Chalk up another victory for America’s overseas heroes.
Late Tuesday, members of SEAL Team Six — the elite US Navy force that consigned Osama bin Laden to history’s dust bin — launched yet another daring raid, parachuting into a pirate compound in Somalia and successfully rescuing two captive aid workers.
After a brief firefight — ending with nine dead pirates — Jessica Buchanan of the US and Poul Hagen Thisted of Denmark were helicoptered out of the camp and flown to a US base in Djibouti. Neither Buchanan nor Hagen was hurt. Nor were any SEALs.
Bravo!
The aid workers had been captured in October. But President Obama gave the mission a green light Monday after being told Buchanan’s health was declining.
Kudos for that decision.
Sure, it would be nice — as we’ve said before — if Washington and its allies had a more robust, systematic approach to ending the pirate threat.
(Earlier this month, USS John C. Stennis had to come to the aid of 13 Iranian fishermen taken hostage by pirates in the Arabian Sea.)
But maybe the pirates’ notable death toll from SEAL Team Six’s handiwork this week — again, nine of them now swim with the fishes — will give some of their fellow villains pause before undertaking new kidnaping sprees.
Beyond the pirates, though, the message is clear: Whether lawless Somalia or suburban Pakistan, America is more than willing, and able, to respond to evil.
Terrorists should know: They threaten this nation’s citizens at their peril. Sooner or later, SEAL Team Six, or other US military evil-dispatchers, will find them.
Bin Laden certainly learned that lesson last year. Now, some pirates have, too.
All to the good.