For the first time in over 200 years, African pirates attacked an American ship. This occurred on Wednesday when Somali pirates briefly captured the Maersk Alabama freighter and then escaped, taking the captain of the ship hostage.
President Obama has been slow to respond to the incident, refusing to answer questions from reporters regarding the situation. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has said the President is receiving regular updates from CNN via the social networking site Twitter.
Friday afternoon, Obama broke his silence and held a press conference. Reading from a teleprompter, the President began by stressing that the U.S. is not at war with the pirates.
He then issued an apology to the pirates for the aggressive and arrogant response of the Bush administration to previous pirate attacks on U.S. ships. One reporter spoke up and corrected the President, saying it was Thomas Jefferson in 1804, not George W. Bush, who last had to respond to one of these attacks. The reporter then asked if Obama’s speech writers had ever learned of Jefferson in school. Obviously irritated by the question, Obama muttered something unintelligible, then quickly went back to reading the teleprompter.
Obama then addressed the need for the world to work together to end the problem of piracy. He said the United States was willing to take the first step, and pledged to give up all such pirate activities. The President said he was confident that others, including the Somali pirates, would follow America’s example.
This latest attack was certainly a bold one by the pirates. Previously, the attacks had been focused mostly in the Gulf of Aden off the Northern coast of Somalia. This attack came in the Indian Ocean off Somalia’s Eastern coast. The President said this was indicative of the fact that the global economic crisis had affected even the pirates. He suggested that a bailout of the African pirate industry might be in order, saying that this would make sea travel safer for U.S. ships.
A reporter asked if equipping these cargo ships with guns or security forces would help deal with the problem. Obama said this would only agitate the pirates and make them hate us even more.
The reporter started to ask a follow-up question when the President cut him off, “It’s time for you people to stop asking questions and start listening to what I’m read– uh, saying.”
With these words, Obama ended the press conference.
I.M. Cirius
