From the Times…

Pirates caught redhanded by one of Her Majesty’s warships after trying to hijack a cargo ship off Somalia made the grave mistake of opening fire on two Royal Navy assault craft packed with commandos armed with machineguns and SA80 rifles.

In the ensuing gunfight, two Somali pirates in a Yemeni-registered fishing dhow were killed, and a third pirate, believed to be a Yemeni, suffered injuries and subsequently died. It was the first time the Royal Navy had been engaged in a fatal shoot-out on the high seas in living memory.

By the time the Royal Marines boarded the pirates’ vessel, the enemy had lost the will to fight and surrendered quietly. The Royal Navy described the boarding as “compliant”.

This is being talked up as a success. But when I look at the rubber boats that the Royal Marines assaulted the pirates in all I can think is that this is a catastrophe in the making.

The way I understand it, the Royal Marines are operating under rules of engagement that prevent them from opening fire until they are fired upon even when the enemy is obviously armed. In modern warfare, it is not a good sigh when the enemy gets off the first shot. A little better fire discipline on the part of the pirates and a couple of rocket propelled grenades and this would have turned out a lot different.

It only took a few mistakes and a couple of dead men to drive the US out of Somalia the first time. I wonder how strong a stomach the pirate fighters will have?

From the Telegraph…

Russia’s parliament announced it would rush through a constitutional amendment that could see Vladimir Putin return to the presidency within weeks.

Amid growing signs of panic in the Kremlin, the State Duma said it would meet on Friday to pass legislation that could allow Mr Putin to return to the Kremlin for 12 years.

Giving short shrift to the supposed inviolability of Russia’s 1993 constitution, all three readings of the bill will be compressed into a single sitting, rather than dragged out over several weeks or months as convention normally dictates.

Putin is a fool. If he was smart, he would let the others take the heat for Russia’s fall from grace and then ride in on his white horse. But by trying to get himself back in the hot seat now, he is going to find out how shallow his popularity really is.

When everyone loves you because you brought prosperity, you have to expect that everyone will hate you when trouble comes.

Remember the McCain–Feingold Act? Read this post from Belmont Club and ponder the strange way that justice works in this world.

Trying to keep money from talking in an election is like trying to ban guns. It only works on honest people. The goal of champaign finance laws should never have been about limiting the amount of money people could give. Instead, it should have been about creating transparency.

Instead of mandating artificial limits, McCain should have tried to fund independent real time audits. We don’t mandate a limit on how much money can be spent training an athlete to be the best. We just require that they pass a drug test.

But that is not what we got. Instead, McCain created a system that limited what honest people could do with their own money and at the same time provided little in the way of real transparency. President Bush signed that legislation into law in spite of professing to believe that parts of the law were unconstitutional.

It is tragic that the person who tried the hardest to play by the rules should suffer the most. But it also seems just that the man who helped create those rules should also suffer from them.

From Politico…

Despite widespread predictions of record turnout in this year’s presidential election, roughly the same portion of eligible voters cast ballots in 2008 as in 2004.

The main difference was that more likely republicans voters stayed home then usual. This was balanced by more likely democratic voters going to the polls then usual.

From the New York Times…

The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

This article is getting a lot of press. You should read it if you have not already.

What disgusts me is that it was necessary to kept raids secret from the American public that Al Qaeda clearly knew about.

Put it another way, everyone acknowledges that Al Qaeda wishes to destroy American. Few people deny that Al Qaeda would inflect serious harm on the US if it was left to its own devices. Yet the fact that US was willing to send soldiers to attack Al Qaeda bases where ever they could be found had to be kept secret because of the fuss it would cause.

This kind of hypocritical action plagued the Vietnam war as well. Nixon’s secret B-52 raids were only secret from the American people, not the dudes getting bombed. When you have to hide what is military necessary from your own people you have problems.

From the Telegraph…

A navy commander said the victims died when the vessel’s firefighting system went off during sea trials, and insisted there was no danger from radiation.

Igor Dygalo said: “During sea trials of a nuclear-powered submarine of the Pacific Fleet the firefighting system went off unsanctioned, killing over 20 people, including servicemen and workers.

Over the years I have gotten the impression that Russian Sailors are more likely to die on the job then any other peacetime navy.

From the Telegraph…

Gonzales was a real-life hit man and just the sort of violent bad guy whom Bond had no compunction dispatching in his celluloid adventures.

He is a ruthless mass killer who ran the notorious armed wing of the Gulf drug cartel, according to the Mexican authorities.

After deserting from the Mexican army in 1999, he switched sides in drugs war and helped found the Zetas, an execution squad made up of rogue former soldiers and police officers.

He was eventually captured without a shot being fired when security forces burst into a house where he was staying, officials said. His men then launched a brazen bid to free him near Reynosa airport but police fought off a gang of assailants in a lengthy gun battle.

In a separate raid in Reynosa, Mexican agents also seized 540 rifles, 165 grenades, 500,000 rounds of ammunition and 14 sticks of TNT.

From the Telegraph…

He said gangs repeatedly vandalised his car, causing £5,000 damage, and threw bricks and eggs at his window.

The retired lorry driver, who suffers from a heart condition, finally “snapped” on Halloween when fireworks rained down on his terraced house in a quiet cul-de-sac in Hertford.

Several rockets exploded against his front window just inches from his gas meter.

Mr Parker, a keen game shooter who holds a shotgun licence, took out his .177 air rifle, marched across the street and confronted a group of eight to ten teenagers who then fled.

But minutes later armed police arrived at his home, surrounded the house and cordoned off the road.

Four shotguns, for which Mr Parker had a licence, and cartridges from his gun cabinet were seized by police, as well as the air gun.

The grandfather-of-four was arrested and taken to a police station where he was given a caution for possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.

These kinds of stories come out of Great Britain all the time. But they never cease to make me sick.