About that drone strike gone wrong
How can a drone strike kill only the terrorists, when terrorists have a habit of kidnapping Westerners and holding them hostage?
Can’t be done, despite the fact that we’d like it to be so.
Therefore I refuse to blame Obama for the deaths of hostages Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto, dreadful and tragic as those deaths are. Unless some sort of negligence is found, I just don’t see how this sort of thing can be avoided if we are going to use drone strikes, or any other sort of violence for that matter, in a region where we are dealing with people who purposely mix civilians (and hostages) with terrorist fighters.
Agreed. We can disagree with the tactic of using a drone strike in this case. (When hostages are being held, a case can be made that this is not a time for drone strikes; it’s time to send in the Marines.) But if a drone strike was the way to go, then this is what we could have expected.
As posted at the LWJ, there’s a distinct possibility that Islamabad, (ISI) set this strike up.
1) Farooq, the drone target, was a media player for AQ fluent in Urdu and Arabic — and was AQ’s primary media activist in Urdu.
2) Which would not go down well in Islamabad.
3) Dr. Weinstein’s profile is that of a non-official cover CIA agent. We’ll never know the truth about such a connection unless the CIA decides to out him.
4) Dr Weinstein was certainly fingered by ISI — on the way out the door — as he could pass as a native — and often did. He spoke perfect Urdu and had been in-country for more than a decade. (Which is a bit long for a do-gooder, don’t cha think.) Of course, Dr. Weinstein was employed by classic US fronts for ‘noc’ agents.
(Just like ayatollah Soetoro’s mother — who was also in Pakistan far too long to be there without US government provisions.)
5) One might reasonably assume that Farooq was chatting with Dr. Weinstein — at length — if nothing else but to polish his English.
6) Providing the ISI with the perfect way to clean up a messy situation — as there is NO WAY that ISI would want Dr. Weinstein chatting it up with the boys at Langley — and Farooq had become a royal pain back at HQ.
7) Getting ayatollah Soetoro to liquidate his own ‘noc’ agent is like a four-fer:
It shames him for drone attacks generally
It liquidates his own man
It gets rid of Farooq — of whom the CIA is obsessed
It gets the CIA off of the ISI’s back about not having any target intel in the FATA for weeks on end.
[ FATA = Federally Abandoned Tribal Anarchy ]
As you must have figured, ground truth, our CIA network in Pakistan, has been dried up/ liquidated by the ISI.
We are as blind there as we are in Iran, Yemen, Syria, et. al.
This blindness goes far beyond the debacle of Iraq withdrawal: and it’s all engineered by the ayatollah Soetoro.
He plays Moe, the CIA plays Curly.
Perfect.
Drone strikes a visual timeline:
Here.
Baby killer.
I don’t agree at all. Drone strikes probably kill far more civilians than is acknowledged. I would not be surprised if the number of deaths of civilians vs combatants is 20 to 1. If Obama sends soldiers into harms way and they get killed or injured, it is on him. If he elects to do ‘high precision’ bombing and many innocents die, it is on him too.
The only reason that Obama released this information now was to direct the news cycle away from Hillary Clinton.
snopercod…
Preach it brother!
I agree with neo.
Drone strikes probably do kill far more civilians than is acknowledged and that is tragic but not as tragic, as the unnecessary death of our troops.
Obama may have released this information to direct the news cycle away from Hillary Clinton but I am doubtful both because Obama doesn’t support Hillary and because this story doesn’t have ‘legs’, so it will not direct news cycle away from Hillary Clinton for very long.
Steve…
I don’t know what the ratio is…
But the classic target, Datta Khel, is out in the sticks, as in w-a-a-a-y out in the sticks.
Further, it’s been a drone magnet.
So much so that just about half of all drone strikes — world wide — have occurred in Datta Khel.
If you google it, you’ll be led to a Wiki on one strike in particular — whereas this area has been struck countless times.
It figures to be a contractors and mortician’s paradise — between the reconstruction and burials.
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The CIA has been caught more than once targeting the wrong people — due to ‘signature’ strikes.
So, it’s quite impossible to figure out just how ‘sloppy’ the boys at Langley have been.
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This is compounded by the fact that a war is underway — and lying becomes epic.
If you listen to the Islamists, EVERY victim was an innocent — and they really mean it. They regard themselves — like the Blue Brothers — as being on a mission from God.
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Per my above post: this drone strike (1-15-2015) smells of an ISI scheme.
Drone strikes in the FATA have dropped very sharply.
And this maps very closely with the termination of the CIA’s network inside Pakistan — a super priority of the ISI and the Islamists, both.
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As you may have guessed, the payoffs to Islamabad for the purpose of prosecuting the campaign in Afghanistan have collapsed.
Pakistan is entering its own private fiscal hell.
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And in other helpful news: Islamabad told Riyadh to take it on the heel and toe when military aid to their Yemeni campaign was made.
From where Pakistan sits, any aid to KSA can’t occur if it would upset Tehran — the boys next door!
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For those slow on the up-take: Iran and Pakistan have come to terms WRT splitting up Afghanistan. It’s a touchy matter, secret even.
Sorry, Neo but drone strikes are Obama’s signature mode of warfare.
He is to blame for every death so long as he insists on this “sanitary” strategy. I have long wondered just how they identify their targets, and long suspected that it is largely guess work.
I hate to see U.S. troops at risk; but, if we are going to fight a war, we should be engaged.
Drone strikes to me are akin the V1s and V2s that Hitler launched against London, and the rockets that Hamas launches against Israel; a cheap way to kill people and to hell with the fallout.
What’s notable is not the collateral damage, but that Obama is taking responsibility.
n.n Says:
April 24th, 2015 at 6:16 pm
What’s notable is not the collateral damage, but that Obama is taking responsibility….
President Obama was overheard bragging to administration aides about his ability to kill people with drones
It is good to be King.
Blame Baraq? Why, Neo, you can blame him. He took “full responsibility.” (Chortle, snort, chortle)
It irritates me when I hear Mr. Obama (or others speaking in an official capacity of someone with whom they’re not familiar in social situations) use given names rather than surnames when speaking of them (i.e. “Warren and Giovanni” instead of “Dr. Weinstein and Mr. Lo Porto”).
I guess I’m old fashioned.
Guilty. As mentioned, using drones to do mens’ work is the worst sort of despicable. While men who do those things are put at risk, they also can gather realtime information and adjust the mission.
Personally, I have my doubts about Zero. His ties with islam are so close, that, as was also mentioned, doing them a favor by taking out operatives, while denying an information rich target for other forms of acquisition, is right up his ally. He is NOT on America’s side in these things.
If at present we can truly afford the luxury of counter terror operations that avoid civilian deaths, that condition is fading fast.
I agree with you, Neo. Warfare was, is, and always will be, a “messy business.” No nation has done more to minimize collateral damage than the United States, but the key word is “minimize.” When you are dealing with explosives, and particularly high explosives (larger and more intense blast radii) “minimize” will always be a relative term. That’s, of course, just the technical side. The other side, the human side, is even more “messy.” As the old saying goes, “Run with the wolves, howl with the wolves,” and that truth applies even if you are forced to run or find yourself among the “runners” by chance. We are in a deadly war, declared or not, and a drone equipped with a Hellfire (What a profoundly appropriate name!) missile is just another weapons system — a very deadly and efficient one. When I hear about another drone strike I never delude myself that some innocents were not caught in its deadly radius, but I confess to satisfaction that one or more of civilization’s deadly enemies has been eliminated. They have chosen to make the world a battlefield and they have suffered the “due process” of the battle.
“Therefore I refuse to blame Obama for the deaths of hostages Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto, dreadful and tragic as those deaths are.”
I’ll agree with you Neo, somewhat. While I do not blame Obozzo directly, I do blame him for the after effects.
Who, if they have a shred of a conscience, knowingly keeps this from the family members? Lets just let the family stew while we put this on the shelf to be used 3 months later. Apparently the family put together and paid a $250K ransom payment recently.
Had their deaths been immediately announced, the family would at least not have that salt in the wound.
What was the response of the sycophants- Well we tell all families not to try and negotiate on their own.
I wonder at what point one loses the innocence and truthfulness one is born with and the only goal is to protect “dear leader”. No matter the pain to others. And once that is seared from on’s being can one ever get it back? I think not. Although bad mouthed for centuries, at least Judas reflected and acted on his evil. Do we really think any of our “leaders” or Hill/Bill would bother to reflect on the evil they caused?
Correction: Apparently the 1st reports were wrong. The 250 was paid back in 2012.
“The al Qaeda captors of now-slain hostage Warren Weinstein pocketed $250,000 in ransom money from his family in 2012.”
Doesn’t change my opinion of Obummer and his sycophants 🙁
Collateral damage. It is the sin of the West, but the primary aim of the jihadis. We apologize for collateral damage. The jihadis intent is always to kill as many innocents as possible. We are ashamed of what we do to defend ourselves. The jihadis revel in it.
Whether we use a Hellfire missile from a drone, bombs dropped by aircraft, cruise missiles fired from ships, artillery barrages, or Special Forces raids, we are likely to kill some innocent bystanders. The jihadis hide among the civilians. It’s their MO. They rely on the conscience of the West to hobble our ability to defend ourselves.
When you are in a back-alley, down-and-dirty, fight to the death (Which is what we are in, even if we don’t want to acknowledge it.), high minded principles will not save you. You must fight the enemy on his terms.
Would it not be a smart thing to openly warn Muslim civilians that when they associate with, shelter, or otherwise fraternize with jihadis, we cannot guarantee their safety? Then, when collateral damage occurs, don’t apologize, just say, “You were warned!”
Yes, I am a knuckle dragger. My mottoes are:
Peace through superior firepower.
Always bring a gun to a knife fight or whatever weapon it takes to win.
Never fight with one arm tied behind your back.
Why should the nation care or even take notice of these two alleged deaths? It is all straw man stuff, whether effective or not.
Weinstein sounds mighty Jewish to me, and if a Jew chooses to go to Pakistan long after the 2002 murder of Danny Pearl, so be it.