Israel Matzav

A Jew murdered in Aghanistan... by Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama admitted on Thursday that contractor Warren Weinstein, an American Jew who was kidnapped because he was Jewish and was being held by al-Qaeda for ransom, was killed in a January by a US drone strike. Sadly, the US had no clue where Weinstein was. This is from the first link and was written by former Congressman Allen West (R-Fl).

As reported by USA Today, “President Obama expressed “grief and condolences” Thursday for a January drone strike against suspected terrorists in Pakistan that accidentally killed two hostages, including an American aid worker. Obama said he took full responsibility for the operation and apologized to the families of the hostages. “I profoundly regret what happened,” he said. The two Western hostages — one American, one Italian — were killed during a drone strike that targeted members of al-Qaida, the White House said. They were Warren Weinstein, 73, an aid worker from Maryland who was a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, and Giovanni Lo Porto, 39, an Italian citizen working for a German aid agency. Both were kidnapped by al-Qaida in Pakistan — Weinstein in 2011 and Lo Porto in 2012. The White House said the counterterrorism operation, and another this year in the same region, also killed two other Americans believed to be working with al-Qaida. In an extraordinary eight-minute statement to reporters, a solemn Obama halted at points during his brief remarks, looking down at notes. “I cannot begin to imagine the anguish that the Weinstein and Lo Porto families are enduring today,” he said.”

The first issue has to be, why is the family just now finding out about this fratricide by drone strike, which occurred in January? I thought this was supposed to be the most transparent administration in American history. 

...

I understand Clausewitz’s “Fog of War” but I also realize that something went terribly wrong in the decision-making authorizing this strike.

“The site of the attack had been under surveillance for hundreds of hours, and that surveillance was “near-continuous” in the days just before the attack, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said. The spying used a variety of methods, including drone imagery, and discovered a known al-Qaida operative driving into the compound, said U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity. Based on that intelligence, Earnest said, intelligence analysts concluded with “near certainty” that al-Qaida leaders were present and that civilians were not.”

What is apparent is that HUMINT intelligence assets were not used to validate imagery. Then again, why would anyone want to support U.S. intelligence gathering in Pakistan after how this administration has treated Dr. Shakil Afridi who assisted in the identification of Osama bin Laden’s hideout?

The preeminent question must be, who granted approval? If we are restricting drone usage to the U.S. military, it is fairly easy to ascertain the chain of command in the decision-making for this engagement. But, if this was not within the military operational command chain emanating out of Afghanistan — then we have a bureaucratic, administration issue.

And based on the lack of transparency and length of time before this was revealed, — it leads me to believe this decision came from the latter, not the former. And that ladies and gents, is the reason why the president of the United States took the podium.

Josh Rogin reports that the US had no clue Weinstein was there. That's because - as West noted as well - the  US has no intelligence assets on the ground in the area.

One of the biggest questions following President Barack Obama’s startling revelation Thursday that a U.S. drone strike had killed Weinstein (and Italian hostage Giovanni Lo Porto) is how the intelligence community could have been unaware that he was at the al-Qaeda site where he became collateral damage in the effort to fight terrorism. A lack of human resources on the ground and a total lack of intelligence on Weinstein’s location contributed to the accident that now has the administration and Congress rethinking how the U.S. will conduct its secret war.

“We put a high priority in tracking and finding him and seeing what we could do to rescue him,” Dan Benjamin, the State Department’s ambassador for counterterrorism from 2009 to 2012, told me Thursday. “The trail went cold quickly and we didn’t know where he was.”

...

Several officials told me that Weinstein, who worked as a business development contractor for United States Agency for International Development in Lahore, was nervous about his security just before his capture. He had built a safe room in his house and told friends he was hoping to leave Pakistan soon.

In 2012 and 2013, al-Qaeda release several hostage videos of Weinstein begging the Obama administration to do more to retrieve him. Several officials told me that although U.S. authorities repeatedly raised his case with their Pakistani counterparts, there was no direct interaction with al-Qaeda about any ransom or trade and no real information on where the terrorist group was holding him for the three years he was in captivity.

“I don’t think there was any attempt to rescue him because I don’t think we had the slightest idea where he was,” said Rand Corporation’s James Dobbins, who was the State Department’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2013 to 2014. “I don’t believe there were any real leads.”

Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter said Thursday that Weinstein’s death was the result of a broken interagency process in which a Pentagon official, Jason Amerine, developed a plan for a trade that would have included the return of Weinstein along with Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. Bergdahl was released by the Taliban in 2014 in exchange for five Taliban commanders being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“Warren Weinstein did not have to die," Hunter said in a statement. "His death is further evidence of the failures in communication and coordination between government agencies tasked with recovering Americans in captivity — and the fact that he’s dead, as a result, is absolutely tragic.”

But several officials told me today that a trade that included Weinstein was never seriously entertained by the interagency team tasked with retrieving him, which was led by the FBI and included the CIA, State Department and Pentagon.

“It never struck us as a plausible option,” Dobbins said, noting that Bergdahl was being held by the Taliban while Weinstein was being held by al-Qaeda. The U.S. had extensive negotiations with the Taliban over the years, but not with al-Qaeda, he pointed out.

This is why you can't lead from behind, and you can't pretend you're not fighting a war when your options are fight or surrender. 

Labels: Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, Barack Hussein Obama, drone, Pakistan, Taliban, Warren Weinstein

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:46 PM