Warren Weinstein Begged Obama to Save Him 4 Years Before U.S. Drone Killed Him

[Wilikon]

Warren Weinstein, 72, was accidentally killed by a U.S. airstrike on an Al Qaeda compound in Pakistan.
Editor’s Note: The U.S. announced on April 23, 2015 that Weinstein was killed in a drone strike on Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

It was before dawn the morning of Aug. 13, 2011, when a group of men armed with assault rifles knocked on Warren Weinstein's front gate in the Lahore suburb of Model Town, an upscale neighborhood where Benazir Bhutto is said to have had a house. Weinstein was working as country director for J.E. Austin Associates, a consulting firm based in Arlington, Va., that contracts with the Pakistani government. The 70-year-old was helping to create small businesses in tumultuous regions in conjunction with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

It was the beginning of more than two years in captivity for Weinstein, who was accidently killed by a U.S. drone strike in January, the Obama administration announced Thursday.

Shortly after he was taken captive, Weinstein appeared in a video and directly addressed President Obama.

“My life is in your hands," he told Obama. "If you accept the demands, I live; if you don’t accept the demands, I die,” Weinstein said, referring to a list of demands made by al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri last year that included an end to American strikes in Pakistan and the release of al Qaeda and Taliban militants detained at Guantánamo Bay.



http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/07/warren-weinstein-how-the-usaid-worker-was-kidnapped-video.html



http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/04/23/obama-apologizes-for-botched-military-operation-takes-no-questions/

[Chef Ramsay]

The only way that you'd get me to work/live in any troubled region like this that's w/i reach of these ISIS bitches is if this upper class neighborhood had a private security operation that secured this neighborhood.

[Wilikon]

The only way that you'd get me to work/live in any troubled region like this that's w/i reach of these ISIS bitches is if this upper class neighborhood had a private security operation that secured this neighborhood.

But then you would need another private security to monitor the first private security. No one can be trusted.

[bryant.coleman]

I don't know why Western nationals continue to work in places such as Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. If you are a private security contractor, then it is OK. If not, why risk your life for 10% more salary? On top of that, this guy didn't even had security guards outside his house. Either he is guilty of negligence, or his employers are.

[Tusk]

Swarming drone attack http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32334186

The swarm drone attack is a dumb idea, it will result in more collateral damage that will result in pissing off the whole swarm, it may win a battle but will loose you the war. When are these neocon fascists going realise that you need to work with the swarm or its going to come after you? You can defeat armies with weapons, but not citizens. When your fail to distinguish between a military opponent and innocent civilians, you become the terrorist.

[Wilikon]

Obama's Orwellian Language on Drones



[...]
The problem the White House faces is its stubborn insistence that its non-war is being fought with precision. Earnest used that very word repeatedly. But it’s hard to take the claim seriously in light of calculations, like those published in the Guardian last November, that U.S. efforts to kill just 41 leaders of al-Qaeda and other groups caused some 1,147 civilian casualties. Even if we discount that number by half, the tradeoff involved is profoundly troubling.

The sort of war the administration is waging requires extraordinarily accurate intelligence. Earnest said in his briefing that a strike is not permitted unless there is “a near certainty” that no civilians will be harmed. In wartime that standard would be impossible to meet. Claiming that a war isn’t a war doesn’t make meeting the standard any easier.

I am not suggesting that calling the War on Terror a war would make civilian casualties any more justified. But it might force the administration to concede that we simply lack the intelligence resources to establish a guarantee against killing noncombatants. And once the administration admits the inevitability of significant numbers of civilian deaths, we might be able to engage in serious public conversation about the morality of the drone war.


http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-23/obama-s-orwellian-language-on-drones


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Code pink? Progressives? How come you accept and agree with this president's drone program? You are against terrorists getting a wet towel over their face but keep your mouth shut on the drones... Typical.

[RodeoX]

We don't stop the war because someone was kidnapped.

[Wilikon]

We don't stop the war because someone was kidnapped.

War? What war? Did you get the memo?

[Aggressor66]

When human intel is taken out of the loop, these things happen. The same targets we have hit with drone strikes could probably have been taken out by SpecOps people with far fewer chances for mistakes; a second benefit would be the hard intel captured along with our enemies instead of destroying it in the missile strikes.

[Wilikon]

When human intel is taken out of the loop, these things happen. The same targets we have hit with drone strikes could probably have been taken out by SpecOps people with far fewer chances for mistakes; a second benefit would be the hard intel captured along with our enemies instead of destroying it in the missile strikes.

But for 0bama this optic would define what a war is. By using remote controls he was able to sell (very easily with a media in love with him) that the wars was over... No more wars.


Instead of 'wars' we had a bunch of kinetic military actions... Instead of 'troops' he sent 1500 military advisers...