President Barack Obama secretly granted the CIA an exemption relaxing restrictions on drone strikes in Pakistan; he gave the CIA a waiver, allowing them to strike without gathering additional information and surveillance data on the al Qaeda-linked militants targeted in the January 15 strike. This may have delayed it, or even allowed them to determine that the two hostages were being held there (assuming they did not know to begin with), possibly sparing the lives of Dr Warren Weinstein (assuming the CIA cared to begin with), a 73-year-old economic adviser from the US, and 39-year-old Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto.
The two captives were killed along with Ahmed Faruq, an American described as a leader of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent.
Al-Qaeda’s English-language spokesman, a California rocker-turned jihadist, Adam Gadahn, died in a separate strike.
Lo Porto disappeared in January 2012 in Pakistan, just a few days into his second visit to the country. A native of Sicily, Lo Porto had previously worked in Croatia, the Central African Republic and Haiti. Unfortunate that a brave man was killed by a government that did not care and an extremist group that only wanted to kill and maim.
Weinstein was abducted after gunmen tricked their way into his home in Lahore on August 13, 2011 shortly before he was due to return home after seven years working in Pakistan.
He later appeared in a video in which, he asked the United States to free Guantanamo (I like how some in the MSM like to call these prisoners Al Qaeda, when most have never been convicted, and many are innocent men who are kept in prison because the CIA was afraid that these men would turn to Al Qaeda as a result of the horrendous torture that the CIA had done to them) prisoners. Were they freed, as Obama himself had often himself promised while campaigning, Weinstein would have lived.
Weinstein’s widow said in a statement that ‘we are devastated by this news and the knowledge that my husband will never safely return home.’
President Obama last week publicly apologized for the hostage deaths and took ‘full responsibility’ for all counter terrorism operations. Taking full responsibility for matters, means striving to prevent a repeat of these matters.
However, talk is cheap. As a strong proponent of drone strikes that have destroyed thousands of people, many of whom were civilians, and at least one wedding, with no accountability or actions to prevent the murder of innocents, Obama doesn’t really give a toss that two more have been added to the kill-count.
Several investigations into the botched drone strike, including by the CIA and US Congress, are expected to take place in the coming months.
Obama was quick to stress that ‘we do believe that the operation did take out dangerous members of Al-Qaeda.’ He also noted that January 15 strike was ‘fully consistent with the guidelines under which we conduct counterterrorism efforts in the region. Yup, so basically he took ‘responsibility’ by quickly saying that this was all Standard Operating Procedure. Instead of asking how this could have been prevented, or maybe by not waiving the need to procure sufficient intel before approving drone strikes.
‘Since 9/11, our counterterrorism efforts have prevented terrorist attacks and saved innocent lives both here in America, and around the world,’ the commander-in-chief said during a press conference Thursday.
CIA drone operations are broadly divided into two distinct categories: ‘signature strikes’ and ‘kill list’ strikes, according to the Journal.
The agency would go after specific targets if they are present on the kill list, but the president has to personally sign off on each such operation. Signature strikes give the operators more freedom in throwing the kill switch.
According to the paper, in 2013 the president endorsed a set of restrictions aimed at eliminating ‘signature strikes’ altogether in order to reduce the number of civilian deaths, but unnamed officials say many of the rules have yet to be implemented… Why exactly?
Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warmonger McCain said drone strikes against suspected militants on foreign soil should be run by the US military and not the CIA…. Wait, why is this better? The military would have and does make the same “mistakes” (they don’t care). I mean, can’t we just STOP bombing the wrong people by maybe doing more surveillance?
‘I think it was probably preventable, in that there was an obvious breakdown in intelligence. They didn’t know that they were there,’ McCain said of the January drone strike.
‘It is an ‘integral part of the conflict and a very essential one,’ McCain told CNN.
McCain acknowledged ‘some bias’ on which federal agency should operate the drone program, given that shifting it to the Pentagon from the CIA would put it under his purview as chairman of the Senate committee overseeing the military. Warmonger.
McCain said the Pentagon had the expertise (from openly supporting heart-eating Syrian ‘moderates’) and, ‘I think it should be conducted and oversight and administered by the Department of Defense.’
Warren Weinstein is the seventh American to be killed by drones, the sixth who was hit ‘accidentally’. After all the bad press from killing that first American on purpose, they learnt the power of the accident.
In December American Luke Somers and South African Pierre Korkie were both killed when US Special Forces attempted to rescue them in Yemen.
Obama said he ordered the raid because the 33-year-old Somers was believed to be in ‘imminent danger.’ The president condemned Somers’ killing as a ‘barbaric murder.’
In 2013, Obama defended America’s controversial drone attacks as legal, effective and necessary, saying, ‘Simply put, these strikes save lives’… by killing more innocents and causing Al Qaeda and ISIS to mysteriously grow larger? Hmmm. Maybe it was a bad idea to take out Saddam, Gaddafi and now go after Assad… Maybe THAT should have been you and your predecessor’s strategy.
Source: Daily Mail
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