But Decatur had one good man behind him. And that man wrote the Constitution so that a Navy might exist. Without that Constitution, Decatur would never have been the hero he was. Jefferson was that man, but he did so many things that we forget that concept. I'd say he was the mensch of the day, but Franklin surely held that title.

For the record, the Second Barbary War ended on July 3, 1815. And it was not until then that US ships stopped being attacked and the US stopped paying tribute. The president at the time was James Monroe. Jefferson should be commended for his efforts, but he was not entirely successful. And American-owned ships have been attacked many times in the Malacca Straight throughout the past few decades. They were mostly flying Liberian flags (like damn near every ship on the ocean), but they were still American.

As for the legal issues, well, they're worked them out now. The only delays will be because you need to use negotiation to get people to a place where you can actually shoot them. Hostage takers need to be made comfortable enough to make a mistake. And you wait for that mistake to get a good shot.

That said, our snipers are awesome! I'm a fan of target shooting, and I can say pulling off three simultaneous perfect head shots takes a lot of skill even when the targets are stationary. It gets a lot harder when your position and your target are moving. Those SEAL snipers are downright scary. What I can't figure out is this: how do you sync each other's heart rates? Normally with a tough shot, you sync your heartbeats and your breathing, and the pull the trigger when they're just right. But that seems hard to do with three people. I guess these guys are so good that they don't need to do that.