captain is alive

Those fucking pirates were going to kill him. They dug their own grave.

[pleah]

2. Aw, now you've gone and peed on the party people were having.

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[yella_dawg]

3. Anti-Privacy efforts in Somalia?

Typographical error or Freudian slip? Hmmm...

[ShortnFiery]

4. Heaven forbid that they would be blessed with a moral upbrining like us Americans.

Probably would not make a difference because, after all, we have GOD on our side. :crazy:

[WeDidIt]

5. I joined the Army when I was 17

These were adults who made an adult decision.

[tekisui]

8. I agree.

They made the choice to not release the hostage, the negotiators were clear with them. They were given one option, hand over the Captain, and you won't be killed. They made the choice.

[bushmeister0]

11. Most 17 year-olds I know don't always make the best decisions.

I'm thinking whoever employed them, no doubt some old guy with lots of loot, probably instructed them to hold out while negotiations with the "Elders" back safe on shore progressed.

I'm not excusing them, but their initial decision to go after the ship with just four guys, instead of the standard 10 to 15, shows you they weren't the brightest bulbs and you can be sure their cut was probably not going to be that big, either.

[DevonRex]

18. In Somalia I bet 17 is middle age for males. nt

[Windy]

10. I did too.And they have 5 days to surrender. They new the Navy was around them

and yet, they didn't give up.

They are not children.

[riderinthestorm]

23. My grandfather lied about his age and fought in WWI when he was 16.

In the trenches. He told a story about one of the trenches he was in getting overrun by a retreating platoon and was overcrowded so they asked (asked!) for volunteers to leave that trench and run to another. He volunteered since he was the only unmarried guy. As soon as he took off sprinting to the next trench, the one he just left got blown to bits and everyone in it was killed.

He was operating as a British spy by the time he was 18 years old.

I was basically on my own at 17 years old - moved out and going to college on my own dime. My husband moved out on his own when he was 15 years old (terrible step mother stories there).

Never, ever underestimate "kids". Some teens really are adults making adult decisions. These pirates get no pass from me on their behavior. They had a LOT of lee way to hand over the captain and get away. They chose to make a stand.

So be it.

[Brooklyns_Finest]

27. I joined the Marines at 18

War is a young mans game. Look at the average age of those who have died in Iraq & Afghanistan. I would bet that it is between 18-20. In america, our most violent criminals are around the same age. At that age, men have a lot of energy and excess testosterone. We all have to find an outlet for our hyper-masculinity. Some of us get in to sports, some join the military, and some become criminals.

I feel nothing for 3 dead criminals.

[ret5hd]

30. Did you run the operation when you were 17...

or did you follow orders?

My bet is you followed orders.

[MajorChode]

33. As did the pirates

[WeDidIt]

35. I made an adult decision that could have cost me my life n/t

[stray cat]

6. Would one really be comforted by being kidnapped by a bunch of heavily armed teenagers?

They can shoot you dead as easy as anyone. Also, is anyone willing to condone atrocities by our armed forces if they are under the age of 20? Its an insult to Somalis to think they are not sufficiently human to be held responsible for moral choices.

[doctor jazz]

7. Easier, probably. Teenagers think they're immortal.

...

[krispos42]

9. Irrelevent

This isn't a game. It's life-or-death. If somebody's seriously attacking me or mine, I want the best tool to stop them with absolute minimal harm to myself and my loved ones.


We can debate about *when* to shoot. Once the shooting starts, though, maximum controlled violence until the threat is gone.

[DevonRex]

12. Thank you. nt

[krispos42]

13. Well, there's a lot you can do before the critical moment

Talk, bluff, trick, intimidate, and all of those should be done to the extent possible.



But these guys were staring eyeball-to-eyeball with a US guided missile destroyer... and they had a life boat.

96-cell vertical launch system carrying Tomahawk and Standard guided missiles. A 5-inch rapid-fire high-velocity naval rifle with laser-guided shells. A pair of 20mm Gatling guns. Four .50-caliber machine guns. And the small arms of the crew... M16s and M14s.


In the face of this, they were not intimidated.

[DevonRex]

17. Exactly.

There were so many opportunities for this to turn out well. Yet, the pirates chose to shove that AK in their hostage's face when they were within 100 feet of the destroyer and the snipers and all those guns and firearms.

[Politicalboi]

14. And they shot at our guys

They knew what they were doing 17 years old or not. Do they also call young Iraqi's who shoot at us because we killed their parents inexperienced too or do they call them terrorist?

[LisaL]

15. Yea well I think those would be the most dangerous kind if you are a hostage.

Jeez.

[Occam Bandage]

16. Young, male, heavily armed, and clueless. Probably the most dangerous possible combination. nt

[EFerrari]

22. The Navy can deal with nukes but not teenagers? We're screwn!

[Occam Bandage]

28. They dealt with them quite impressively.

It isn't the Navy's job to provide guidance counseling for young Somalian men.

[ForrestGump]

70. Wrong

They just needed a hug.

Father Flanagan said there's no such thing as a bad boy. Of course, this was before all the pedophile stuff was in the news...

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

44. I think they did an excellent job of dealing with them

[davidinalameda]

64. teenagers are much more dangerous

at least you can find the off button for a nuke

[XOKCowboy]

38. Don't forget hungry and hopeless

Enjoy your bloodlust. Forget the underlying symptoms. Hell let's just bomb them and get it over with.

[Elwood P Dowd]

41. And they were stealing relief supplies going to poor people

and threatening to murder the captain of the ship delivering those supplies.

[Occam Bandage]

46. The underlying causes (I assume you mean cause, and not symptom) are

certainly deserving of being addressed, but are not part of the decision regarding whether or not to use deadly force. And really, forget the "hungry and hopeless" bullshit. They weren't asking for a sandwich or increased USAID shipments or for fishing restrictions. They wanted two million dollars so they could buy weapons to fund their clan in the ongoing Somali civil war.

[Kaleva]

19. Young, dumb and full of (another word for sperm)

It's been known for several thousand years that teenage boys make the best soldiers.

[jmg257]

20. Apparently the risks are no longer "relatively small" nt.

[varelse]

21. "He also noted that there is no purely military solution to piracy in the region."

Thank you, Robert Gates!

[Matariki]

24. Wow. He's acknowledging poverty as a factor.

And dismissing a military solution. That's a change.

[Lisa0825]

53. and how many DUers were insulted for such statements over the past couple days? nt

just askin'.

[MadMaddie]

25. A 13, 16, 17, 25, 35, 45, 65, Phill Spector, Columbine, Paduca

If an idividual whether mentally capable or not picks up any type of gun and points it at another individual.......all bets are off....

Police officers and military personel are not trained to guess what someone is planning to do while pointing a gun at them....it is seen as a direct threat.

We sent in the best US negotiaters from the FBI and these teens refused to negotiate and come to a solution. When they pointed the gun at the Captains head.....they made that choice.......

The risks were reletively small because Insurance companies were paying these ransoms....it was inevitable that a situation like this was going to happen.

[Bucky]

67. That makes a lot of sense

It's a policy problem when bunches of kids are running around with guns. Not enough community, not enough economic options, not enough policing of the waters, not enough political stability to address the problems. Their loss is a tragedy, but it sure looks like the Navy did everything it could to end the situation without loss of life.

[Seldona]

26. Of course they were.

You don't think the warlords running these criminal organizations would put themselves at risk? They are to busy cowering on land and making threats to shoot anyone of American or French origin simply because we dared to take action.

In fact I wouldn't call them pirates at all really. They are kidnappers, plain and simple. Of course they will send their lackeys to where the most money is, which happens to be at sea. I doubt any of the leadership ever sets foot on a sea-going vessel.

Even if they did that doesn't make them anything more than common, run of the mill, kidnappers. I fail to see how anyone can justify the actions taken by these admittedly desperate people. What if it were you or one of your family members?

I can see these same people patrolling their territorial waters to ensure illegal dumping isn't taking place failing any sort of governmental action, but I don't see the connection. Doesn't mean one doesn't exist, but even so desperate people do not have to resort to actions like this.

[TorchTheWitch]

31. They're pirates

In addition to kidnapping they steal ships and cargo. That's pirating. Pirates of old did a lot of kidnapping as well.

[Seldona]

40. Not up on my pirating history I see.

I suppose they made money however they could. Makes sense, from their perspective at least.

[bertman]

42. People whose families are starving will do pretty much whatever they think will help

end that situation.

I'm impressed that Gates was honest about the background situation and the state of Somalia.

[scheming daemons]

29. Yep... and now they are messages to the rest of the Somali pirates...and I'm ok with that

Don't fuck with American ships. This President isn't "soft" like you think he is.

[Canuckistanian]

32. Shooting kids. But Yay Navy Seals!

They rawk.

[Marrah_G]

36. You do realize that teenage boys can be very vicious right?

Africa especially, has seen the horrors of what child soldiers can do.

[Canuckistanian]

48. That' no rationalization for summarily executing them

Civilised countries don't murder child soldiers - they try to help them rehabilitate.

This was an extreme case, of course. I just think the heavy armaments were whipped out too fast.

[LisaL]

58. And if you were that hostage, I suspect you might have been

singing a different song.

[Marrah_G]

65. There was no execution- they had a machine gun to a man's head.

They had held him for days. Other hostages from other countries were being threatened.

Sometimes it seems like you guys would rather the Captain have been dead simply because he was American.

[Mike Daniels]

69. They recaptured the captain after he attempted to escape, beat him

and appeared to be ready to execute him.

But hey, let's just tossle their hair and tell them not to misbehave.

[ForrestGump]

71. Child soldier willing to fire on navy dudes and with a gun to the captain = bullet

Child soldier who puts down the gun, at least when large navy ships and ninja snipers are about = rehabilitation

[Elwood P Dowd]

37. Those so called fucking "kids" had AK-47s and RPGs.

They hijacked a ship of relief supplies going to poor people in Kenya. They were threating to kill the captain of the ship. I say kill the bastards. They refused to release the captain and refused to abandon their demands for ransom. I don't care if they were 17-19, they were armed and dangerous.

[opihimoimoi]

39. I don't care if them kids were 12...it don't matter...they were warned...give it up

and they didn't...they were armed and had already shot at our navy guys on Friday...they set up their own loss of heads....

[Canuckistanian]

52. I'm just SICK of the bloodlust

Was it necessary to kill the kidnappers? Maybe so. Maybe they thought that the killing of an American would bring them glory.

But maybe not.

Seems to me if you're out of gas and being towed behind a fucking US Navy ship, just MAYBE you'd get a clue that you're not the big revolutionaries striking a blow for your oppressed people. Maybe you're just a scared kid in WAY over your head.

But we'll never know now will we?

[riderinthestorm]

47. My grandfather went to war in WWI at 16 years old.

I left my home and became self-sufficient at 17. My husband at 15.

My daughter took off by herself on an Irish archaeological dig at 16, wrote it up, and started college at 17.

Some "kids" are adults at that age. I'd wager that "children" in Somalia are adults by 17 years old... long ago adults, unfortunately.

[arcadian]

34. Gates gets it

"As long as you've got this incredible number of poor people and the risks are relatively small, there's really no way in my view to control it unless you get something on land that begins to change the equation for these kids," Gates told students and faculty members.

Most on DU do not.

[Brooklyns_Finest]

43. But until then

A 5.56 round to the head will do just fine.

[arcadian]

50. Are you done playing internet tough guy?

Brooklyns_most_loathesome more like.

[bridgit]

45. True, but it comes with a portend, "no way in my view to control it unless you get something...

"...on land that begins to change the equation for these kids," Make Ready the White Knight! The excursionary balloon is loosed

[Elwood P Dowd]

51. No, you DO NOT!

There are billions of poor people on this earth that do not hijack ships. These scumbags were stealing relief supples and threatening to kill the ship's captain. These fucking crooks wanted 2 million dollars. They could have surrendered and be alive today, but they wanted the 2 million dollars. They gambled and lost.

[arcadian]

55. Lighten up. Elwood

[ForrestGump]

72. Nonsense. It's just a phase.

Hasn't everyone done the same thing at some point in their lives?

Eventually you grow up and realize that piracy is a losing game, and you go on to other things. Or was that just me?

[Lisa0825]

54. yep. nt

[Mark Twain Girl]

49. Strong critic of Gates here but he's right: "no purely military solution to piracy in the region"

This is not a problem that occurred overnight and it won't be solved overnight. This sounds, essentially, like a potential child soldier problem on top of everything else.

Glad the hostage is safe. Hope the other 200 or so hostages will be so lucky. Hope we come to understand and address the problems in the region.

[ForrestGump]

73. Yeah. Gates may be right, but

Windows still sucks.

[ddeclue]

56. So were the Columbine shooters - you'll get no sympathy from me

for pirates.

Doug D.

[ForrestGump]

74. Faulty comparison

Littleton, CO, has never been the site of illegal dumping by Eurotrash. The pirates were misunderstood proletariat environmentalists, real New Age guys, whereas the shooters at Columbine were the spawn of the Great Satan.

[JustinL]

57. you mean our defense secretary is a naive, elitist, pirate apologist?

After all, such epithets were hurled at posters on DU for making statements similar to the following:

As long as you've got this incredible number of poor people and the risks are relatively small, there's really no way in my view to control it unless you get something on land that begins to change the equation for these kids

[NYC Liberal]

59. A bullet to the head from a 17 yr old makes you as dead as one from a 40 yr old

Does it not?

[LisaL]

60. Hell here in US we had an 8 year old accused of killing his

father and another man. 17? That's certainly old enough.

[NYC Liberal]

62. Right, find me a 17 yr old who is not mentally handicapped, that doesn't know NOT to kill people

It's absolutely ridiculous that people seem to think 17 year olds are "too young" to know better. Bullshit.

You will find VERY few, if any at all, 17 year olds that don't know NOT to kidnap people and point guns at them. I challenge anyone to give me an example.

[K Gardner]

66. Bingo.

[Maru Kitteh]

61. So were Klebold and Harris.

BFD. I guess they should have SURRENDERED. It was an option given to them many, many, many times.

[Iggo]

68. So the Def Sec is a pirate apologist, eh?

Motherfucker!