the entire mission was bloodless. they surprised the three-man libyan crew around midnight. quote no one was hurt at the request of the libyan government took of the vessel seized by three armed libyans. tanker is being escorted by the united states navy back to libya. but the rebels who don t answer to the central government have taken control of three of the ports and the central government is too weak to take control again. what has been happening in libya? reporter: the government attempted to use their navy and
nation. libya san opec nation. the former north korean flagged ship had 234,000 barrels of oil on board. if it hadn t been sold, u.s. military sources say there was concern it could have led to a large oil spill in the mediterranean sea. the ship was parked about 18 miles off the coast of cyprus in the eastern mediterranean. about 30 u.s. navy s.e.a.l.s from s.e.a.l. team two launchesed mission from the uss roosevelt. the entire mission was bloodless. it took about two hours. the s.e.a.l.s boarded from ribbed vessels from the sea and surprised the three-man libyan crew around 10:00 p.m. eastern. the oil tanker is en route right now as we speak to libyan waters. it s being escorted by the uss stout. the three libyan detodainees ar on board and will be handed over when they arrive. but it s important to remember what has been going on in libya of late.
here. bloodless, but in the shadow of kidnapping and at the end of an ak-47. wolf, now the question remains under what capacity did that base s commander go back in the company of those masked men. it s been suggested by those close to the new government in kiev that perhaps he defected, perhaps he went back to try and persuade his troops to do something similar. he s categorically denied that and, of course, you have to ask why bother kidnapping somebody if they re going to voluntarily move to your side anyway. questions remain, but what s totally clear here is the tactics being used to pressure these outstanding ukrainian troops holding out for the increasing pro-russian forces here are getting increasingly nasty themselves. nick paton walsh joining us. thank you. here s a look at some of the other stories we re following now. the father of the sandy hook shooter adam lanza speaking publicly about his son for first time. peter lanza tells new yorker magazine that adam would have
it s been a pretty quiet invasion. are they just moving in? is there any resistance? is it pure ambivalence? i don t know if it s ambiv lnls. what the ukrainians are saying if we try to resist, we don t have the force to do so. that would have played into putin s hands and he would have said we have to do this now. at this moment, it s bloodless. there s no resistance when it would have been futile anymore. now they have set up camp and taken over buildings. it s surreal to see the people who ran the buildings are forced to give up their weapons and stand there as the russians take over the show. i can t imagine being in such a position. there s a sense today that vladimir putin started to tamper his rhetoric a little bit, maybe tone it back, and i heard on this network a lot of people say, oh, he s just posturing. what s the sense on the ground over there? the sense on the ground here
no, i don t, bernard. i think you know i ve opposed the death penalty during all of my life. i don t see any evidence that it is a deterrent and i think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime. we have done so in my own state and one of the reasons why we have had the biggest drop in crime of any industrial state in america, why we have the lowest murder rate of any industrial state in america. this is one of the most famous or infamous flubs in presidential debate history, presented with a ghastly scenario involving his wife, dukakis responded with a bloodless, technocratic articulation of his policy position. he played right into the caricature that his opponent was drawing, didn t even wince. as was reported the next morning, gop gloats over debate, dukakis admits it is tough. there are a lot of reasons he lost in 19 8, but this one debate moment and the reaction it generated had a ripple effect. in many ways you can argue the next democratic presiden