Can somebody please explain to me why there were Navy SEALS on the freed ship?

I'm not going to paly arm chair quarterback on this one. From what I understand, the whole escape and recapture happened fairly quickly, a matter of a few moments. I'm not there, I'm not going to critisize. the most important thing right now is the life of that captain, I would suspect that is the interest they are acting on right now and it is in all likely hood they simply didn't have enough time frame to do something with out endagering the captured captain's life.

This whole thing is just insane. It seems that we just cannot do anything right anymore. We cannot even get one man off of an open lifeboat with a whole boatload of trained navy seals right there and only 3 badguys. The poor captain even gave them a free shot by jumping overboard and risking his life in the open waters. If we do get that guy back, he deserves every medal known to the U.S.! First he gives himself up as a hostage. Then he suggests using one of their boats that doesn't have much fuel, guaranteeing that they will run out of fuel. Then he jumps overboard to give the seals a chance to blow the bad guys away, and they are snoozing or something. This fellow is something else!!! Shalom~Adoniah

I take it you already heard the news... the Navy SEALS did rescue Capt. Richard Phillips from the pirates. Why were there SEALS on the freed ship? Who knows.. maybe collecting information needed for the rescue plan.

They did see it. They had constant surveillance on that boat. I wondered why they didn't shoot anyone they saw on that boat once the captain was in the water. That's probably what he was thinking, too, when he went overboard. I have no idea why nobody did anything except I've heard they were told to stand down and stay that way.

As is the usual I think there is more to this story than they are saying right now. I bet more will come out later about it. To many times higher ups think that the public should be kept in the dark and only say certain things. Thats what I think anyway.

ROE thats the only thing i have to say R.O.E. "Rules of engagement" dont shot unless fired apone, the round must be in your direction. thats why the seals didnt fire also..if they did then they'd have a whole mess on their hands really you all need to read up on military regs and stuff..i know most of you prolly never was in the military but you all dont know anything really about what your talking about.. theirs reasons why stuff is played out like how it is..the president has NO say so in that stuff he tells us to go in we go in, but its some col. that wants another promotion that sets The ROE also you dont know what was really on that ship and you dont know how good the seal team was trained..their are a lot of things that could have played out dif. but thats all classified im sure..we dont know the true mission maybe that was suppose to happen so we can follow the pirates back and really mess them up..

I suppose they were too busy fighting the pirates, and that the pirates that went after the Navy Seals were a diversion while the other pirates had their main objective, being taking an American hostage. I think that was the reason for the attack. It was to get a hostage, not just to steal all that food. Besides they knew that people would expect the Navy Seals to die and would think nothing of it, but the Captain, no doubt, being a civilian, Americans would have been up in arms if something was not done. The pirates also felt confident that nothing would be done because of Obsma's ties with Kenya. They would assume that if he did, his relatives in Kenya would be angry at him if he did go after them.

Didn't the Navy Seals go on board after the whole ordeal was over for the crew, except for the captain. I think they were brought on board to protect the ship and its safe passage to its destination harbor. Now why they didn't shoot the pirates on the lifeboat after the captain jumped in and began to swim I have no idea. Initial reports came across as if our ships were too far away from the whole thing and realized belated that the captain in fact had jumped in and started swimming. They stated that the captain seems to be fine as they 'think' they saw him moving. You'd think that something like that could be determined with much more conviction, if they'd be close enough to get a good picture with binoculars. A distance also needed by sharpshooters to get a good shot in. I have been thinking about this like why they don't simply have divers come up from below or something. Of course I have no idea what kind of lifeboat it is (like the rubber or solid kind). It's like they are all paralyzed and are waiting on instructions from higher up as to what to do. And there don't seem to be any. Something tells me they are negotiating a pay-off or something. Isn't there a rule that we don't pay or negotiate with terrorists? This of course may have changed under the new admin, or they decide not to classify pirates as terrorists, although I don't see a difference in the actions really. Hijacking a plane falls under a terrorist act, so should the hijacking of a ship...

Seems to me they were more concerned with the cargo on that ship than they were the Captain's life. If those Navy Seals are just half as good as they make then out to be why is the Captain still in that life raft? When the Captain was out of the life raft they should have sunk it and the 4 pirates. This has been very poorly handled from the beginning. They are going to keep on playing around with these people until they get the Captain killed and the 4 pirates get away. They will have accomplished absolutely nothing more than keeping that family tore up much too long. The Captain should already be home with his family. Art

That whole situation is quite shocking. I guess I never even considered the actual threat of pirates, Johnny Depp was a pirate I wanted to get to know. But in all seriousness, I really hope that that captain will be safe soon. I believe that the government has to send the navy seals in on a top secret, night-time, recovery mission just like in the movies. Becauses these pirates have already showed us that they mean busineaa. At least the captain had enough guts to try and save his own life because the rescue, excuse me, negotiation process is dismal to say the least.