Is this what really happened?

By: Raqib Shah

We need to look at the facts, use common sense and everything becomes crystal clear. For example, to prove that Osama bin Laden was killed at the compound in Abbottabad,the easiest way is to take the DNA test of the blood on the floor of the compound. What we all know.

August 2010: Pakistan shares with US some details about the compound in Abbottabad.US gathers intelligence that the compound is occupied by Osama’s children.

Jan 27: Raymond Davis, the CIA Station Chief in Pakistan gets an audio file and some pictures of Pak military installations at Tarbela from an informer in Lahore. On the wayback he is pursued by two ISI contractors. He realizes that he is being followed and shotsboth followers in the back. He is arrested by Pakistani police.

March 16: Raymond Davis is released and he shares the information he had gathered with the CIA.

March 17: General Kayani starts criticizing drone attacks in public statements

First Week of April: News started circling that General Petraeus is being transferred toCIA.

April 5: Obama Administration submits a report to the Congress that Pakistan government has no clear strategy to triumph over militants. This is followed by a concerted international media campaign which puts enormous pressure on Pakistani Military and ISI.

April 7: Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and White House advisor writes a report arguing that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are not only a deterrent to India but also to USA.

April 8: General Kayani meets with Centcom Chief Gen James Mattis.

April 18: On Pakistan’s Geo TV, Adm. Michael Mullen said Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence “has a longstanding relationship with the Haqqani Network. That doesn’t mean everybody in the ISI, but it’s there.”

April 20: Adm. Mike Mullen meets with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Khalid Shameem Wynne and General Kayani.

April 22: News appears that Pakistan has taken back Shamsi Airbase back from CIA, US forces.

April 26: Washington critically attacks Pakistan Army’s counter-terrorism efforts.April 26: General Petraeus met with General Kayani.

April 26: Meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) is held at Rawalpindi,one week ahead of schedule at the Joint Staff Headquarters

April 27: Wall Street Journal reports that Pakistan is trying to wean Afghanistan away from the United States and draw it into China’s orbit.

April 28: Obama signs General Petraeus’ transfer to CIA.

April 29: Obama signs the orders to attack the Abbottabad compounds.

April 30: General Kayani gave a veiled threat in his Youm-e-Shuhada address:”Pakistan is a peace-loving country and wants friendly relations with other countries and our every step should move towards prosperity of the people. But we will notcompromise our dignity and honour for it”.

May 1: Four US choppers flew from Afghanistan. Reaching Abbottabad they attacked a secure compound which housed some important Al Qaeda members. A gun battle soon ensued. Within minutes a Pakistani military helicopters flew from Tarbela, reaching the compound in Abbottabad few minutes later. In the meanwhile US forces had torched one of their own choppers. The four choppers (three US and one Pak) took off from the compound and flew to Afghanistan. Incidentally, this time none of them followed a low altitude flight. They were quite visible on Pakistani radars.

What we all should know

In August 2010 after Pakistani authorities shared intelligence with US about the compound in Abbottabad. US after its own intelligence gathering ascertains that the compound is occupied by Osama’s children. Compound surveillance continues through the next year in anticipation of capturing Osama bin Laden. In January 2011 the young CIA contractor who is give the charge of Pakistan Station Chief works “extra hard” to gather clandestine information related to ISI and Al Qaeda relationship.

The contractor,now infamous as Raymond Davis the “American Rambo” receives a call from one of his assets, early morning on January 27 about a high value target. But the asset refuses to lay out details on phone or to leave the Lahore city, where he had gone underground.Raymond Davis hires a rent a car and drives to Lahore, while his security detail followshim in a bullet proof Land Cruiser.

Raymond Davis is able to loose his Islamabad’s ISI”detail” by leaving in unmarked rent a car. The ISI agents falling for his trap follow the embassy’s Land Cruiser. Raymond Davis arrives at Lahore one hour earlier than his detail and meets with the asset. The asset gives him some pictures of an intelligence building at Tarbela and recording of a phone call. Listening the phone call Raymond Davis realizes the gold mine he had struck and immediately calls his security detail which had also reached Lahore, knowing if ISI reaches him first, he would not leave Lahore alive.

Next hour when the security car catches up with Raymond Davis, the ISI bosses realizes that Raymond Davis had give them a slip earlier in the morning and in the couple of hours he had in Lahore, he might have got some important information. Resultantly,they put two contractors on his tail. Raymond Davis seeing a tail fears the worse and shoots them both in the back, at a traffic stop, without logically realizing that there was no way ISI could have know what he was holding.

His security detail which was close behind rushed to his “rescue” however, by the police had chased and arrested him, while the security Land Cruiser running over pedestrians escapes towards US embassy compound in Islamabad. ISI officers quickly reach the scene and confiscating the memory sticks realize Raymond Davis has unearthed a deep secret which even their immediate bosses didn’t know about.

The sensitivity of information rattles the entire echelons of the ISI and even its own officers are sent under house arrest while the relevant cell steps forward. At that time even some of the top intelligence officers of the secretive ISI outside the relevant cell did not know that Osama bin Laden had died and his body was kept frozen at Tarbela. Young Raymond Davis had unearthed the biggest secret of the century, somehow. But now the Pandora’s Box had been opened. Pak top brass knew it had only a few days or weeks at best to capitalize Raymond Davis’ arrest before US get the intel.

In the next six weeks Pakistan plugs all leaks related to Osama’s death and makes sure that maximum gains are made for Raymond’s release. However,when Raymond Davis is released on March 16, his debriefing results in a tsunami of US policy, personal agendas and fueling of political rivalries. Everyone in the US chain of command now wanted to use the information to further personal goals from General

Petreaus to President Obama. On March 17, knowing that Pakistan had lost its trump card General Pervaiz Kayani releases a press statement in which he critically criticize drone attacks, first from him. From then on Pak Military raised its stance against drone attacks, fearing that US now might target its nuclear assets. While in USA politics was at its full swing. General Petreaus wanted to get the buckle for Osama bin Laden’s death on his belt for his future political ambitions, while President Obama wanted the credit to help is sliding popularity. While the tussle continued, the other issue still pending was how to confirm Osama’s death.

In the next one month, nearly every week a top US official visited Pakistan, everyone meeting with General Kayani trying to convince him to hand over Osama’s body. While the stance from Pakistan remained, “Osama, Who?” It was a first in the history that so many US top officials had visited and met with a military chief of a foreign country in such a short time. Seeing nothing getting through the top military brass of Pakistan, US started a political and media campaign on the sides to put extra pressure on Pak Military.

Politics within Obama Administration was also at its full swing. Petraeus was pulling all the strings to take the credit, while trying to lay out a plan to get Osama bin Laden’s body out of Pakistan. President Obama on the other hand in one smooth move decided to “promote” Petraeus to the head of the CIA. The news got out in the first week of April that Petraeus was being transferred to the CIA. While at the main front, Obama continued to pressurize General Kayani and General Pasha and one April 5, Obama Administration submitted a report to the Congress that Pakistan government had no clear strategy to triumph over militants. Alongside the report the media campaign against Pak Military and the ISI continued.

The second week of April began with a bang for top Pak Military brass. On April 7, Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and White House advisor wrote a report arguing that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are not only a deterrent to India but also to USA. The obvious had now become clear that Obama Administration has indirectly sent a clear threat to Pakistan’s nuclear assets. The timing of the report was perfect with Centcom Chief Gen James Mattis meeting with General Kayani next day. In the meeting General Mattis asked about Pakistan’s cooperation in capturing Osama bin Laden.

This was ironically one of typical Hollywood thriller scene. Pakistan knew that US knew that Pakistan knows that US knows that Osama is dead. But Pakistan continued the naive game of “Osama Who?” while US continued to play the game that “Osama must be captured”. General Mattis leaves with veiled threats and stresses that Pakistan must do more to against the Al Qaeda and Taliban, or indirectly saying that Osama bin Laden must be handed over.

For the ten days US waits and sees how Pakistan responds to the threats, but Pakistan acts by burying its head in the sand – see no evil, hear no evil. Obama Administration ups the ante and on April 18 on Pakistan’s Geo TV, Adm. Michael Mullen said Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence “has a longstanding relationship with the Haqqani Network.That doesn’t mean everybody in the ISI, but it’s there.” Again, international media had its field day against Pakistan’s ISI and its links with Taliban and the ISI.

After putting pressure on General Kayani, Adm. Mike Mullen meets with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Khalid Shameem Wynne and General Kayani on April 20.Admiral Mullen again demands indirectly that Pakistan needs to help USA in locating Osama bin Laden. Pakistan’s response was again, “Osama, Who?” Admiral Mullen however, left with another threat that if they came to know about Osama bin Laden’s location they would go ahead and take unilateral action. This is the same message which President Obama repeated in his announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death, when he said, “We will take actions in Pakistan, if we knew where he was.”

In response to continued threats from USA Pakistan starts taking back its air bases from US in an attempt to avoid launching of any operation from its own soil. As a result on April 22 the news appears that Pakistan had taken back Shamsi Airbase back from CIA,US forces. While Obama Administration was piling pressure on Pakistan, General Petraeus visited Pakistan on April 26 and met with General Kayani openly asking him to hand over Osama bin Laden, otherwise get ready to face the consequences. Same day Washington also critically attacked Pakistan Army’s counter-terrorism efforts. General Petraeus left with a clear message that unless Pakistan hands over Osama, US forces would be forces to take action over Pakistani soil. Pakistani Military knowing that US knew that Osama bin Laden was dead couldn’t understand Obama Administration’s continued stance on capturing Osama bin Laden. General Petraeus left with the ultimatum that either Pakistan handed over Osama or US would get him.

Same day meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) is held at Rawalpindi,one week ahead of schedule at the Joint Staff Headquarters. The top brass discusses the Osama issue and decision is reached to work out the Obama’s strategy leading to continuous threats for capturing Osama bin Laden alive, even after knowing that he was dead. While in Pakistan intelligence community starts using all of its sources to reach to the bottom of US’ demand of capturing Osama bin Laden. On April 28 President Obama signs General Petraeus’ transfer to CIA and next day signs the orders to attack the Abbottabad compounds. Thus Osama bin Laden’s credit is assured to President Obama.

On 29 April after President Obama signed the orders to “bring back” Osama bin Laden,Pakistani security agencies get a report that another order had been signed which had authorized US forces to neutralize Pakistan’s nuclear assets, if needed. The report was nothing short of seeing a death angel for the top Pak Military brass.

Seeing the imminent threat, General Kayani tried his last shot when on 30 April 2011 he clearly stated in his Youm-e-Shuhada address: “Pakistan is a peace-loving country and wants friendly relations with other countries and our every step should move towards prosperity of the people. But we will not compromise our dignity and honour for it”.However, it didn’t stop what was about to come 24 hours later.

As night fell on Sunday, 1 May four choppers from a US Afghan base at a low altitude towards its destination in Abbottabad, to the same compound where Osama’s children were in the hiding. Without any detection courtesy of their latest stealth technology and Pakistan’s outdated technology the choppers continued over the Pakistani territory.Ironically, ten years ago a Pak Air force air commodore had raised concern about the outdated radar technology citing that US or worse India could fly helicopters into the country and take out nuclear installations and in reply he was shown the boot while no upgrades to the systems were made.

Anyway, the four choppers made it to the compound in Abbottabad. It is then that PakArmy was notified that they have a choice. Either face an entire barrage of US choppers attacking Pak nuclear assets or hand over Osama’s body. In the meanwhile the small

gun battle at the Abbottabad compound continued and to give the drama some authenticity the US forces torched one of their own choppers. Pressed for time a Pakistani helicopter flew from Tarbela carrying dead body of Osama bin Laden which was stored in a cold storage there. While at Abbottabad Pak Army soldiers encircle the entire area around the compound within five minutes of the start of fire fight. The firefight continued for 35 more minutes, waiting for the Pakistani helicopter. Once the Pakistani helicopter reached the compound the three US choppers and the Pakistani helicopter flew towards the Afghan border, this time without the need to fly below the radar detection altitude.

Next day, the world woke up to the news that Osama bin Laden was dead and President Obama had delivered wheat President Bush and Dick Cheney couldn’t. But the Pak Military brass did not wake up, because they never slept the night before. Last night they had woken to the realization that US could fly under the radar and take out Pakistan’s nuclear assets. The problem here is that US has the complete inventory of Pakistan’s nuclear assets along with exact locations. It would be a matter of minutes in a country wide operation to dismantle Pakistan’s nuclear assets.

Pakistanis want a better future, just like us

By: Cynthia P. Schneider and Aakif Ahmad,

As Americans try to decipher where the Pakistan government, military and intelligence services stand in the fight against extremists, ordinary Pakistanis are busy trying to make their country a better place. In many cases they do his in spite of, or, to put it more kindly, in lieu of their bureaucracy.

But how could the average American know that Pakistan has an incredibly vibrant civil society? Our news is wall-to-wall Pakistan, but search for something about daily life (outside the neighborhood of Osama bin Laden’s compound) and you will come up emptyhanded.

Some polls say about 68% of Americans and Pakistanis distrust the other. The way Americans and Pakistanis view one another today will not change on its own. But change it must, because the third and sixth most populous countries in the world have significant strategic and demographic reasons to build a constructive long-term partnership.

“When we say we hate America, it is never the people.” This is how a student from LUMS (Lahore University of Management Sciences, an elite American-style university) opened a recent conversation in Lahore. He and other people we met had no trouble distinguishing between government policies and the people of a country.

In February, at the height of the controversy surrounding Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor who shot two Pakistanis during what he asserted was a robbery, we traveled to Lahore with 15 other Americans in various fields seeking Pakistani partners to develop civil society initiatives that would add value on both sides. Over three days we argued, laughed, listened and learned.

Opinion: Don’t give up on Pakistan

By the end of the meeting, participants had conceived more than a dozen partnership ideas, including a web-based “sister-schools” program between sixth, seventh and eighth graders, several collaborations among colleges and universities, and initiatives in farming, dairy, irrigation and “sister-cities.”

With plans to meet five more times in the next three years, this “U.S.-Pakistan Leaders Forum” will seek to develop cooperation in areas such as entrepreneurship, women’s empowerment, health, social services, energy, trade, media, culture and governance.

Despite the prevailing winds of anti-Americanism, Pakistani leaders in business, nonprofits, education, agriculture, media and technology felt the partnership building we sought was long overdue, and urgently needed. Many Pakistanis recall an era of constructive civil society relationships with the United States, and want to build new ones.

Among our Pakistani counterparts there was a consensus that corruption had become institutionalized at all levels of Pakistan’s government. Their response? To take up the slack, and develop civil society solutions.

Before Egyptian youth were cleaning up Tahrir Square, the Pakistani youth organization Zimmedar Shehri (Responsible Citizen) was galvanizing citizens of Lahore to take responsibility for the cleanliness of their historic city and clean up the garbage in the streets.

Private citizens and organizations are trying to compensate for the dire state of education in Pakistan. According to one participant, as many as 30% of Pakistani children have no school to attend, while another 30% go to public schools that don’t have books, where buildings are falling apart and teachers hardly ever show up.

Pakistan’s solution will sound familiar to Americans: charter schools, or privately run schools that are open to the public. Take for example, Seema Aziz, co-founder of the Bareeze clothing line and retail chain. She not only provides and raises funds for education, but also runs an organization that manages more than 200 schools supporting 150,000 kids.

Another group, the Citizen’s Foundation, operates schools that accommodate 100,000 students in urban slums and rural Pakistan. These leaders speak passionately about every child deserving a quality education, and like many of their counterparts, both Aziz and the Citizen’s Foundation have a strong focus on creating educational opportunity for girls.

Our American colleagues were impressed with the creativity, entrepreneurship and can-do attitude of the Pakistanis they met. From the conference table to the local farm, school and village shop, values Americans hold dear were on display in Pakistani society.

As long as the Pakistani government is beset by corruption and the threat of extremism, it cannot be expected to serve as the best partner for U.S. aid, private or public. But there are so many other options, and there are hopeful signs that the Pakistani population is open and receptive to American initiatives that add value.

Just ask anyone from Pakistan what music they listen to, and chances are that they will answer “Coke Studio.” Coca-Cola sponsors a popular television series that records innovative mixes of traditional and pop music. According to one Pakistani we met, “Coke helps keep music alive in Pakistan.”

Let’s not confuse Pakistan’s population of 180 million with the government or military. Not only do the Pakistani people want the same things we do — education, economic opportunity, justice, rule of law — but they are working hard, often in the private sphere, to achieve them. They are ready for partnerships; let’s meet them halfway.

HO HUM

By: Salman Azeem
ZoneAsia-Pk

The dictionary explains ‘ho hum’ as being an ‘expression of tediousness or boredom’. Ho Hum, therefore, best describes the state of minds in Pakistan. There was a time several months ago when the media, political aspirants and others created the hype of an imminent change of government. Media debates and writings ranged over various possibilities. Politicians in the opposition ran around trying to forge alliances and hurl derogatory epithets at others. An activist judiciary was seen as the torch bearer of change and the ‘establishment’ was seen as being in support of the judiciary and the secret behind the scenes manipulator. Each new event whether on the streets of Karachi or Baluchistan or in FATA or Punjab was seen as another nail in the governments’ coffin. Lurid details of corruption, mismanagement and cronyism were being shouted from rooftops.

This is no longer the case now. The politicians in the opposition are running around like headless chickens – outwitted and out maneuvered. The media continues its diatribes but these are accepted and no longer make waves or even ripples – they are seen for what they are, ploys for revenue generation from advertisements. The judiciary is independent and going about its business with some cracks visible – no one expects miracles. The establishment has been accepted as having broken from the past and is seen as a bystander with its work cut out. Scams and scandals surface and disappear into investigations and court procedures. Lawlessness is being accepted as kidnappings, murders, random killings, bombings and street rage become a fact of life – not even making headlines any more. Bizarre incidents like the Davis killings and the Taseer-Bhatti murders provoke rage that peters out into despair. The government continues to function and the country gets run somehow. Economic decline, rising prices, increasing poverty and joblessness are topics for discussion because there is nothing else to discuss. Life goes on and the name of the game is acceptance and compromise. No one is excited anymore – not even by the 2013 elections.

No longer is the nation waiting for a savior to come galloping on a white horse. No one is expecting the strategic ally – the US or the much touted Friends of Pakistan to work a miracle in Pakistan. If anything the suspicion about US intentions has reached a crescendo. Reality has kicked in. The reality is that this elected government is going to complete its tenure – its accomplishments are being slowly seen from between all its warts. Political shenanigans are exposing people as never before. No one has so far said anything profound, strategic or visionary – the future looks dreary. There is grudging acceptance of the fact that the country has weathered difficult situations – some of Tsunami strength and held its own. Dire predictions continue to be made but they lack conviction and those making them lack credibility. The ‘establishments’ hands-off policy is being accepted as reality and even the pronouncements by the US fail to create a dent. This is a classic case of a game having been played to the finish leaving everyone exhausted – no one is crying foul and if someone is then there is no listener.

The time has come to move on. The media needs to revamp with meaty futuristic debates. The political scene needs new faces below thinking brains. The US needs to rethink strategy to change its image in public opinion. The ‘establishment’, the bureaucracy and the judiciary need to deliver – to the people. Those in power need to see the snowball that might roll on despair turned into rage to gain size, momentum and power before.

Why Raymonds will continue to happen

By: Naeem Sadiq

Pakistan’s ‘ghairat’ came calling once again on the afternoon of March 16, 2011. The chartered aeroplane carrying Raymond Davis had grossly violated the ‘honour space’ of Pakistan. Public sentiments were invoked to avenge the fractured ‘national honour’. Few were willing to admit that our state, inundated with loans and lackeys, happily discovered the shortest ‘sharai’ path that links Kot Lakhpat with Lahore airport. A dynastic ruling elite with a penchant for lawlessness and a total lack of concern for its citizens could not possibly have chosen any other course. It may be interesting to examine five other apparently isolated events that happened around the same time and which can explain why Raymonds will continue to happen in Pakistan.

While Raymond was on board a flight out of Pakistan, so was the chief minister of Punjab, making a brotherly get-well visit to London. The head of the PML-N had opted to have a stent inserted into his artery at the elite Central London Hospital. Instead of improving local hospitals, the ruling elite prefer to fly out to exotic locations, often utilising funds siphoned from the taxpayers’ account. Can the interests of poverty-stricken Pakistanis be defended by a ruling elite that has its vital interests deeply embedded in foreign lands? Till this situation is reversed, Raymonds will continue to happen in Pakistan.

Another event that took place around the same time as Raymond’s departure was the shocking revelation by the National Database and Registration Authority that out of the 80.2 million votes that chose our ‘honourable’ parliamentarians in 2008, 36 million were bogus. That means that approximately 45 per cent of the members sitting in parliament have entered through questionable corridors. Add to this another 57 confirmed by the Higher Education Commission as fraudulent degree-holders and 298 who refuse to submit their degrees for verification and you have an exceptional composition of delinquents who would be happy to partake in every conceivable crime.

Why should a foreign country respect a Pakistani court, when the Pakistani government itself refrains from doing so? Only four days before Raymond’s expeditious release, the ruling party called for a province-wide strike to protest against the Supreme Court verdict of annulling the appointment of the NAB chairman. A lawless state machinery, at war not just with its people but also with its own institutions, is hardly expected to produce results any different from what it did in the Davis case. Around the same time as Davis was sipping coffee on his flight out of Pakistan, the prime minister was signing documents to extend the services of the top man in the ISI. It is irrational for us to recycle the same dynastic politicians, bureaucrats, judges and generals and then also feel stunned at getting the same disappointing results. A cartel of fossilised ruling elite dedicated to extending its own life cycle cannot be expected to defend the interests of its people. Raymonds will continue to happen as long as we continue to tolerate a ruling class that lives beyond its means as well as its warranty period. The fifth and perhaps the most important event was an act of omission, hugely underplayed and least protested. Davis was projected as if he was the only foul fish that we had in the country. What about the 500 or so other CIA security contractors who are engaged in similar dirty tricks? Why did we not demand a collective exodus of these criminals?

While we brood over the fast track dispensation given to a foreigner, we do not seem perturbed about the quality of justice delivered to our own citizens. We have a judicial system that can conduct a trial and release a multiple killer in two hours but do nothing about the 8,000 prisoners still languishing in jails for having been sentenced to death over the past 20 years. We are upset at the indecent haste shown for Raymond, but we have no programme to improve our dilapidated judicial processes. Raymonds will continue to happen in Pakistan for as long as we do not address the causes that create them. Neither the state nor the society seem ready to take on this challenge.

The ransoming of Raymond Davis

By: Partap Chatterjee

You are accused of shooting two Pakistani citizens. Pay $2.3m. Get out of jail free.

If it sounds like a line from a chance card in a game of Monopoly, where the richest player wins, welcome to the world of life and death in Pakistan where the Obama administration has paid “blood money” to spring a CIA agent suspected of two killings from jail on Wednesday.

Raymond Davis, a former Blackwater contractor, who was employed by the CIA in Pakistan, was arrested for the killing of two Pakistani citizens in Lahore on 27 January 2011. One of the men was shot in the back as he was running away. The US government first claimed that Davis was protected by diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Conventions. On Friday, US officials paid the two victims families a reported $2.3m; and Davis was released less than seven weeks after he went to jail. (Compensation to families of civilian victims of US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan amounts to a few thousand dollars per person, if anything is paid at all.)

Consider the case of Shane Bauer, a freelance journalist, and a good friend of mine. We worked together to expose US funding of death squads in Iraq. On 31 July 2009, he was arrested by Iranian border guards while hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan, an area I too have hiked in. Almost 20 months later, he is still a prisoner in Iran, where the US government has barely lifted a finger to help him.

The charges against Bauer – who is accused of working for the CIA – are spurious. Indeed, his reporting has uncovered US government complicity in war crimes. But that may be exactly why he is getting so little help from Washington. The stakes are not that high in Bauer’s case: if the US government would be willing to sit down and talk, rather than pursue its game of nuclear brinkmanship, Bauer would go free.

The German government has done this for their journalists. Last month, Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, travelled to Tehran to secure the release of Jens Koch and Marcus Hellwig, who had spent 20 months in jail.

The Obama administration did the same for Laura Ling and Euna Lee in August 2009. Bill Clinton, the former US president, went on a mission to Pyongyang and met with Kim Jong Il, after which the two journalists were set free. Since Ling and Lee were investigating the North Korean government, it was an easy bargain.

The message that the Obama administration sent in Islamabad on Wednesday is loud and clear. If you work for the CIA, the US government will pay your way out of jail even if you are being held on murder charges. But if you are, like Shane Bauers, a US citizen wrongfully accused of being a spy but whose work has exposed the US government’s shame, your case will be no kind of priority.

So, for a murder suspect a ransom is paid, while an innocent citizen is left to rot. Does this contrast suggest an administration committed to human rights, the rule of law and freedom of the press?

US ‘blocks’ aid over Raymond Davis issue

The United States has finally resorted to punitive measures against Pakistan after Islamabad’s failure to comply with Washington’s covert and overt but pressing demand for the release of Raymond Davis, accused of killing two Pakistani youths in Lahore. The revelation came after the US House of Representatives recently nodded to a Republicans-backed resolution calling for the suspension of economic aid to Pakistan as it was not complying with Washington’s demand for the immediate release of Davis. The resolution is, reportedly, awaiting approval of the American Congress scheduled to reassemble by end of this month.

Official sources in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs told Pakistan Today that the US disbursements of military and civilian aid to Pakistan under the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) and Kerry-Lugar aid package were “practically blocked” at present. “A high-level American delegation visited and pointed out to Pakistan that if it did not release Davis, the US will block the funding,” an official of the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) told Pakistan Today. If true, the suspension of US aid and assistance would fall heavily on the country’s economic managers who have repeatedly been calling upon their strategic partners in Washington to ensure a ‘timely’ reimbursement of war expenses to Pakistan under CSF.

Pres Zardari oped in Sunday’s Washington Post

By Asif Ali Zardari
Washington Post

Just days before her assassination, my wife, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto, wrote presciently of the war within Islam and the potential for a clash between Islam and the West: “There is an internal tension within Muslim society. The failure to resolve that tension peacefully and rationally threatens to degenerate into a collision course of values spilling into a clash between Islam and the West. It is finding a solution to this internal debate within Islam – about democracy, about human rights, about the role of women in society, about respect for other religions and cultures, about technology and modernity – that shall shape future relations between Islam and the West.”

Two months ago my friend Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, was cut down for standing up against religious intolerance and against those who would use debate about our laws to divide our people. On Tuesday, another leading member of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister for minority affairs and the only Christian in our cabinet, was murdered by extremists tied to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

These assassinations painfully reinforce my wife’s words and serve as a warning that the battle between extremism and moderation in Pakistan affects the success of the civilized world’s confrontation with the terrorist menace.

A small but increasingly belligerent minority is intent on undoing the very principles of tolerance upon which our nation was founded in 1947; principles by which Pakistan’s founder, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, lived and died; and principles that are repeated over and over in the Koran. The extremists who murdered my wife and friends are the same who blew up the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad and who have blown up girls’ schools in the Swat Valley.

We will not be intimidated, nor will we retreat. Such acts will not deter the government from our calibrated and consistent efforts to eliminate extremism and terrorism. It is not only the future of Pakistan that is at stake but peace in our region and possibly the world.

Our nation is pressed by overlapping threats. We have lost more soldiers in the war against terrorism than all of NATO combined. We have lost 10 times the number of civilians who died on Sept. 11, 2001. Two thousand police officers have been killed. Our economic growth was stifled by the priorities of past dictatorial regimes that unfortunately were supported by the West. The worst floods in our history put millions out of their homes. The religious fanaticism behind our assassinations is a tinderbox poised to explode across Pakistan. The embers are fanned by the opportunism of those who seek advantages in domestic politics by violently polarizing society.

We in Pakistan know our challenges and seek the trust and confidence of our international allies, who sometimes lose patience and pile pressure on those of us who are already on the front lines of what is undeniably a long war. Our concern that we avoid steps that inadvertently help the fanatics is misinterpreted abroad as inaction or even cowardice. Instead of understanding the perilous situation in which we find ourselves, some well-meaning critics tend to forget the distinction between courage and foolhardiness. We are fighting terrorists for the soul of Pakistan and have paid a heavy price. Our desire to confront and deal with the menace in a manner that is effective in our context should not become the basis for questioning our commitment or ignoring our sacrifices.

If Pakistan and the United States are to work together against terrorism, we must avoid political incidents that could further inflame tensions and provide extremists or opportunists with a pretext for destabilizing our fledgling democracy. The Raymond Davis incident in Lahore, which directly resulted in the deaths of three Pakistani men and the suicide of a Pakistani woman, is a prime example of the unanticipated consequences of problematic behavior. We need not go into the legal, moral and political intricacies of this case. Suffice it to say that the actions of Davis and others like him inflame passions in our country and undermine respect and support for the United States among our people. We are committed to peaceful adjudication of the Davis case in accordance with the law. But it is in no one’s interest to allow this matter to be manipulated and exploited to weaken the government of Pakistan and damage further the U.S. image in our country.

Similarly counterproductive are threats to apply sanctions to Pakistan over the Davis affair by cutting off Kerry-Lugar development funds that were designed to build infrastructure, strengthen education and create jobs. It is a threat, written out of the playbook of America’s enemies, whose only result will be to undermine U.S. strategic interests in South and Central Asia. In an incendiary environment, hot rhetoric and dysfunctional warnings can start fires that will be difficult to extinguish.

The writer is president of Pakistan.

Post-mortem rationalizations…

By Shemrez Nauman Afzal
ZoneAsia-Pk

The media frenzy and political gimmickry after Salmaan Taseer’s assassination, and now Shahbaz Bhatti’s brutal murder, fails to answer questions, and instead, posits more queries and conundrums which are completely uncalled for

On the morning of March 02, 2011, Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs, Shahbaz Bhatti, was gunned down near his house in I/8-3 sector of Islamabad. He did not have his security protocol with him. The assassins sprayed his car with bullets, and after confirming the death of their target, littered the murder site with pamphlets that proclaimed the incident as having been commissioned by the hitherto-unknown Punjabi Taliban.

As soon as news of the assassination broke out, civil society demonstrators and protesters held rallies throughout major Pakistani cities, while the Pakistani Christian community was divided on whether to take to the streets over the murder of their biggest politician in broad daylight, or to stay silent and remain within the shelter of their homes.

We only think about what to do, what to say, and (thanks to the media) what to feel AFTER something tragic and unthinkable has happened.

Yet, the tragic and unthinkable happens so often, that one would imagine we would be prepared for it by now, even if we are not desensitized to it.

Express Tribune, a mainstream newspaper, reflected the views of the protesters as follows: nobody is safe, not even the protesters.

Tomorrow if I say something that someone doesn’t agree with, I will also be killed. When people can kill with so much impunity in the capital, no one is safe.

Anyone who speaks the truth is unsafe.

This is another attempt by the extremists to silence the truth and those who dare to work for the rights of minorities, claimed the protesters.

And then we have the religious parties, drawing overstretched links between Shahbaz Bhatti’s assassination and the excessive intolerance prevalent in our society, to the Raymond Davis case, the existence of clandestine CIA-contractor networks in Pakistan, and their links to terrorist organizations that are out to destabilize Pakistan (most notably the TTP and other regional and local groups affiliated with Al Qaeda).

The political and religio-political parties also failed to outrightly condemn the murder of Shahbaz Bhatti – some said that the murder of a minister is worthy of condemnation, others (like Khawaja Asif of the PML-N and Maulana Ahmed Ludhianvi of Ahle-Sunnat-wal-Jamaat) said that the blasphemy issue makes all Muslims emotional and people should think a thousand times before commenting on it, and yet others drew links between foreign hands trying to destabilize Pakistan, and local elements who wish to draw attention away from Raymond Davis and onto ‘Pakistan as the hub of terrorism and extremism’.

What is the way out?

The progressive, liberal offensive to rescue Pakistan from this quicksand of hatred, from these existential threats, must now multiply.

The liberal, progressive, forward-looking, tolerant and modernity-oriented citizens of Pakistan – regardless of caste, class, creed, background, religion, faith, sect, endowment – must multiply the fronts over which they are currently fighting the Battle for Pakistan.

The scourge of intolerance, of extremism and bigotry, of hatred and hypocrisy, must be countered, checked and questioned. This must take place by retaking the mosques and the madrassas, by re-educating our youth, by interacting with them and mainstreaming them, and by attacking the mullah’s monopoly on so-called “religious discourse” that has very little to do with Islam, but a lot to do with the political goals and motives of the mullah’s.

At the same time, it must be remembered that any and every enemy of Pakistan will try to make the most of our divisions, of issues that can divide us, and over incidents that can diminish our resolve to solve problems just because we are unable to properly investigate and pinpoint the source of contention.

Pakistan wants to coexist peacefully with its neighbours and with the rest of the world.

But before that happens, Pakistanis need to learn to coexist peacefully with each other.

If a Federal Minister and a Governor can be gunned down in the Federal Capital in broad daylight, then it is a sign that all rational, progressive people in Pakistan are a minority.

That is exactly what the religious extremists want you and the world to think.

The offensive against hatred, intolerance, bigotry, hypocrisy and extremism must multiply. There is no better time to do it than now. Otherwise the current pace and quantum of right-wing extremism in Pakistan might lead to an equally deadly and destabilizing phenomenon of left-wing extremism, founded over an anti-mullah and anti-fundamentalist (if not anti-Islam) conceptualization.

Yet, we never prepare in advance, we never dedicate ourselves to these honorable pursuits; we wait for another brave Pakistani on the frontline to be martyred, and we wait for it to ignite our conscience and our passions for another short period of time, until we fall eerily silent once more.

This Pakistani characteristic of post-mortem realizations is really going too far. Tolerance implies coming to peace with things, with people, with words. Yet, we as Pakistanis – as individuals and as a society – fail to come to peace with anything, because of varied, diverse and differentiated opinions, facts, hypotheses, rhetoric and statements flying all over the place.

Everybody is a politician and a pundit, a commentator and a columnist, an officer and an opinionmaker, a newscaster with a ‘new’ way of looking at things. Why do we need all this? Can’t we think for ourselves?

Has the media become the modern, technologically advanced counterpart of the religious right and their militant extremist proxy cohorts? Both are brainwashing the Pakistani people and using massive doses of psychological warfare and propaganda warfare against Pakistanis, Pakistan, the state, and Pakistan’s interests everywhere (locally and abroad). Is this a healthy sign? Is a free yet irresponsible media really an asset to the people, or a pillar of the state?

I am just glad they did not show video clips of Shahbaz Bhatti’s body – if only the righteous and benevolent media had the heart (and the regulatory oversight) to not show Salmaan Taseer’s corpse in the hospital morgue. Yet, trust and sympathy – once lost – is quite difficult to regain.

Pakistanis must agree on a new social and political compact with each other. Pakistanis must ask themselves whether this Constitution and these laws actually and truly reflect the general will of the people of Pakistan, or not.

We as Pakistanis need to realize that while we are Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, and Ahmadis; while we are Punjabi, Sindhi, Baloch, Pakhtun, Kashmiri and Gilgit-Baltistani; we are ALSO Pakistani.

And if we are good Pakistanis, if we are proud and conscientious Pakistanis, if we are progressive Pakistanis, then we embody Pakistan and its greatness. If we manage our overlapping identities properly, we are good human beings and an asset to our country.

We must remember that despite our differences, despite our divisive associations and divergent beliefs, we are all Pakistanis.

We are Pakistani Muslims. We must respect Pakistani Christians, Pakistani Hindus, and other Pakistanis of different faiths. Pakistan was created as a Muslim majority nation that was to be home for all the minorities of India, especially those who had suffered from the hands of India’s Hindu majority. Today, all Pakistanis – Muslim AND Non-Muslim – suffer from the hands of self-proclaimed warriors of Islam.

We are Pakistanis. We share an unbreakable bond with our brethren from different provinces and localities; this bond is deeper than any ocean and higher than any mountain. Neither man nor idea can overcome this bond, and no amount of blood spilled can damage this link between one Pakistani and another.

Farewell, Shahbaz Bhatti, Shaheed. Rest in Peace.

You are, and always have been, a great son of the soil. You are one of the bravest Pakistanis I have known.

I don’t know if the green-and-white flag of Pakistan deserves to be placed on the graves of heroes like you or Salmaan Taseer.

I don’t know if we, the rest of Pakistan, ever deserved great Pakistanis like you.

My heart weeps crimson tears of blood as I say goodbye to another brave Pakistani.

The Case Against Raymond Davis

The CIA’s Killing Spree in Lahore

By MIKE WHITNEY

When CIA-agent Raymond Davis gunned down two Pakistani civilians in broad daylight on a crowded street in Lahore, he probably never imagined that the entire Washington establishment would spring to his defense. But that’s precisely what happened. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mike Mullen, John Kerry, Leon Panetta and a number of other US bigwigs have all made appeals on Davis’s behalf. None of these stalwart defenders of “the rule of law” have shown a speck of interest in justice for the victims or of even allowing the investigation to go forward so they could know what really happened. Oh, no. What Clinton and the rest want, is to see their man Davis packed onto the next plane to Langley so he can play shoot-’em-up someplace else in the world.

Does Clinton know that after Davis shot his victims 5 times in the back, he calmly strode back to his car, grabbed his camera, and photographed the dead bodies? Does she know that the two so-called “diplomats” who came to his rescue in a Land Rover (which killed a passerby) have been secretly spirited out of the country so they won’t have to appear in court? Does she know that the families of the victims are now being threatened and attacked to keep them from testifying against Davis? Here’s a clip from Thursday’s edition of The Nation”:

“Three armed men forcibly gave poisonous pills to Muhammad Sarwar, the uncle of Shumaila Kanwal, the widow of Fahim shot dead by Raymond Davis, after barging into his house in Rasool Nagar, Chak Jhumra.

Sarwar was rushed to Allied Hospital in critical condition where doctors were trying to save his life till early Thursday morning. The brother of Muhammad Sarwar told The Nation that three armed men forced their entry into the house after breaking the windowpane of one of the rooms. When they broke the glass, Muhammad Sarwar came out. The outlaws started beating him up.

The other family members, including women and children, coming out for his rescue, were taken hostage and beaten up. The three outlaws then took everyone hostage at gunpoint and forced poisonous pills down Sarwar’s throat.” (“Shumaila’s uncle forced to take poisonous pills”, The Nation)

Good show, Hillary. We’re all about the rule of law in the good old USA.

But why all the intrigue and arm-twisting? Why has the State Department invoked the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to make its case that Davis is entitled to diplomatic immunity? If Davis is innocent, then he has nothing to worry about, right? Why not let the trial go forward and stop reinforcing the widely-held belief that Davis is a vital cog in the US’s clandestine operations in Pakistan?

The truth is that Davis had been photographing sensitive installations and madrassas for some time, the kind of intelligence gathering that spies do when scouting-out prospective targets. Also, he’d been in close contact with members of terrorist organizations, which suggests a link between the CIA and terrorist incidents in Pakistan. Here’s an excerpt from Wednesday’s The Express Tribune:

“His cell phone has revealed contacts with two ancillaries of al Qaeda in Pakistan, Tehreek-e-Taliban of Pakistan (TTP) and sectarian Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), which has led to the public conclusion that he was behind terrorism committed against Pakistan’s security personnel and its people ….This will strike people as America in cahoots with the Taliban and al Qaeda against the state of Pakistan targeting, as one official opined, Pakistan’s nuclear installations.” (“Raymond Davis: The plot thickens, The Express Tribune)

“Al Qaeda”? The CIA is working with “ancillaries of al Qaeda in Pakistan”? No wonder the US media has been keeping a wrap on this story for so long.

Naturally, most Pakistanis now believe that the US is colluding with terrorists to spread instability, weaken the state, and increase its power in the region. But isn’t that America’s M.O. everywhere?

Also, many people noticed that US drone attacks suddenly stopped as soon as Davis was arrested. Was that a coincidence? Not likely. Davis was probably getting coordinates from his new buddies in the tribal hinterland and then passing them along to the Pentagon. The drone bombings are extremely unpopular in Pakistan. More then 1400 people have been killed since August 2008, and most of them have been civilians.

And, there’s more. This is from (Pakistan’s) The Nation:

“A local lawyer has moved a petition in the court of Additional District and Sessions … contending that the accused (Davis)… was preparing a map of sensitive places in Pakistan through the GPS system installed in his car. He added that mobile phone sims, lethal weapons, and videos camera were recovered from the murder accused on January 27, 2011.” (“Davis mapped Pakistan targets court told”, The Nation)

So, Davis’s GPS chip was being used to identify targets for drone attacks in the tribal region. Most likely, he was being assisted on the other end by recruits or members of the Tehreek-e-Taliban.

A lot of extravagant claims have been made about what Davis was up to, much of which is probably just speculation. One report which appeared on ANI news service is particularly dire, but produces little evidence to support its claims. Here’s an excerpt:

“Double murder-accused US official Raymond Davis has been found in possession of top-secret CIA documents, which point to him or the feared American Task Force 373 (TF373) operating in the region, providing Al-Qaeda terrorists with “nuclear fissile material” and “biological agents,” according to a report.

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is warning that the situation on the sub-continent has turned “grave” as it appears that open warfare is about to break out between Pakistan and the United States, The European Union Times reports…..The most ominous point in this SVR report is “Pakistan’s ISI stating that top-secret CIA documents found in Davis’s possession point to his, and/or TF373, providing to al Qaeda terrorists “nuclear fissile material” and “biological agents”, which they claim are to be used against the United States itself in order to ignite an all-out war in order to re-establish the West’s hegemony over a Global economy that is warned is just months away from collapse,” the paper added. (“CIA Spy Davis was giving nuclear bomb material to Al Qaeda, says report”, ANI)

Although there’s no way to prove that this is false, it seems like a bit of a stretch. But that doesn’t mean that what Davis was up to shouldn’t be taken seriously. Quite the contrary. If Davis was working with Tehreek-e-Taliban, (as alleged in many reports) then we can assume that the war on terror is basically a ruse to advance a broader imperial agenda. According to Sify News, the president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, believes this to be the case. Here’s an excerpt:

“Zalmay Khalilzad, the former US envoy to Afghanistan, once brushed off Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s claim, that the US was “arranging” the (suicide) attacks by Pakistani Taliban inside his country, as ‘madness’, and was of the view that both Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who believed in this US conspiracy theory, were “dysfunctional” leaders.

The account of Zardari’s claim about the US’ hand in the attacks has been elaborately reproduced by US journalist Bob Woodward, on Page 116 of his famous book ‘Obama’s Wars,’ The News reported.

Woodward’s account goes like this: “One evening during the trilateral summit (in Washington, between Obama, Karzai and Zardari) Zardari had dinner with Zalmay Khalilzad, the 58-year-old former US ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the UN, during the Bush presidency.

“Zardari dropped his diplomatic guard. He suggested that one of the two countries was arranging the attacks by the Pakistani Taliban inside his country: India or the US. Zardari didn’t think India could be that clever, but the US could. Karzai had told him the US was behind the attacks, confirming the claims made by the Pakistani ISI.”

“Mr President,” Khalilzad said, “what would we gain from doing this? You explain the logic to me.”

“This was a plot to destabilize Pakistan, Zardari hypothesized, so that the US could invade and seize its nuclear weapons. He could not explain the rapid expansion in violence otherwise. And the CIA had not pursued the leaders of the Pakistani Taliban, a group known as Tehreek-e-Taliban or TTP that had attacked the government. TTP was also blamed for the assassination of Zardari’s wife, Benazir Bhutto.” (“Pakistan President says CIA Involved in Plot to Destabilize Country and Seize Nukes”, Sify News)

Zardari’s claim will sound familiar to those who followed events in Iraq. Many people are convinced that the only rational explanation for the wave of bombings directed at civilians, was that the violence was caused by those groups who stood to gain from a civil war.

And who might that be?

Despite the Obama administration’s efforts to derail the investigation, the case against Davis is going forward. Whether he is punished or not is irrelevant. This isn’t about Davis anyway. It’s a question of whether the US is working hand-in-hand with the very organizations that it publicly condemns in order to advance its global agenda. If that’s the case, then the war on terror is a fraud.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state and can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com

Davis Arrest Throws US Undercover Campaign in Pakistan into Disarray

This Can’t Be Happening

By Dave Lindorff

The ongoing case of Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor facing murder charges in Lahore for the execution-style slaying of two apparent agents of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, is apparently leading to a roll-back of America’s espionage and Special Operations activities in Pakistan.

A few days ago, Pakistan’s Interior Department, which is reportedly conducting a careful review of the hundreds of private contractors who flooded into Pakistan over the last two years, many with “diplomatic passports,” and many others, like Davis, linked to shady “security” firms, arrested an American security contractor named Aaron DeHaven, a Virginia native who claims to work for a company called Catalyst Services LLC.

The Catalyst Services LLC website describes the company, with offices in Afghanistan, Dubai, the US and Pakistan, as having experience in “logistics, operations, security and finance,” and as having a staff led by “individuals who have been involved in some of the most significant events of the last 20 years,” including “the break-up of the Soviet Union, the US effort in Somalia, and the Global War on Terror.”

DeHaven is being held on a 14-day remand, charged with overstaying his visa and with living in an unauthorized area.

Meanwhile, the English-language Express Tribune in Pakistan reports that according to ISI sources, 30 “suspected US operatives” in Pakistan have “suspended” their operations in the country, while 12 have fled the country.

The paper quotes the Pakistan Foreign Office as saying that 851 Americans claiming diplomatic immunity are currently in Pakistan, 297 of whom are “not working in any diplomatic capacity.” The paper says that the country’s Interior Department claims that 414 of the total are “non-diplomats.” The majority of these American operatives, the paper says, are located in Islamabad (where the US is building a huge fortress-like embassy reminiscent of the one in Baghdad), with the others in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. Most are suspected of being involved in covert missions that report to the US Joint Special Operations Command, with many suspected of being active-duty Special Forces personnel from the Army’s Delta Force. (The website of the JSOC says its responsibility is “synchronizing Department of Defense plans against global terrorist networks and, as directed, conducting global operations.”)

As I reported earlier, both Pakistani and Indian news organizations are claiming, based upon intelligence sources, that Davis was involved in not just intelligence work, but in orchestrating terrorist activity by both the Pakistani Taliban and the terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has been linked to both the assassination of Benezir Bhutto and the capture and beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Multiple calls to members of both groups were found by police on some of the cell phones found on Davis and in his car when he was arrested in Lahore.

It is unclear how far the blow-up in Pakistan over the exposure of America’s role in stirring up unrest in that country will go. Clearly, the ISI and the Pakistani military have long had their own complicated relationship with the Pakistani Taliban, and much of the current anger in both the ISI and the military has to do with the US being found to be working behind their backs, including in its contact with those groups.

But things have been complicated too by mounting public outrage over Davis’s brazen slaughter of the two Pakistanis, who reportedly were tailing him because of concerns about the nature of his activities, and who reportedly were both shot in the back. This public outrage has been further stoked by both a subsequent suicide by the 18-year-old bride of one of the victims, and by the death of an innocent bystander mowed down by a second vehicle carrying several more US contractors which sped to Davis in response to his call for assistance following the shooting. That vehicle, after running down the bystander, raced to sanctuary at the US Consulate. The men in the car, never identified by the consulate, were spirited out of the country by the US so they could avoid arrest.

Further complicating matters for the US, the province of Punjab, of which Lahore is the capital, is run by the opposition party, headed by former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Sharif, who still has presidential aspirations, has no incentive at all to make things easy for the country’s ruling party by letting Davis go. Indeed, with public opinion running almost 100% in favor of trying Davis for murder, Sharif can only gain by insisting that the court system have the final say.

Pakistan’s central government, led by President Asif Ali Zardari, clearly wants to put the Davis incident behind it by having him declared to have diplomatic immunity. Foreign Officials allege that Zardari pressured the Foreign Office in early February to backdate a letter identifying Davis as being a “member of staff” of the US Embassy in Islamabad, which would have afforded him such immunity from prosecution. But the country’s foreign minister at that time, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, reportedly refused, saying, “On the basis of the official record and the advice given to me by the technocrats and experts of the Foreign Office, I could not certify him (Raymond Davis) as a diplomat. The kind of by blanket immunity Washington is pressing for Davis, is not endorsed by the official record of the Foreign Ministry.”

He has subsequently been ousted and replaced by Zardari.

The reality is that the US, which as required, on Jan. 25 submitted to the Foreign Office its annual list of those employees of the US Embassy whom it classified as “diplomats” warranting diplomatic immunity. The list had 48 names on it, and did not include Davis. Only after Davis’s Jan. 27 shooting of the two Pakistani motorcyclists, on Jan. 28, did the US submit a “revised” list, to which Davis’s name had been appended.

The US initially said Davis was an employee of the Lahore Consulate, and Davis himself told arresting police officers that he was a contractor working out of the Lahore Consulate, a role that would not afford him any diplomatic immunity, as consular workers, under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations only receive immunity for their “official duties,” and in any case lose even that limited immunity in the case of “grave crimes.”

His current legal problems, and the public demand that he be tried (and then hanged) for the killings, has definitely led to a reduction in US undercover operations in Pakistan, and to a pullback of at least some of the Special Forces personnel operating there. It will take considerable finesse for the US and the Zardari government to put the the relationship back together-if the Pakistani military and the ISI even want to restore it-finesse that the US has not been very good at displaying.

So far, in fact, the US response to Davis’s arrest has been to bluntly and publicly threaten Pakistan with a loss of foreign and military aid-a threat that seems empty given the American need for Pakistani assistance in supplying its military in Afghanistan, and its need for at lease covert permission to continue sending Predator and Reaper drones across the border to attack Taliban suspects in the tribal border areas. US bluster, and some clumsy efforts to forge records that would purport to show Davis had diplomatic immunity-all widely exposed in the Pakistani media-have only served to further stoke public outrage.

Meanwhile, local authorities in Lahore at the prison where Davis is being held, are so worried that the US may try to have him killed to prevent him from spilling the beans about his activities-for example explaining why the camera he was carrying held photographs of Pakistani military installations as well as of mosques, madrassas and other schools-that they have reportedly posted special guards (unarmed as an added precaution) around his cell, and have been monitoring his food. Davis was reportedly even denied a box of chocolates sent by the US Consulate in Lahore, for fear it might have been laced with poison.

Intelligence assets: After Davis’ arrest, US operatives leaving Pakistan

By Asad Kharal

LAHORE: At least 30 suspected covert American operatives have suspended their activities in Pakistan and 12 have already left the country, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The foreign ministry states that there are 851 Americans with diplomatic immunity currently in Pakistan, of whom 297 are not working in a diplomatic capacity. PHOTO: FILE

In the aftermath of the shootings in Lahore on January 27 by suspected CIA operative Raymond Davis, intelligence agencies in Pakistan began scrutinising records of the Americans living in Pakistan and discovered several discrepancies, causing many suspected American operatives to maintain a low profile and others to leave the country altogether.

The foreign ministry states that there are 851 Americans with diplomatic immunity currently in Pakistan, of whom 297 are not working in a diplomatic capacity. However, sources at the interior ministry put the number of non-diplomats at 414. The majority of these ‘special Americans’ (as the ministry refers to them) are concentrated in Islamabad, with some also residing in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. Interior ministry records show that most of the “special Americans” live in upscale neighbourhoods in Islamabad and Lahore, with smaller presences in Karachi and Peshawar.

Most of the ‘special Americans’ are suspected of being operatives of US intelligence agencies who are on covert missions in Pakistan, reporting to the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), according to sources familiar with the situation.

Counter-intelligence agencies in Pakistan have long suspected a covert US espionage presence in Pakistan. The first internal investigation into suspicious activities by American citizens in the country was conducted in March 2009, which revealed some significant gaps in the implementation of laws concerning foreign citizens.

Under the Foreigners Act of 1946, foreign citizens are not allowed to live in cantonment areas anywhere in the country. Yet the majority of the suspected American intelligence operatives in Lahore are reportedly living in the Officers’/Generals’ Colony on Sarwar Road and Cavalry Ground in the Lahore Cantonment.

Several senior retired army officers – ranging in rank from brigadier to lieutenant general – have rented out their homes to American citizens at rates astronomically higher than the rents of similar homes in the area. The presence of these Americans came to light when several serving and retired Army officers who lived in the neighbourhood reported suspicious activity, including unauthorised foreigners living in cantonment areas.

Foreign citizens in Pakistan have to obtain a no-objection certificate (NOC) from security agencies before they can rent a residence. This process is meant to ensure that they are not living in prohibited areas. But somehow American citizens were able to get NOCs issued to live in cantonment areas in violation of the law.

Sources say that the intelligence agencies’ reports state that many of the Americans living in these residences are assumed to be US Special Forces – including members of the covert Delta Force of the United States Army – and therefore are considered armed and dangerous.

The report further claims that the late US special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, had visited one of the covert American teams in Lahore, at a residence on Sarwar Road owned by a retired army general.

THE DAVIS SCENARIOS

BY MIR JAMSHED BALOCH
Area14/8

Scenario One: Davis gets diplomatic immunity and walks. This may happen after a determination by the Pakistan government, Pakistani courts or the International Court of Justice. Pakistan will be the loser and may face unrest triggered by anti-government protests. The families of the men killed get nothing unless Pakistan decides to compensate them. US-Pakistan relations nose dive and anti US sentiment gets a big boost.

Read Complete Article Here: http://www.area148.com/cms/?p=2508

The NYT’s journalistic obedience

BY GLENN GREENWALD

Earlier today, I wrote in detail about new developments in the case of Raymond Davis, the former Special Forces soldier who shot and killed two Pakistanis on January 27, sparking a diplomatic conflict between the U.S. (which is demanding that he be released on the ground of “diplomatic immunity”) and Pakistan (whose population is demanding justice and insisting that he was no “diplomat”). But I want to flag this new story separately because it’s really quite amazing and revealing.

In this Jan. 28, 2011 file photo, Pakistani security officials escort Raymond Allen Davis, a U.S. consulate employee, center, to a local court in Lahore, Pakistan.

Yesterday, as I noted earlier, The Guardian reported that Davis — despite Obama’s description of him as “our diplomat in Pakistan” — actually works for the CIA, and further noted that Pakistani officials believe he worked with Blackwater. When reporting that, The Guardiannoted that many American media outlets had learned of this fact but deliberately concealed it — because the U.S. Government told them to: “A number of US media outlets learned about Davis’s CIA role but have kept it under wraps at the request of the Obama administration.”

Now it turns out that The New York Times — by its own shameless admission — was one of those self-censoring, obedient media outlets. Now that The Guardian published its story last night, the NYT just now published a lengthy article detailing Davis’ work — headlined: “American Held in Pakistan Shootings Worked With the C.I.A.” — and provides a few more details:

The American arrested in Pakistan after shooting two men at a crowded traffic stop was part of a covert, C.I.A.-led team of operatives conducting surveillance on militant groups deep inside the country, according to American government officials. . . . Mr. Davis has worked for years as a C.I.A. contractor, including time at Blackwater Worldwide, the controversial private security firm (now called Xe) that Pakistanis have long viewed as symbolizing a culture of American gun slinging overseas.

But what’s most significant is the paper’s explanation for why they’re sharing this information with their readers only now:

The New York Times had agreed to temporarily withhold information about Mr. Davis’s ties to the agency at the request of the Obama administration, which argued that disclosure of his specific job would put his life at risk. Several foreign news organizations have disclosed some aspects of Mr. Davis’s work with the C.I.A.. On Monday, American officials lifted their request to withhold publication, though George Little, a C.I.A. spokesman, declined any further comment.

In other words, the NYT knew about Davis’ work for the CIA (and Blackwater) but concealed it because the U.S. Government told it to. Now that The Guardian and other foreign papers reported it, the U.S. Government gave permission to the NYT to report this, so now that they have government license, they do so — only after it’s already been reported by other newspapers which don’t take orders from the U.S. Government.

It’s one thing for a newspaper to withhold information because they believe its disclosure would endanger lives. But here, the U.S. Government has spent weeks making public statements that were misleading in the extreme — Obama’s calling Davis “our diplomat in Pakistan” — while the NYT deliberately concealed facts undermining those government claims because government officials told them to do so. That’s called being an active enabler of government propaganda. While working for the CIA doesn’t preclude holding “diplomatic immunity,” it’s certainly relevant to the dispute between the two countries and the picture being painted by Obama officials. Moreover, since there is no declared war in Pakistan, this incident — as the NYT puts it today — “inadvertently pulled back the curtain on a web of covert American operations inside Pakistan, part of a secret war run by the C.I.A. ” That alone makes Davis’ work not just newsworthy, but crucial.

Worse still, the NYT has repeatedly disseminated U.S. Government claims — and even offered its own misleading descriptions –without bothering to include these highly relevant facts. See, for instance, its February 12 report (“The State Department has repeatedly said that he is protected by diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention and must be released immediately”); this February 8 article (referring to “the mystery about what Mr. Davis was doing with this inventory of gadgets”; noting “the Pakistani press, dwelling on the items in Mr. Davis’s possession and his various identity cards, has been filled with speculation about his specific duties, which American officials would not discuss”; and claiming: “Mr. Davis’s jobs have been loosely defined by American officials as ‘security’ or ‘technical,’ though his duties were known only to his immediate superiors”); andthis February 15 report (passing on the demands of Obama and Sen. John Kerry for Davis’ release as a “diplomat” without mentioning his CIA work). They’re inserting into their stories misleading government claims, and condescendingly summarizing Pakistani “speculation” about Davis’ work, all while knowing the truth but not reporting it.

Following the dictates of the U.S. Government for what they can and cannot publish is, of course, anything but new for the New York Times. In his lengthy recent article on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, NYTExecutive Editor Bill Keller tried to show how independent his newspaper is by boasting that they published their story of the Bush NSA program even though he has “vivid memories of sitting in the Oval Office as President George W. Bush tried to persuade [him] and the paper’s publisher to withhold the eavesdropping story”; Keller neglected to mention that the paper learned about the illegal program in mid-2004, but followed Bush’s orders to conceal it from the public for over a year — until after Bush was safely re-elected.

And recently in a BBC interview, Keller boasted that — unlike WikiLeaks — the Paper of Record had earned the praise of the U.S. Government for withholding materials which the Obama administration wanted withheld, causing Keller’s fellow guest — former British Ambassador to the U.N. Carne Ross — to exclaim: “It’s extraordinary that the New York Times is clearing what it says about this with the U.S. Government.” The BBC host could also barely hide his shock and contempt at Keller’s proud admission:

HOST (incredulously): Just to be clear, Bill Keller, are you saying that you sort of go to the Government in advance and say: “What about this, that and the other, is it all right to do this and all right to do that,” and you get clearance, then?

Obviously, that’s exactly what The New York Times does. Allowing the U.S. Government to run around affirmatively depicting Davis as some sort of Holbrooke-like “diplomat” — all while the paper uncritically prints those claims and yet conceals highly relevant information about Davis because the Obama administration told it to — would be humiliating for any outlet devoted to adversarial journalism to have to admit. But it will have no such effect on The New York Times. With some noble exceptions, loyally serving government dictates is, like so many American establishment media outlets, what they do; it’s their function: hence the name “establishment media.”

UPDATE: From a few people in comments (and via email), there are several objections/dissents to some of the arguments here. My responses to them are here.

UPDATE II: At his news conference last week, this is what President Obama said about the Davis situation:

With respect to Mr. Davis, our diplomat in Pakistan, we’ve got a very simple principle here that every country in the world that is party to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations has upheld in the past and should uphold in the future. And that is if — if our diplomats are in another country, then they are not subject to that country’s local prosecution.

This is how the New York Times characterized that statement: “Without describing Mr. Davis’s mission or intelligence affiliation, President Obama last week made a public plea for his release.”

It’s one thing for a newspaper to withhold information because it genuinely believes its publication will endanger lives (and I’d love to hear the explanation about why this would). But this situation goes far beyond that. The NYT was regularly printing government claims like the one above (“our diplomat in Pakistan”) which were at best misleading and likely false, and also including their own misleading claims in these stories (“the mystery about what Mr. Davis was doing with this inventory of gadgets”). But they had information in their possession — and concealed it — which undermined (if not entirely negated) the truth of these statements.

There’s a big difference between simply withholding information to protect lives and actively enabling and publishing misleading propaganda. More to the point, there is simply no justification — none — for a newspaper to allow government officials to run around misleading the public, and to print those misleading statements, all while concealing information (at the Government’s request) which reveal those claims to be factually dubious.

OUR DIPLOMAT IN PAKISTAN

By Ahsan Waheed
ZoneAsia-Pk“

Our diplomat in Pakistan’ was how President Obama described Raymond Davis now uncovered as a member of a covert CIA team operating under cover inside Pakistan. The disclosure came after his cover was blown by British media and a gag order on US media that was to have facilitated Davis’ extradition under diplomatic immunity was lifted because it no longer served any purpose.

The United States Department of State issues a Diplomatic Identity Card to all diplomats accredited to the US. This is what the card says front and back:

Read Complete Article Here: http://www.zoneasia-pk.com/ZoneAsia-Pk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3673:our-diplomat-in-pakistan&catid=70:free-talk&Itemid=84

Fauzia Wahab Angers Her In-laws By Defending American Mercenary

President Asif Zardari’s aide Fauzia Wahab, reviled in Pakistan for her blunt defense of an American spy who killed two Pakistanis in broad daylight, while his colleagues killed a third passerby and caused the young wife of one of the killed, in her mid twenties and married only for six months, to commit suicide.

• One of them didn’t like her coming out to defend killer-of-two Raymond Davis
• ‘Her Party Will Face Defeat In Next Elections If It Releases That Murderer’

Fauzia Wahab, a parliament member and aide to President Zardari, came out this week publicly defending Raymond Davis, an American hired-gun contracted by the US military or intelligence who spied in Pakistan under diplomatic disguise. Her pro-US government is desperate to release the spy under US pressure. But her in-laws are so disgusted with her, like most Pakistanis, that a 90-year-old relative of her late husband, Mr. Khaleel Siddiqi who resides in Canada, has publicly asked her to drop her former husband’s name. Mr. Siddiqi posted this comment, along with his full name, age, email address and telephone number, at PressPakistan, an Internet group of Pakistani journalists. PakNationalists.com reproduces this comment from the source without any major modifications.

President Asif Zardari’s aide Fauzia Wahab, reviled in Pakistan for her blunt defense of an American spy who killed two Pakistanis in broad daylight,
while his colleagues killed a third passerby and caused the young wife of one of the killed, in her mid twenties and married only for six months, to commit suicide.

KHALEEL Y. SIDDIQI | Case Of American Mercenary Raymond Davis
WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM

I AM ASHAMED TO DISCLOSE THAT FAUZIA WAS THE WIFE OF LATE WAHAB SIDDIQI, A NEPHEW OF MY LATE WIFE. WAHAB WAS A FAMOUS JOURNALIST IN KARACHI, PAKISTAN, WHO NEVER COMPROMISED WITH ANY NON-SENSE.

• WILL FAUZIA BE KIND ENOUGH TO REMOVE THE NAME OF “WAHAB” FROM HER NAME ?
• WILL SOME ONE MAKE HER AND PPP LEADERSHIP UNDERSTAND THAT AMERICA CAN NOT AFFORD TO DISPLEASE OR ANNOY PAKISTAN.

Pakistan can:

• BLOCK AND STOP ALL SUPPLIES GOING BY ROAD TO US & NATO ARMIES IN AFGHANISTAN;
• CANCELS ALL PERMISSIONS GIVEN TO US ARMY / INTELLIGENCE, TO OPERATE FROM FAKISTAN;
• HANDOVER GAWADER PORT TO CHINA THUS ENDING US CONTROL ON THE PERSIAN GULF AND ARAB OIL; AND
• [END] ARMY OPERATIONS AGAINST AL-QAEDA & TALIBAN FROM ITS NORTH-WESTERN BORDER.

US WILL FACE DEFEAT IN AFGHANISTAN, HER ECONOMY WILL COLLAPSE, HER REPUTATION AS A SUPERPOWER WILL BE [GONE].

CAN USA AFFORD IT FOR THE SAKE OF ONE OF ITS CIA AGENTS WHO HAS , IN FACT, KILLED TWO INNOCENT PAKISTANIS IN LAHORE?

PLEASE TELL FAUZIA THAT IF THAT MURDERER OF TWO PAKISTANIS IS RETURNED TO USA, PPP WILL NOT RETURN TO POWER IN THE NEXT ELECTIONS. IT IS THEREFORE AN IDEAL OPPORTUNITY FOR PPP TO REGAIN ITS LOSING POPULARITY AND PUNISH THAT SON-OF-A-BITCH ACCORDING TO PAKISTAN PENAL CODE.

” IN-NA A’LI-NA LUL HUDA” (AL-QURAN) “OUR RESPONSIBILITY IS TO SHOW YOU THE RIGHT PATH” .

Khaleel Y. Siddiqi
B.A., LL.B., D.S. & B.M.(LONDON, UK)
khaleel@rogers.com
Phone: 647-628-1933

Reproduced from the Google group PressPakistan.