RUSH: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Richard, thank you for waiting. I appreciate your patience.
CALLER: Waiting is no problem. It’s like being in the studio audience as opposed to being at home.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: One step closer. I’d like to just ask about the Somali pirates and maybe your take —
RUSH: You mean the merchant marine organizers?
CALLER: Yes. I’m sorry. I always mislabel things. I don’t know why. Maybe I listen to you too much, which is not true. Right to what I wanted to say was, do you think that the Clinton administration, during their time in their foreign policy, should take some of the responsibility for the failure of Somalia to not be able to take itself into the —
RUSH: Now, that’s a fascinating point. You know what? That’s a fascinating point! Since this administration loves to go back and blame George Bush for everything, that’s an excellent point out there, Richard. The Somali pirates are from where? Somalia. Does the name Mogadishu ring a bell? Mogadishu is the capital city, if you want to call it a city. And it happens to be the site of one of the most embarrassing incidents — not because of the military, but because of the Clinton administration — in modern American military history, Black Hawk Down. We originally went into Somalia because the New York Times published a picture of a starving kid with flies buzzing all around his belly. That picture on the front page of the New York Times convinced George Bush 41 we had to send in US military personnel to deliver Meals on Wheels. The media awaited them on the beach in Somalia when they arrived. The media went in, and we started passing out the food, and the lead warlord, Mohammed Mahib Sahib Skyhook Ado, whatever his name was, he and his thugs came in and took all the food. They shot people trying to feed themselves raw grain.
This led to an increase in hostilities, and the increase in hostilities resulted in the deaths of four or five US Army Rangers, one of which was paraded nude through town, pictures of that were seen. At that point the Clinton administration pulled out. It was that incident, by the way, that Osama Bin Laden told a reporter at ABC, ‘That’s when we knew the Americans had become a paper tiger. They can’t take any losses; Americans can’t take any pain.’ The Somali pirates are born to that culture. That is Richard’s point, and so he’s asking shouldn’t we maybe blame the Clintons for pulling out of there before that situation was buttoned down? By the way, Mrs. Clinton keeps talking about these are criminals. Grab sound bite number four. This is Mrs. Clinton at a press conference yesterday.
HILLARY: We consider it a very serious matter. These people are nothing more than criminals, and we are bringing to bear a number of our assets, including naval and FBI work, in order to resolve the hostage situation and bring the pirates to justice. Piracy may be a centuries-old crime, but we are working to bring an appropriate twenty-first century response.
RUSH: The previous responses were much better than whatever you’re concocting now. Previous responses didn’t put up with it! They are not criminals, Mrs. Clinton. They are terrorists! This is one of your precious foreign contingencies. They’re not criminals. We touched on this yesterday.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want you to listen to this sound bite. This is from last night on CNN. Program No Bias, No Bull hosted by the fill-in host Roland Martin. He interviewed the commander of the USS Cole that was blown up over there in Yemen. And Roland Martin says, ‘The US government, they don’t negotiate with terrorists, so exactly what are the FBI, the Navy allowed to do in this situation, and what can’t they do?’
LIPPOLD: First, we’re not negotiating with terrorists; we’re negotiating with pirates. Piracy is a business opportunity. They have a very effective business model. Obviously a terrorist is someone who tries to deter and disrupt for a political goal and to wreak havoc and terror on a society. Pirates, on the other hand, are stopping these vessels so that they can hold them for ransom. It’s a very effective business model. The shipping industry and the insurance companies have given in to their demands numerous times over the years, and so consequently it is a criminal activity, not a terrorist activity.
RUSH: That’s the commander of the USS Cole, Kirk Lippold, but he’s wrong. It is not criminal activity. It has been traditionally treated that way by the world. It has been treated as acts against humanity. These people have not been brought to court, they have not been Mirandized. But this is funny. They have an effective business model. So we got somebody on CNN talking about the effective business model of these Somali merchant marine organizers, and on the same network we are treated to stories day after day after day about what a rotten bunch of CEOs Americans are, rotten business models. These guys, who are thieves — and by the way, tell the captain of this vessel he’s not being terrorized.