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Drone Killed Hostages From U.S. and Italy, Drawing Obama Apology
HughPickens.com writes: The NYT reports that President Obama has offered an emotional apology for the accidental killing of two hostages held by Al Qaeda, one of them American, in a United States government counterterrorism operation in January, saying he takes "full responsibility" for their deaths. "As president and as commander in chief, I take full responsibility for all our counterterrorism operations," including the one that inadvertently took the lives of the two captives, a grim-faced Obama said in a statement to reporters in the White House briefing room. The White House earlier released an extraordinary statement revealing that intelligence officials had confirmed that Warren Weinstein, an American held by Al Qaeda since 2011, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian held since 2012, died during the operation. Gunmen abducted Warren Weinstein in 2011 from his home in Lahore, Pakistan. They posed as neighbors, offered food and then pistol-whipped the American aid worker and tied up his guards, according to his daughter Alisa Weinstein.
The White House did not explain why it has taken three months to disclose the episode. Obama said that the operation was conducted after hundreds of hours of surveillance had convinced American officials that they were targeting an Al Qaeda compound where no civilians were present, and that "capturing these terrorists was not possible." The White House said the operation that killed the two hostages "was lawful and conducted consistent with our counterterrorism policies" but nonetheless the government is conducting a "thorough independent review" to determine what happened and how such casualties could be avoided in the future.
The White House did not explain why it has taken three months to disclose the episode. Obama said that the operation was conducted after hundreds of hours of surveillance had convinced American officials that they were targeting an Al Qaeda compound where no civilians were present, and that "capturing these terrorists was not possible." The White House said the operation that killed the two hostages "was lawful and conducted consistent with our counterterrorism policies" but nonetheless the government is conducting a "thorough independent review" to determine what happened and how such casualties could be avoided in the future.
So, if he's fully responsible for accidentally killing an American, he'll be prosecuted for manslaughter, right?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I am not an Obama fan but I cannot place blame on anyone here except Al Qaeda. Intelligence isn't perfect, it appears due diligence was done, but unfortunately hostages were killed. Perhaps the blame should go to the group that took perfectly innocent people hostage and held them near military commanders who they knew were being targeted.
... only because they made up new laws (or executive orders) to make it legal.
Yeah, I voted for the guy, but I am a e seriously disappointed.
Drone strikes where you just decide whatever civilians are nearby deserved to die results in unintended deaths.
Who fucking knew?
In other words, we're bumbling idiots.
Maybe your remote control warfare doesn't provide you with enough actual understanding of the situation and just deciding to bomb something without really knowing what you're doing is a bad idea?
'Collateral Damage' is military speak for "we don't actually care who we kill, but we'll pretend it's not a war crime".
If America keeps bombing Pakistan ... is it OK for Pakistan to bomb America? Because the level of "because we're special" which happens here is mind boggling.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Remove the conditional statement. Stay out of the M.E., period. Meddling has produced nothing of value for us, other than a jobs program per military and DHS.
Table-ized A.I.
He will be accused of manslaughter, then given a presidential pardon
going over there and everything will be just fine... it works for me,
Then if there is any sign of aggression you can fo what you want with them...
If kidnapping Westerners and keeping them within 50 feet of you grants you immunity from airstrikes, that increases the incentive to kidnap westerners.
There's no winning the hostage game -- if you ignore the hostages you lose the PR war, if you play to the hostages then you encourage future kidnappings. It's a lose-lose game. The same is seen for the millions of Euro paid by various European nations as ransom -- some of that money goes right back into funding more hostage-taking missions.
There is no way to time-consistent way reconcile the interests of the current hostage in not getting bombed/beheaded with the interests of future hostages in not being kidnapped in the first instance. It's a repeating game, we cannot evaluate each iteration separately but at the same time we cannot evaluate them all together.
I mean, killing innocent Americans and innocent Italians with drone strikes. Now that is totally unacceptable!
Roughly 99.9% of people who use the word "unconstitutional" are not constitutional lawyers nor constitutional law experts. I'll be nice and hold back telling you what they really are.
Table-ized A.I.
Actually, no.
We don't have boots on the ground, so we have no eye witnesses as to whom was killed.
Bombs inherently blow evidence all to shit.
For those reasons, it takes time to verify.
Disclaimer: I think we need to stay the fuck out of there.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelet
As long as you don't have to pay for the eggs you're cracking, right?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Al Qaeda isn't exactly an integral piece of the global economy. It appears that from their (terrorists) view, people are assets, not humans, which can be retained until an opportune time comes.
elephant in the room question: why is a jew (I assume) hanging out in a country that does not accept his way of life as valid?
there are places that you should not go if you are deeply hated for your last name. pakistan is one such place.
I will never understand what drives people to go spend time in such a hostile country. it does not forgive what happened, but if you go to dangerous places, bad shit can and will happen.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I've been thinking about this for a long time, especially after the rash of hostages killed by ISIS. At this point, nobody can really claim to not know the danger. I know nothing about Lo Porto but Weinstein clearly knew the dangers. So we did he stay there? I think there are several reasons why westerners put themselves in deliberate danger in places like Pakistan, Syria, etc.
1) Some people are simply mentally ill. After the first Japanese hostage was killed by ISIS, it came out that he was mentally ill. Not mentally ill enough to need to be locked away, but clearly incapable of making rational decisions regarding his own safety. People like this are simply always going to gravitate towards dangerous places because the internet makes sure that they know where the really dangerous places are.
2) Some people believe that they are special and the bad guys won't go after them because they are "helping". Most of the hostages fall into this category. Weinstein was like this. Alan Henning fell into this category and possibly the first one as well. Reports are that Henning believed to the very end that the fact that he was there to help would save his life. Sometimes these people get away with being in a dangerous location once and they think that they are simply lucky and won't ever be harmed. Henning went into Syria several times and was left alone. The second Japanese hostage executed by ISIS went to help the first one and he went because he'd been to the area before and thought he was special and the bad guys would leave him alone.
3) Some people are so overcome with their desire to help others that they can't rationally assess the danger and while they know if they are captured it's going to end very badly for them, they believe that they will simply beat the odds. Remember many years ago when Americans and Europeans volunteered to be human shields for Saddam Hussein? They were like this. A few months ago it got announced that a young American female hostage was supposedly killed in a bombing raid against ISIS. She had operated in the area previously and had to know the danger, but she believed that because nobody had yet bothered her that she could work there at no risk. She died as a result of being wrong about that.
There's some overlap between those vague 3 reasons I gave for people ignoring the real danger to be in places like Pakistan and Syria and so on, but I don't know how we can ever stop people from willingly becoming victims of their own bad decisions about personal risk.
Does that include keeping Middle Easterners out?
Funny thing about "collateral damage" -- if it happens consistently enough, then logically, there must come a point where it can no longer reasonably be called "accidental" (i.e. manslaughter).
Guess what it becomes at that point?
The only factor up for debate is just how consistent it must become to no longer be considered accidental. I'll let you decide for yourselves on that one, and simply point out that the victims of collateral damage probably have a vastly different answer than the aggressors.
We gave up on that sort of elitism sometime around 1776.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"Drone delivers pizza, kills hostage..."
News at 11.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
You don't need to be a Constitutional Lawyer or constitutional law expert to understand the principles of the constitution (it is a remarkably clear document that has stood the test of time and it didn't have to be a novel like most laws we have these days) and know when one has been violated.
If they want to live in some place civilized or safe they should escape, yes.
I struggle to understand why a terrorist cell would hold a hostage for four years. Surely the cost just for feeding him would be excessive?
I have a feeling that Al Queda doesn't expend the same level of resources on the care and feeding of prisoners that we do in the USA.
elephant in the room question: why is a jew (I assume) hanging out in a country that does not accept his way of life as valid?
Like France or England?
I was just reading that, due to Muslim students, it's no longer possible for someone to be a teacher in France while being openly Jewish.
The British branch of Amnesty International just refused to look at violence against Jews. And on and on and on...
Jews are people of the book, as said by Muhammad. Why should he be afraid to walk among Muslims?
I'm not disappointed at all. Drones are so much better than actually invading Pakistan, and reduces the number of kids that get killed in war.
I never got the hate for drones in the first place. Why would you want to launch a ground invasion instead, which means MORE kids getting killed?
Sure, if you want to kill someone, you're right. I think the argument against drones is that if you push a button and someone dies on the other side of the Earth and you didn't have to go to war to do that ... well, fast forward two years and you're just sitting there hitting that button all day long. "The quarter solution" or whatever you want to call it is still resulting in deaths and, as we can see here, we're not 100% sure whose deaths that button is causing. Even if we study the targets really really hard.
And since Pakistan refuses to own their Al Queda problem, we have to take care of it for them.
No, no we don't. You might say "Al Queda hit us now we must hunt them to the ends of the Earth" but it doesn't mean that diplomacy and sovereignty just get flushed down the toilet. Those country borders will still persist despite all your shiny new self-appointed world police officer badges. Let me see if I can explain this to you: If David Koresh had set off bombs in a Beijing subway and then drones lit up Waco like the fourth of July and most of the deaths were Branch Davidians, how would you personally feel about that? Likewise, if Al Queda is our problem and we do that, we start to get more problems. Now, that said, it's completely true that Pakistan's leadership has privately condoned these strikes while publicly lambasting the US but that's a whole different problem.
Also, we must always assume that war = killing kids. The fact that people think kids shouldn't be killed in war basically gives people more of an incentive to go to war in the first place. When Bush invaded Iraq, the public should have asked "OK, how many kids are we expected to kill?" Because all war means killing kids. There has never been a war without killing kids.
The worst people are the ones that romanticize war, by saying war is clean and happy and everyone shakes hands at the end. War is the worst, most horrible thing, and we need to make sure people understand that, or they'll continue to promote war.
Yep, think of the children -- that's why we should use drone strikes, right? Look, war means death. Death doesn't discriminate and neither does war. If you're hung up on it being okay to take a life the second that male turns 18, you're pretty much morally helpless anyway. War is bad. Drone strikes are bad. There's enough bad in there for them both to be bad. This isn't some false dichotomy where it's one or the other. It's only one or the other if you're hellbent on killing people.
News flash: you can argue against drone strikes and also be opposed to war at the same time. It does not logically follow that since you're against drone strikes, you're pro war and pro killing children. That's the most unsound and absurd flow of logic I've seen in quite some time.
My work here is dung.
Roughly 99.9% of people who use the word "unconstitutional" are not constitutional lawyers nor constitutional law experts. I'll be nice and hold back telling you what they really are.
well they're not statisticians, that's for sure!
They don't hate jews, they hate zionists. They're not the same thing.
They only make that distinction when speaking to others. When nobody's looking they hate all jews the same.
The highest level person that explicitly signed off on the strike should be fired. That's not the president--he authorises programs like this with the intention that they're carried out properly. (Whether or not this is an action the USA should be taking is a matter for elections.) If something goes wrong, someone should be punished for their incompetence. It can't be the lowest level person, because they're not the one calling the shots--it has to be someone high in the chain of command. Only explicit accountability can keep this sort of thing from happening again, assuming that this program must continue at all.
(I'm all for banning this sort of thing, but let's be real. Of course, if we're being real, we probably won't hear about this ever again.)
Who exactly is 'they' in this context?
If it's lawful to kill civilians with drones, then you should change your rotten laws.
Those were just wedding parties...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
The vaguely defined "other" created to foster inward solidarity and outward hostility.
99.9% of people do not need to be lawyers to understand the law. Lawyers are supposed to be for nuance and unintended consequences, not for basic interpretation. Never forget that the ultimate test of any law lies with a jury..
Good-bye
Good luck with that. As unstable as it seems right now, there is much worse brewing there than ISIS. If we leave, something is going to fill that vacuum, and that something will likely be inimical to our interests and safety.
You don't need to be a Constitutional Lawyer or constitutional law expert to understand the principles of the constitution
You do if you want to twist phrases such as 'shall not be infringed' or 'all powers', for example. It takes a high level of study, education, and sociopathy to mangle simple language.
Roughly 99.9% of people who use the word "unconstitutional" are not constitutional lawyers nor constitutional law experts. I'll be nice and hold back telling you what they really are.
Roughly 99.9% of "constitutional lawyers" and "constitutional law experts" cannot read English, as evidenced by their complete and utter failure to understand the simple language in the US Constitution.
Problem solved.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Disclaimer: I think we need to stay the fuck out of there.
Too late.
Yes, everything is so easy to understand in the constitution, like how about the right to bear arms? I want my bear arms, I'm not sure if I would hang them on a wall or wear them like gloves. :P
It's a shame the pilot was so far away from the aircraft when the warhead was released.
Had this happened in 1945 and involved people on board a B-29, I don't think anyone would be very concerned, though some of the more sensitive might have muttered, "war is hell."
Had it been fired by an F-16 or A-10 in 1995, there would be more concern but I really don't think anyone would feel "shit happens" fails to adequately address the issue. Because shit does happen, after all.
But it's 2015 and, to our horror, we learn that the pilot wasn't on board the aircraft. It was a "drone." So this is very, very serious indeed.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Simple language like "the right to bear arms"? that is not simple at all. Bearing arms does not mean ownership in English, but that is how we interpret it.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Well he has not admitted to a crime. You still have to show that he committed a crime, because not all deaths are criminal.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
This is a very good thing. The world is improving that we no longer accept innocent deaths which could have been avoided.
Burning alive an entire city of civilians to destroy one factory was acceptable to our grandparents. Turning jungle villages into moonscapes was acceptable to our parents. Now we have the capability to know where, when, who, and what is going on precisely when we drop a controlled munition with accuracy measured in feet. This progress, expressed through anger when it does not go right, is not a joke to laugh at.
No one should accept people dying violently through no fault of their own merely because it is inconvenient for us to do otherwise.
Given what I have seen out of the supreme court with their sometimes tortured rulings (it is a tax and not a tax in the same ruling) who are supposedly the most qualified to make those decisions I wouldn't put much stock in constitutional lawyers or constitutional law experts. There are other cases that are more nuanced that are very political and one side or anther will say is wrong but I still can't logically figure out how something can first be ruled not a tax, then in the very same ruling be found to be a tax. This isn't like a regular judge issuing an order and then immediately staying that order as things go to appeal to a higher court as this was the US Supreme Court.
Time to offend someone
It's like there's unbridled chaos and anarchy over there... Almost sounds like a warzone.
Well the segment is actually "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" so it becomes even more clear.
Time to offend someone
Probably because if you accept the status quo of racism and just avoid those places it does nothing to fix the racism problem. You might as well ask why all the black people didn't up and leave the USA after the civil war. If we want to change peoples racist attitudes and stereo types you have to make it personal. They need to see that their fears and hatreds are unreasonable as frequently as possible. Going to a country where a significantly large part of the population has an unreasonable hatred for you with the purpose of rendering humanitarian aid is a pretty good way to do that. Whether or not it is a wise decision for your personal well being is a very valid question. But often times the people who do this kind of work value the work they are trying to accomplish more than their own well being, at least before they are actually put into mortal danger. Then again most people's ideals and motivations become very maleable once they are under immenent threat of death.
Genuine question: What definition do you use?
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
Do you have any non-crackpot, non-Zonist citation for that? I'm not seeing anything on the Google.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Maybe the civilian casualties also deserves apologies too..
http://www.theguardian.com/us-...
How many civilian casualties hidden under the newspeak term "militant" ?
There are always going to be a group of jerks trying to out-jerk each other there. Our presence doesn't seem to be decreasing them, but merely make us their target. The iron-fisted dictators have been a relative force of stability even. Stable jerks are preferable to unstable jerks.
Table-ized A.I.
I thought a bit on your response and my original statement, and here’s what I got. I’m doubling down on my comment, there’s something so despicable about drones. First, there’s always something weird about an asymmetrical war. But drones are even worse. Imagine living in Pakistan, and never knowing when death will come down from above with no warning? It could be targeting you or somebody next to you, there’s no way to know. That’s not the kind of world I want to live in, where one government has such power to terrorize.
Inb4 these threats will never happen in US: the LAPD already owns two drones. What would be stopping them from owning weaponized drones? There’s already a precedent to put snipers in helicopters. And the “officers in harms way” bs is often trotted out.
Also, you must realize that your role in RPA is just a stop gap – over time they will become more and more automated, to the point you don’t need pilots at all. Then, you can launch a thousand drones and just let them circle lazily in the sky like hawks. This is also not the world I want to live in.
Lastly, just as military tech bleeds into civilian law enforcement, it also bleeds out to our foes who can use it against us.
So in short, the drone program is despicable.
(I assume)
Racist!
Juries typically don't interpret Constitutional law. Whether they "should" is another matter.
Table-ized A.I.
Words can have many meanings such that the intent of the writers and context often has to be considered also:
http://www.quickmeme.com/img/7...
Table-ized A.I.
I don't think you know what that phrase means.
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Ah, but that wasn't the assertion, was it? In case you're unable to scroll back to the comment to which I was replying, here's the statement:
No. Longer. Possible. For someone to be a teacher in France while being openly Jewish.
Shall we take a little walk over to a few French universities and examine the names teaching Humanities? Political Science? Medicine? You want to make a little bet on whether or not it is "possible for someone to be a teacher in France while being openly Jewish"?
France is home to the world's third largest Jewish population. Not Europe's third largest, but the world's third largest. Let me guess: you think they're all money-lenders and pawn brokers? There are three quarters of a million Jews in France and 600,000 of them are French citizens. You believe none of them are teachers?
Yes there is anti-semitism in France. And the anti-semitism that is on the rise is as much from the conservatives and nationalists in Europe as from muslims. If you want to see anti-semitism, you can't do much better than white guys with SS tattoos on their necks and shaved heads. And make no mistake, there are neo-Nazis, the white Christian kind, on the rise all over Western and Northern Europe. This is not a new development, since I seem to recall some dustup in that region in the middle part of the last century. And long before that. But when you make a statement about whether it is "possible" to be a Jewish teacher in France, based on some right-wing blog or Breitbart or something, you should always use your head for a minute before accepting it as gospel.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Do you see any sources saying it's "not possible to be a teacher in France if you're Jewish"? If so, I invite you to post it here even if it is from Haaretz or Breitbart. Because so far, I've seen nothing.
You are welcome on my lawn.
More clear? How about not leaving off the first part of the sentence, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State"
Remove the conditional statement. Stay out of the M.E., period. Meddling has produced nothing of value for us, other than a jobs program per military and DHS.
But our lobster is really tasty =(
Well the segment is actually "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" so it becomes even more clear.
Hmm, I often wonder if it shouldn't be changed to include the word "both" between "bear" and "arms".
Pedantic: Neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan are typically considered part of the Middle East. Aside from the majority religion, they have little in common with the Middle East.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Even being a native is no guarantee of safety. Even if you are a native, there is bound to be some asshat from another tribe who wants to see you dead because they disagree with your interpretation of what some deranged child molester said 1400 years ago.
Okay, so tell me what part of the Constitution was violated? Bear in mind that we do not have to be in a declared war to take military action, something which has been recognized from George Washington on.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The Second Amendment would be a whole lot easier to understand without the first part of the sentence. Does it mean nothing? Then why is it there, since AFAIK no other Constitutional provision provides and explanation? Does it mean bearing arms has something to do with a well-regulated Militia?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Something weird about an asymmetric war? Those happen. They're not going to go away. Learn to live with that fact.
What's your problem with weapons that can kill without warning? Do you also protest artillery? Snipers? Suicide bombers? Infrared sights? Concealed weapons? A weapon that can get explosive into an enemy target area without warning is a good weapon, and will be more effective in war. You don't want to live in a world where the government has that much power to terrorize, OK. Did you live through the Cuban Missile Crisis? We were very unpleasantly close to having nukes flying, and that, to me, is more terrifying than drones by a long shot. You've probably lived in that world all your life, and complaining about a minor addition is pointless.
If you're in Pakistan, and you avoid areas of US-designated enemy activity, you're pretty safe. This wouldn't apply if you lived in southern Israel, for example. The US tries to target only its enemies, and isn't that bad about it.
I share your concerns about police getting military weapons, but the base problem here is the militarization of the police, not the specific weapons. Giving police the equipment to fight a small war is not a good idea, regardless of the weapons used.
Sure, drones will become more common if we use them. Know what happens if we don't? Everybody else works on them anyway because they're effective weapons. Our enemies get them. Police departments get them. Other countries build more and more automated drones. We're very good at that sort of thing, so most countries will lag behind what we do, but not by all that much. Why do you want our enemies to get effective weapons before we do?
If you want to protest US activity in the region, fine. If you want to protest war in general, fine. If you want to protest undeclared wars, fine. All of those are reasonable things to protest, although I won't promise to agree with you. Protesting against weapons because you find them scary, because they're effective weapons, is silly.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Suppose this wasn't accident. Suppose it was intentional. Obviously those who think they're targets sometimes keep hostages around to avoid being blown up. Suppose this was a message: "we'll blow you up regardless".
Your ideas sound super in a world where US has declared war on a country and all the soldiers where bright uniforms. It sucks when the US just bombs random countries without declaring war and crosses its fingers that hopefully it hits some combatants. Yes, it was in the NYTimes today. http://nyti.ms/1PrJJN5. this doesn't sound like a war, it sounds like brutal occupation.
You know who else does that? fires of random missiles into somebody else's territory? hamas.
So apologies are only required when westerners are killed? What about all the innocent local people who have been killed in drone strikes?
`Perche non reggi tu, o sacra fame de l'oro,l'appetito de' mortali?'
If you're worried about dying and are American, stay out of the Middle East.
They already had that covered, what with being in South Asia and all.
You're not some kind of hero, RPA pilot. You're a coward and a murderer.
"Whacked"?