Obama's Hostage Crisis (Carter in a dress)

At least Carter attempted to rescue the American hostages.  It's just that his complete incompetence led to its failure).  Obama hasn't even bothered to try, making him Jimmy Carter in a dress.  The pirate threat has been a well known, growing threat for months now, yet Obama is the first President since THOMAS JEFFERSON to let pirates take Americans hostage.  And Jefferson went to war over it - hence the "Shores of Tripoli" in the Marines Hymn. Even Jimmy Carter, a good Navy man, wouldn't tolerate piracy threatening U.S citizens or business interests.

If George W. Bush were still President ,or Hillary Clinton were elected President instead, a SEAL team already would've rescued the Americans and killed all the pirates. And the pirates should be killed. I'd like to see the part of the Geneva Conventions that allows piracy.

The lack of action to date makes it obvious Obama doesn't know what to do about this. He doesn't want lose World Opinion by authorizing a military action so soon after succeeding George W. Bush in office. And if he does, he doesn't want to alienate World Opinion by killing the pirates.

So he'd have to imprison them somewhere for their unnecessary trial.Piracy isn't like other crimes. When you beat/capture the bad guys, you know they're guilty. There's no need for a trial to determine that. All that's left is to determine their punishment/fate.

Traditionally, pirates have been executed. But Obama doesn't have the balls to do it. So he'll have to find something to do with them. There's not really anyone to turn them over too, so he'll have to stick them in a military prison. But if you bring them to the states, the obviously guilty pirates get a trial which uses U.S. taxpayer resources.  He really should just execute the pirates.

Then again, some pan-European Court (the International Criminal Court) may decide his allowing their execution is some kind of war crime and try to indict him. Life is so much harder when you care if the Europeans to like you more than you care about doing the right thing by your own citizens . . .

Oh, and I guess he'd alienate he hippie-peacenik supporters too. That mike make his approval ratings plunge. Can't risk losing a little political capital to rescue American hostages, can he? Not if he wants to push his radical leftist agenda. But then, the longer range view should be that NOT acting will diminish his political capital and ability to lead even more in the long run.