John Roughan: Obama's first kill a baptism of gunfire

John Roughan

Barack Obama, like the best who have been in his office, is an ordinary human being who finds himself wielding extraordinary and ultimately lonely power.

Devotees of the television series The West Wing, a fictional drama made with the help of some former White House staff, will remember what happens every time an American life is threatened by armed force abroad.

Blue lights go on in the "situation room", a windowless chamber with banks of screens and electronic maps around a long table where the Joint Chiefs of the uniformed services, heads of the intelligence agencies and probably the Secretaries of State and Defence sit in solemn discussion with senior presidential staff.

All will have already read briefings by specialists in the zone of concern. The equipment in the room will give them instant communication with commanders in the field and live pictures from satellites or high-flying aircraft can be screened if they need them.

When the meeting has settled on the options available and has some action to recommend, the President is summoned. He sits at the head of the table and it is his decision alone.

In one memorable West Wing scene the fictional President, a very liberal Democrat, has authorised a secret assassination of a troublesome Middle Eastern figure, mainly because the opportunity arose.

After the deed the President ponders how many American laws he has just broken, not to mention his own moral code. He asks his loyal and equally liberal Chief of Staff why he had to do it.

The man looks at him and says, "Because you were elected."

I wonder what went through Obama's mind when the news reached him last Monday that the ship captain held hostage by Somali pirates had been rescued?

Elation, obviously, that the man was safe and unharmed and a family's agony was over. It is one of the President's happy tasks, or dreadful duties, to call the family whatever happens.

But a man like Obama might experience some other thoughts. The three pirates were aged 17 to 19. The lifeboat in which they held the captain at gunpoint had been taken under tow by the USS Bainbridge. They had been negotiating.

The incident was near the end of its fifth day when the moment came that all three teenagers simultaneously put their heads in the rifle sights of a Navy Seal sniper crouched on the fantail of the destroyer. The President had given the order to kill if the opportunity presented itself.

It was done. And it was right. I haven't read criticism of the action, though I wonder what would have been said if the decision had been made by John McCain.

We would have read much more, I suspect, about the plight of Somalis, the tempting prize that passing cargo ships present to bands of young tribesmen in a country with no law, no government, not much of a functioning economy, no shortage of firearms and not many other ways to make a living.

They are accustomed to ships that offer no resistance. It has been pathetic to read how easily these hoodlums in small craft have approached container ships far out on the ocean, clambered up their towering hulls somehow and subdued the seamen who must vastly outnumber them.

After one such incident I overhead in a bar some powerfully built veterans of the British merchant marine recalling acts of piracy they had encountered. I asked them the reason for this lack of resistance and they said ships' crew were not trained in martial skills.

What they really meant, I think, is that guns can only be met with guns and it goes against the grain of most ordinary men to kill another unless they are in desperate personal danger.

It probably goes against Obama's grain, too, but he was elected. Probably nothing prepared him for the first execution he would have to order, or for the realisation that, though the decision was his alone, it was really not his.

The responsibilities he had sought as a candidate would be suddenly overwhelming in office. They would overwhelm personal inclinations. Private moral misgivings - is it right to murder people who are committing not much more than armed robbery? - become mere indulgence.

You are responsible for the security of a country and every one of its citizens. Uniquely, the country has the power to protect them anywhere in the world. They expect you to do it.

Christians learn the crucifixion was ordered by a powerful Roman governor against his private inclinations. But then, they believe it served the cause of salvation.

It was Easter Sunday in America when the pirates were shot. Obama probably went to church.