Sunday, August 14, 2011

Warren Weinstein, US AID Contractor in Pakistan (and CIA Representative?) Kidnapped There

Warren Weinstein has been kidnapped was a country director for the US Government's USAID agency at one time, and that he was in Pakistan doing similar work when he was kidnapped, on a contract from the US Government.  But was he a CIA agent? 

No one has proved so as of yet, but everyone is speculating based on information about his life and work, such as the details provided by a New York Times article (with salient details highlighted in yellow below):

The New York Times reports:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A group of armed men broke into the home of an American development expert in Lahore on Saturday and abducted him, Pakistani and American officials said.

American officials identified the man as Warren Weinstein, 70, the Pakistan director for J. E. Austin Associates, an international development consulting company based in Arlington, Va.
( . . . )
According to J. E. Austin’s Web site, Mr. Weinstein had been working on the company’s Pakistan initiative for strategic development and competitiveness.
( . . . )

Over the past several years, Mr. Weinstein has worked on projects with the United States Agency for International Development and corporations in Pakistan
 ( . . . )
A Pakistani friend of his said he was advising the provincial livestock department and the Industries Ministry, and was working on a development project financed by the American government in the tribal regions, a largely lawless area where militants operate along the border with Afghanistan.
( . . . )

“He was a very experienced man and said he had worked in many countries in difficult circumstances,” said the Pakistani acquaintance, who asked not to be identified. People who know him said he tried to assimilate into the local culture, wearing the Pakistani national dress, baggy trousers and a long tunic known as a shalwar kameez, and speaking functional Urdu.  
( . . . )
Mr. Weinstein and his wife maintain a split-level home in a middle-class neighborhood in Rockville, Md., a suburb of Washington.
Britain's The Telegraph offers a cogent reason why Mr. Weinstein would be a target of kidnappers:
Mr Weinstein was working as the Pakistan country director of Virginia-based development company J.E. Austin Associates. He described his work as supervising a four-year $11 million “competitiveness project”, funded by the American government.
Although the New York Times and the Telegraph don't mention it with specificity Mr. Weinstein's history of involvement with the US Government makes him a plumb target:  OpenSecrets.Org says that Weinstein was once an office director for the US Agency for International Development, a "country director" for the Peace Corps in the Ivory Coast and Togo.

In April, Antiwar.com reported:
Now, Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau has turned its eyes toward USAID, the official US government aid agency. There is concern, according to reports, that the various USAID “corruption” scandals surrounding inefficient projects are evidence that the agency is being used as cover for CIA activities.
It is possible that Mr. Weinstein became perceived to be an operative or agent of the US Central Intelligence Agency, and that is both part of why he was taken hostage and part of why the US Government is making such a big deal of getting him back?

Anyone who says that CIA activity in Pakistan is a mere "conspiracy theory" is trying to convince you not to use your eyes, your ears and your brain.  Many conspiracy suspicions are also conspiracy facts.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Warren Weinstein was on the payroll of a subcontractor who is linked to USAID under the facade that they are "helping poor countries" - Mr. Weinstein already made a fortune $$$$ by U.S. taxpayers monies and is asking President Obama to help him get out of the problem that he willing got into. It is time that USAID be exposed...assign a federal special fact-finder and the truth will come out. Greed is a sin under our Christian's beliefs.

Unknown said...

Warren Weinstein was on the payroll of a subcontractor who is linked to USAID under the facade that they are "helping poor countries" - Mr. Weinstein already made a fortune $$$$ by U.S. taxpayers monies and is asking President Obama to help him get out of the problem that he willing got into. It is time that USAID be exposed...assign a federal special fact-finder and the truth will come out. Greed is a sin under our Christian's beliefs.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Weinstein has all the earmarks of a MOSSAD/CIA agent. USG policy is to never (at least publically) pay extortion money for release on any American. He will be kept alive for us as a bargaining pawn when the CI or MOSSAD obtain an exchange prisoner of comparable value.

pdkimball said...

The CIA is a private Old Boys club where people with Jewish-sounding last names are not welcome. It seems highly unlikely that this older man was a CIA agent.

Anonymous said...

There is no evidence that Warren Weinstein had any links to the CIA, and the US government is doing nothing to secure his release. He is being held by Pakistan's ISI, in order to stop drone attacks on their territory. Frankly, having known him, he is far too good at what he does to be connected with the CIA.

Elizabeth J. Neal said...

Warren Weinstein has been kidnapped was a country director for the US Government's USAID agency at one time, and that he was in Pakistan doing similar work when he was kidnapped, on a contract from the US Government. But was he a CIA agent? call us