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.
A terrorist attack on the Pakistani
national grid plunged more than 140 million people into darkness before
power was restored, prompting U.S. experts to warn that terrorist cells
and “lone wolves” in the United States could cause similar damage to the
vulnerable national electric-grid system.
The blackout in Pakistan affected more than 80 percent of the
country’s population and all public services in all the major cities,
including the capital, Islamabad.
A separatist group in the Naseerabad district of Baluchistan province
in the country’s southwest caused the blackout by blowing up a major
transmission line connected to the national grid.
It was the third such attack in two weeks.
“It shows the bad guys definitely do know what they’re doing when
they want to – in a country with upwards of 100 nuclear weapons,” said
Clare Lopez, vice president for research and analysis at the
Washington-based Center for Security Policy.
In the latest attack on a major transmission line in Pakistan, two
nuclear plants went offline after the outages while problems occurred at
the country’s main international airport in Lahore.
MK: 'Obama talked to Netanyahu like he was the leader of the Taliban;' Reporter insists transcript authentic
MK Danny Danon, whom Prime Minister Netanyahu fired as Deputy Defense Minister two weeks ago, has told Newsmax TV that President Obama talked to Prime Minister Netanyahu on Sunday 'like he was the leader of the Taliban.'
Meanwhile, Channel 1 news anchor Oren Nahari, who on Tuesday night released a transcript of the phone call between Obama and Netanyahu from Sunday, is sticking to his story.
Oren Nahari explained tonight on Israel Television Mabat News that the American source of the Netanyahu-Obama conversation he reported last night was the source of the warning that President Obama would act if 1,000 die in Gaza.
Nahari insists that the report of the Netanyahu-Obama conversation is correct.
Here's the radio report from July 19 claiming that Obama would insist on an immediate cease fire if casualties in Gaza reached 1,000. A transcript in English follows. The report is seemingly correct. Nahari was the reporter who made the report.
Let's go to the videotape.
"A senior source in the American Administration says that if the number of dead among the Palestinians in Gaza reaches 1,000 President Obama will demand that Israel immediately ceases fire- in a conversation with our correspondent Oren Nahari." Israel Radio News bulletin 14:00 19 July 2014
Judge Jeanine Pirro again calls for Obama's impeachment -- this time for
the astonishing exchange of one (alleged) US deserter for 5 top Taliban
leaders held at Guantanamo Bay. Judge Jeanine warns that the future
atrocities these five perpetrate will be attributable to Barack Obama.
Obama didn't "release" these murderers, he"unleashed" them says Judge
Jeanine.
Let's go to the videotape.
Give Obama credit: He's now done at least part of what he asks Binyamin Netanyahu to do. He's released terrorists. And at least he got something in return. /sarc
This tweet is from the father of the guy who was exchanged by the Taliban for five of their commanders
This is incredible.
This tweet was posted by the father of Bo Bergdahl the American who went AWOL in Afghanistan. President Hussein Obama just gave up five top Taliban commanders for Bergdahl's release.
I'm apologizing to President Obama, and Jonathan Tobin should too
Last week, I blogged a brilliant piece by Jonathan Tobin, in which he took President Obama to task for asking Israel to release terrorists in exchange for nothing, which is something that Obama obviously would never do himself.
The fact is the United States would never consider such a request for
a minute, no matter the diplomatic gains to be garnered from that sort
of concession elsewhere in the globe. The American position is, as the
Obama administration likes to put it, that anyone who attacks U.S.
citizens will be chased down to the ends of the earth and either be
snuffed by a drone attack that has the personal approval of the
commander in chief or be locked away for good if they are captured.
Imagine the response from the 9/11 families or the survivors of any
terror attack to the suggestion that the killers of their relatives be
released. Would it be much different than those of Israelis as reported
by the New York Times?
Well, yeah. Except that two days later, Obama freed five Taliban terrorists from Guantanamo in exchange for the Taliban opening 'talks' with the United States. Obama 'forgot' to ask for the return of an American soldier being held hostage by the Taliban at the same time.
Without much publicity or official announcements, the
Unites States released five Guantanamo Bay detainees as a nod of
willingness to open peace talks in Afghanistan. After officials in
Kabul expressed desire for negotiations, the Obama administration
released five members of the Taliban who were detained at the US
detention center.
A top US official said that the prisoners were released under the condition that they will not engage in any violent activity.
The Afghan Taliban have offered to hand over a US soldier
held captive since 2009 in exchange for five of their own currently
incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay.
It came as the US was trying to save peace talks with the
Taliban which have been held up following angry complaints by Afghan
president Hamid Karzai.
So I apologize to President Obama. Maybe he's not such a hypocrite at all. After all, he does the same thing that he asks us to do - release terrorist murderers in exchange for 'talks.' And just like our prison system, he gets a meaningless commitment that the terrorists won't engage in any violent activity. (Does our prison service even bother with that anymore?).
Granted, the Taliban are being sent 7,000 miles away from the US, while the terrorists we release are being sent about seven kilometers away, but why quibble over that small point? I apologize, and Jonathan Tobin, you should too.
The Pakistani Taliban have sent 'hundreds' of men to Syria to fight alongside the Obama-supported Syrian rebels.
The Pakistani Taliban have set up camps and sent hundreds of men to
Syria to fight alongside rebels opposed to President Bashar Assad,
militants said on Sunday, in a strategy aimed at cementing ties with
al-Qaida's central leadership.
More than two years since the start of the anti-Assad rebellion,
Syria has become a magnet for foreign Sunni fighters who have flocked
to the Middle Eastern nation to join what they see as a holy war against
Shi'ite oppressors.
Operating alongside militant groups such as the al Nusra Front,
described by the United States as a branch of al-Qaida, they mainly come
from nearby countries such as Libya and Tunisia riven by similar
conflict as a result of the Arab Spring.
On Sunday, Taliban
commanders in Pakistan said they had also decided to join the cause,
saying hundreds of fighters had gone to Syria to fight alongside their
"Mujahedeen friends".
"When our brothers needed our help, we sent
hundreds of fighters along with our Arab friends," one senior commander
told Reuters, adding that the group would soon issue videos of what he
described as their victories in Syria.
As in Egypt and Libya, it seems that the Hussein Obama administration has once again chosen the 'right' side to support. What could go wrong?
Eleven years later, “they” still hate us, now
more than ever, Logan told the crowd. The Taliban and al-Qaida have not
been vanquished, she added. They’re coming back.
“I chose this subject because, one, I can’t
stand, that there is a major lie being propagated . . .” Logan declared
in her native South African accent.
The lie is that America’s military might has tamed the Taliban.
“There is this narrative coming out of Washington
for the last two years,” Logan said. It is driven in part by “Taliban
apologists,” who claim “they are just the poor moderate, gentler, kinder
Taliban,” she added sarcastically. “It’s such nonsense!”
Logan stepped way out of the “objective,”
journalistic role. The audience was riveted as she told of plowing
through reams of documents, and interviewing John Allen, the top U.S.
commander in Afghanistan; Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and a Taliban
commander trained by al-Qaida. The Taliban and al-Qaida are teaming up
and recruiting new terrorists to do us deadly harm, she reports.
She made a passionate case that our government is
downplaying the strength of our enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as
a rationale of getting us out of the longest war. We have been lulled
into believing that the perils are in the past: “You’re not listening to
what the people who are fighting you say about this fight. In your
arrogance, you think you write the script.”
Our enemies are writing the story, she suggests, and there’s no happy ending for us.
...
Logan even called for retribution for the recent terrorist killings of
Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other
officials. The event is a harbinger of our vulnerability, she said.
Logan hopes that America will “exact revenge and let the world know that
the United States will not be attacked on its own soil. That its
ambassadors will not be murdered, and that the United States will not
stand by and do nothing about it.”
Unfortunately, I was not able to find video of Logan's talk on line. Two other speeches have been posted, but so far Logan's has not. I guess that President Obama still has friends in Chicago.
Maybe they've been keeping him in the White House too much lately, but it's been a while since I've been able to use the gaffetastic! label for Joltin' Joe Biden. This one might qualify.
In the wide-ranging interview, Biden talks about how Pakistan was able to live with a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, which the U.S. would have been able to do had the Taliban stopped harboring al Qaeda. He asserts that the U.S. could have lived with the Taliban too, if that government had turned over al-Qaeda members.
Then the VP then turned to the reconciliation process, saying, “We are in a position where if Afghanistan ceased and desisted from being a haven for people who do damage and have as a target the United States of America and their allies, that’s good enough. That’s good enough. We’re not there yet. Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests. If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us.”
What do you mean that because he actually meant to say that, it's not a gaffe? Hmmm.
Al-Jazeera claims that the IDF is holding Samer Alawi, the chief of its Afghanistan bureau, claiming that he is a member of Hamas. According to al-Jazeera, Alawi testified before a military court on Monday, and was remanded for another seven days.
According to Al Jazeera, Allawi was arrested at the Allenby crossing on the border with Jordan Tuesday after a vacation in his hometown Sabastia near Nablus, having crossed into the West Bank three weeks prior without encountering any difficulties.
Al Jazeera TV showed footage of Allawi explaining to his lawyer, Salim Waqeem, in front of Israeli security officials that his work was not in Israel, nor the surrounding territories, but rather in "southern Asia."
His Facebook page contains mostly images of Allawi meeting businessmen from Kabul, as well as various sites and buildings in Afghanistan.
IDF officials told the Allawi family Tuesday that their son was going to be held for a period of four days, but did not say why Allawi was being held, calling it a "security arrest," Al Jazeera said.
According to the report, Allawi holds a Jordanian passport, and had not visited his hometown for more than 25 years.
If the IDF is holding Alawai, I suspect it's for a lot more than being a member of Hamas. It makes no sense to me that the IDF would arrest such a high-profile figure, word of whose arrest would undoubtedly be carried around the world, on a 'membership in a terror organization' charge.
What seems more likely to me is that while he was in Samaria, Alawi attempted to lay the groundwork between al-Qaeda and/or the Taliban and Hamas. I have no inside information on this and I would not be allowed to discuss it if I did. But that's what I suspect has happened.
4 people charged in New York with running drugs, weapons for Hezbullah, Taliban
Four people have been charged in New York with running drugs and arms for the Taliban and Hezbullah.
The charges highlighted "the growing nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism," Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara told reporters.
In the operation targeting Hezbollah, two of the men told people secretly working for the US anti-drug agency that they wanted to purchase anti-aircraft missiles and handguns for the group, court documents said.
The men, Cetin Aksu and Bachar Wehbe, were charged with one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a known terrorist group. Aksu, a Turkish Kurd, was arrested in Bucharest, Romania on Monday. Wehbe, a Lebanese national, was in custody in Manhattan.
Siavosh Henareh, an Iranian Kurd residing in Romania, also was arrested in the operation in Bucharest on Monday. He faces drug charges after offering to sell heroin to the US agents, court papers said. He faces a minimum of 10 years in prison if convicted.
Aksu and Wehbe also face heroin distribution charges. Each faces a minimum of 25 years in prison if convicted.
In a separate operation, US officials charged an Afghan man, Taza Gul Alizai, with selling heroin and weapons to a US law-enforcement source posing as a member of the Taliban, which the US considers a terrorist organization.
Alizai faces narco-terrorism and drug distribution charges, He faces a minimum of 20 years in prison if convicted. He was arrested on Monday and is in custody in Manhattan.
You will note that two of the people arrested were Kurds. Lately, I have written some posts calling for the establishment of a state of Kurdistan, and I have been contacted by people in that area who read my blog. I stand by those posts.
I have no idea whether the two people arrested just happen to be Kurds, or whether they are connected to the PKK or other Kurdish revolutionary forces. I hope that they just happened to be Kurds and are not connected to the Kurdish revolutionary forces.
The Kurdish people have to decide whether they are with Israel, and want Israel to help open the West to them, or whether they are with the likes of Hezbullah and the Taliban. They cannot have it both ways.
2008 video claims Obama made deal with al-Qaida: Osama Bin Laden and Afghanistan for Israel and the Jews?
The eeriest thing about this video is that it was made in November 2008 right after the election. But unfortunately, some of it sounds quite prophetic.
Great news: US to 'engage' Taliban... and Hezbullah
Continuing its wildly successful strategy of 'engagement' with terror regimes, the Obama administration is now seeking to engage the Taliban and Hezbullah. I'm going to let you read about the Taliban in the original, but here's some of what they have to say about Hezbullah. No, this is not a Purim post (for those of you who don't know what I mean by a Purim post, think April Fool's).
The Hezbollah issue is still being framed, in terms of policy debate. But the White House has focused on it in recent weeks because of a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Hezbollah that is nearing completion.
Officials who have read draft versions of the estimate say it assesses Hezbollah in a broad context, as a political and social force in Lebanon in addition to the militia officially designated by the United States as a “foreign terrorist organization.” Like most NIEs, this one is said to contain a broad array of views, with some analysts stressing Hezbollah’s terrorist capabilities and others noting the organization’s growing political role, including its representation in the Lebanese cabinet.
The political time bomb ticking away in the NIE is the question of whether the United States should seek some kind of direct or indirect engagement with Hezbollah — at least with its political wing. Officials who support this course argue that the organization is like the IRA or the PLO — with nonmilitary components that can be drawn into a dialogue.
Contrarian thinking about Hezbollah was voiced publicly by John Brennan, the White House counterterrorism adviser. In May 2010, he described it as “a very interesting organization” and said the United States should try to “build up the more moderate elements.” And at a conference in August 2009, he offered this summary: “Hezbollah started out as purely a terrorist organization back in the early ’80s and has evolved significantly over time” to have members in the Lebanese parliament and cabinet.
The high-level discussion of Hezbollah illustrates the ferment in U.S. thinking about a Middle East that is being transformed by democratic uprisings. Officials caution that for now, the Hezbollah question is a matter for intelligence analysts, not policymakers. The White House recognizes that it has enough to deal with already without opening a new question that would produce shock waves in Israel, Saudi Arabia and other countries.
But we already know that there is no difference between Hezbullah's 'military wing' and its 'political wing.' Hezbullah has no moderates. This is from an interview with Hezbullah's number 2 man, Naim Qassem.
Neither Qassem nor Washington distinguish between the Shiite militant group's political wing, which has members serving in the Lebanese Cabinet and parliament, and its military wing, preparing for the next round of battle against Israel. "Hezbollah has a single leadership," said the 57-year-old cleric in a rare interview with an American reporter recently.
"All political, social and jihad work is tied to the decisions of this leadership," he said. "The same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government work also leads jihad actions in the struggle against Israel."
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
