Reports are still fuzzy about how the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips went down, but visit Global Briefing for a great run-down of new clarifications coming across the wires. I’ve posted additional information below.

First of all, the pirates apparently never succeeded in taking the Maersk Alabama. Crew members told members of the media that they didn’t take the ship back as reported, because the ship was never out of their control. Apparently Captain Phillips gave himself up to prevent that from happening. 

“We want to clarify something right now,” Second-In-Command Shane Murphy said. “We never lose control of this ship. We never took it back from them. They never had this ship. They had Captain Phillips, but they never had this ship. This is our ship.” “We’ve been under attack for a week before they got on this ship,” Murphy said. “Tell the president to get these guys. Tell him to get the Navy down there. It shouldn’t get to that.”

Speaking of the president, earlier reports said that he had personally ordered the attack that saved Phillips. Members of the media quickly jumped on that in order to heap credit on Obama, including the Associated Press. Apparently those reports weren’t accurate. It’s not so much that President Obama ordered the attack as he didn’t order it to be stopped. The commander aboard the USS Bainbridge reportedly had standing authority to use deadly force in pursuit of saving Phillips. 

He did affirm the military’s authorization to use force if the captain’s life was in danger, but they already would have had that authorization as part of their standard rules of engagement. If there are innocents about to be slaughtered the same reasoning that authorizes self defense also covers an imminent execution unless the ROE specifically forbid it.The AP is making it sound like there was an active rescue ordered by the President. It was not, there was an imminent threat and the local commander gave the order to fire. Good on Obama for ensuring their authorization was clear, but let’s also be clear that he did not authorize or order an active rescue attempt.

President Obama doesn’t seem to deserve credit for ordering the attack, but he does deserve credit for basically getting the hell out of the Navy’s way and not stopping the use of force when necessary. We shouldn’t attribute more to him than he deserves, but there’s no reason that conservatives should deny him props for this. In fact, we should hope that he’s willing to do the same going forward. By the way, here’s video of Obama promising to continue confronting piracy as it arises. Hopefully that’s not just another one of his promises with an expiration date.

More: Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting conservatives begin throwing flowers at Obama’s feet. He still has an atrocious domestic agenda, is cutting important programs from our national defense, wants to negotiate unconditionally with state sponsors of terror, has put the nation much further into debt with unnecessary spending, and most of his promises come with expiration dates. I’m just saying that he shouldn’t be demonized over his role in this single rescue mission.