Pirates vs. the U.S. Navy

[biggiy05]

TL;DR version:

Somali pirates took over as a U.S. cargo ship carrying relief food for people in Kenya. 20 members of the crew overpowered the pirates and took the ship back. The captain of the ship voluntarily left with the pirates to keep his crew safe.

Now the pirates are in the ocean on a speedboat with the captain. The U.S. navy has a warship nearby and more ships coming to the aid. How stupid can you be? You're sitting in a speedboat and you have a dozen or so ships from one of the most powerful naval forces in the world coming after you. Sheer brilliance.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090409/ap_on_re_af/piracy

[Anthus]

Lol. I wonder how long it'll be before they make a movie out of modern pirates. Actually, I saw this on the new last night. I thought the pirates took over the navel ship, and seized that captain though. At least that is how the news made it sound.

[Dechipher]

This shit is bananas.

[Beldaran]

Don't worry, Obama has a plan to shrink the navy and cut military spending more than its ever been cut. We'll be fine.

[rock_nog]

Don't worry, Obama has a plan to shrink the navy and cut military spending more than its ever been cut. We'll be fine.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't the proposed 2010 defense budget actually higher than 2009's? I really don't see how an extra $20 billion is cutting military spending here.

[Archangel]

That's why we need to legalize laser warfare. High Intensity beams rock.

[Beldaran]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't the proposed 2010 defense budget actually higher than 2009's? I really don't see how an extra $20 billion is cutting military spending here.

He is increasing spending in areas related to counter-insurgency such as unmanned aerial vehicles and such, but cancelling some huge programs like F22 Raptor (leading to big job losses in multiple states), the F35, huge cuts in missile defense (perfect timing with NKorea launching a missile), decomissioning some battleships, and halting new helicopters, next-generation armored vehicles for the Army and high-tech Navy vessels.

Also, when the government prints $1 trillion dollars defacto and pumps it into the economy willy nilly, a $20 billion increase in spending ends up being a spending CUT, because of the value of money.

[Archangel]

God damn the obama administration. Those fuckers are gonna get us all nuked. The russians and north korea are so going to take advantage of us.

[rock_nog]

So it would seem to me that he is rearranging the budget to meet current military needs. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

[Archangel]

How is weakening or defense a good thing? The best offense is a good defense.