Given the long trail of death that Obama’s drone war has left in its wake, two of the latest victims are an Italian and American namely Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto.
In apologizing at the White House briefing room for the killings, Obama said, “It is a cruel and bitter truth that in the fog of war generally, and our fight (against) terrorists specifically, mistakes, sometimes deadly mistakes, can occur. 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 Warren and Giovanni. I profoundly regret what happened.”
While it is horrifying that their actions has come at a price – taking the lives of two innocent captives – this will also have political and policy implications. In other words, with the drone war program being the foundation of Obama’s counterterror program, this incident will raise harsh questions about its use.
Questions that include whether this was another CIA intelligence failure or whether the covert agencies did everything that they could to avert the possibility of these innocent civilians being in the line of fire.
With the death of Weinstein now known to all, there could be controversy about whether the United States does everything it can to bring home hostages given its current policy of not negotiating with ISI or Al-Qaeda.
From a political standpoint, this is a new national security crisis given that Obama’s foreign policy is already under attack from critics in Capitol Hill as well as fear from Americans over the rising threat that ISIS poses.
That said, Obama’s decision to escalate the classified drone program in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan has clearly been the reason for these two deaths.
Until now, almost 400 of these air strikes have been carried out in Pakistan with anywhere between 423 to 926 innocent victims being killed along with Al-Qaeda operatives.