Earlier this week his wife Elaine appeared on TV asking the President to negotiate for his release.
Weinstein worked for a government contractor when he was kidnapped. His work in Pakistan was to boost the country's dairy development, which according to his company resulted in $63 million in new investment to Pakistan, at least 2,150 new jobs, and a 25 percent boost in producer productivity.
His overseas home was stormed by Al-Qaeda operatives armed with AK-47s who tortured and tied up the guards before taking Weinstein. He had been living in the high-security compound for years, traveling back to Rockville, Md. frequently to see his family.
“He was in his house sleeping in the master bedroom behind locked doors,” Elaine Weinstein, told WJZ-TV, Baltimore.News of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s release in June after five years of captivity came hard for the Weinstein family.
“When I thought about it, I was crushed,” Elaine Weinstein told WJZ-TV. Because it would have been nice if they traded five prisoners for five hostages.”Elaine Weinstein told the station, if she could speak with President Obama, she would say:
“Please. . . work as hard on getting my husband home as you worked to get the sergeant home. Please do whatever you can. He’s a father, a grandfather, a husband, a gentle, kind man, who needs to be home with his family.”
Warren Weinstein is one of the people most responsible for tuning me into a political geek.
My first year and a half in college was spent at the State University of NY at Oswego. I was a political science major and Dr. Weinstein was a favorite professor, my department adviser, and as president of the Hillel (officially called the Jewish Student Union) I worked closely with Dr. Weinstein who was our faculty adviser. He always impressed me man big heart. It is not a surprise that when he was kidnapped he was teaching people how to get more food out of their land. That's the type of person he is. Warren Weinstein was the guy who would invite students over to his house when they were stuck in Oswego for the Jewish holidays.
It was Dr. Weinstein who first taught me what liberalism did to City University. He talked of studying with Hans J. Morgenthau at Brooklyn College when it was known as the "Poor Man's Harvard." Once NY City decided College was a God-given right, and everyone was allowed into the school no matter the quality of their grades, Dr. Weinstein said the school quickly became a sub-standard school.
Dr. Weinstein also taught me that one person could make a difference, which is exactly how he lived his life. Look at his work in Pakistan.
He encouraged me to stand up for what I believed which is why he gave me advice when a Palestinian professor, Dr. Faiz Abu-Jabbar verbally attacked me in class because I didn't accept his anti-Israel rhetoric as truth.
The media talked about Warren when al Quada released his video in December, but have forgotten about him since. He is a good man who helped to spark an interest in politics that continues through today. He didn't really teach political science, he taught how think about it and ask the right questions. He was also a lifeline who helped me helped me to get through a year and a half of college life in a student body that was not very friendly to Jews.
This is the scum the United States is fighting, a group that would kidnap a man who was 68 years old at the time, a man with a heart condition, a man who was only in Pakistan to help people become more successful. He wasn't a soldier (I don't know he was ever in the military) Warren Weinstein is just someone who would go anywhere in the world to help people. His captors would go anywhere in the world to hurt people.
As for President Obama's refusal to negotiate for Weinstein's release, it seems strange that he would trade five Taliban "Generals" for one American deserter while leaving a 72-year old man working for the government to deteriorate in a terrorist prison.
The last time he was seen was in a video al-Qaeda released in December, it is embedded below:
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