sharingwisdom
02-22-2011, 10:50 AM
https://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/473
excerpt
So desperate has been the US effort to get the US government killer Raymond Davis sprung from police custody in Lahore, Pakistan following his execution-style slaughter of two Pakistani intelligence operatives in broad daylight in a crowded commercial area, that the government trotted out President Obama to declare that Pakistan was violating the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations by holding "our diplomat." He insisted Davis had only been defending himself against robbers, and should in any case be entitled to absolute immunity.
Now both the Guardian newspaper (https://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/20/us-raymond-davis-lahore-cia?CMP=twt_gu) in the UK over the weekend, and the Associated Press (https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110221/ap_on_re_us/us_pakistain_detained_american) today are reporting that sources in both the Pakistani and American governments are confirming that Davis works for the CIA. The AP is even reporting that he is a "CIA security contractor," which is something less and a little more amorphous than a CIA employee, and that means he has no claim on diplomatic immunity whatever, and that raises the added question of who he actually is and who he actually works for. But more on that later.
The Guardian noted in its article that Davis's wife had provided phone numbers for information about him to a local TV station and that those numbers turned out to be the CIA. Meanwhile, Agence France Press reported over the weekend that Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), a loose-tongued member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also apparently inadvertently slipped up and disclosed on the Senate floor that Davis is an "agent" (https://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/02/18/lindsey-graham-calls-raymond-davis-an-agent/), saying, "We can't throw this agent over."
America's and the President's reputations lie in tatters as a result of the handling of this bloody incident. Not only did the US dispatch to Islamabad members of Congress, including the oleaginous Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), as well as the reprehensible Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to press for Davis's release, threatening the withholding of aid to Pakistan (our ostensible ally in the Afghanistan War!). It provided a patently false document to the Pakistani Foreign Office claiming Davis to be an employee of the US Embassy in Islamabad (which would have meant he'd have immunity from arrest and detention), when he was actually working out of the Lahore Consulate, where he would not be entitled to any immunity for his actions). It also tried to exchange his regular passport for a diplomatic one a day after his arrest, again retroactively trying to get him immunity from prosecution for his murderous acts.
Furthermore, the US government, according to the Guardian, induced major US news organizations to hide what they knew about Davis's real role from the American public. The paper reported that several US news organizations had also learned on their own that Davis is a spy, but then voluntarily withhheld the information from the American public "at the request of the Obama administration," which preferred to stick to the fictional story line that Pakistan is holding an American "diplomat" in "violation of the Vienna Convention" on diplomatic immunity. In fact, on Feb. 15, when the president lectured Pakistan about releasing "our diplomat"....
Our online newspaper has, over the last three weeks, exposed the fact that the company that Davis claimed to work for in the US, Hyperion Protective Services, LLC, of Orlando Florida, was a fraud (https://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/442)--the address on the business cards that Davis was carrying when arrested we traced to a vacant storefront in a run-down and nearly empty strip mall in Orlando.
Adding to the suspicion that Davis is involved in something more than just spy work or intelligence gathering is the report in today's NY Times that he "has worked for years as a C.I.A. contractor, including time at Blackwater Worldwide, the private security firm (now called Xe)." It's easy why the American government has been trying so hard to keep their Pakistani police and prosecutors from applying the thumbscrew and waterboard to this particular prisoner!
excerpt
So desperate has been the US effort to get the US government killer Raymond Davis sprung from police custody in Lahore, Pakistan following his execution-style slaughter of two Pakistani intelligence operatives in broad daylight in a crowded commercial area, that the government trotted out President Obama to declare that Pakistan was violating the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations by holding "our diplomat." He insisted Davis had only been defending himself against robbers, and should in any case be entitled to absolute immunity.
Now both the Guardian newspaper (https://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/20/us-raymond-davis-lahore-cia?CMP=twt_gu) in the UK over the weekend, and the Associated Press (https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110221/ap_on_re_us/us_pakistain_detained_american) today are reporting that sources in both the Pakistani and American governments are confirming that Davis works for the CIA. The AP is even reporting that he is a "CIA security contractor," which is something less and a little more amorphous than a CIA employee, and that means he has no claim on diplomatic immunity whatever, and that raises the added question of who he actually is and who he actually works for. But more on that later.
The Guardian noted in its article that Davis's wife had provided phone numbers for information about him to a local TV station and that those numbers turned out to be the CIA. Meanwhile, Agence France Press reported over the weekend that Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), a loose-tongued member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also apparently inadvertently slipped up and disclosed on the Senate floor that Davis is an "agent" (https://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/02/18/lindsey-graham-calls-raymond-davis-an-agent/), saying, "We can't throw this agent over."
America's and the President's reputations lie in tatters as a result of the handling of this bloody incident. Not only did the US dispatch to Islamabad members of Congress, including the oleaginous Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), as well as the reprehensible Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to press for Davis's release, threatening the withholding of aid to Pakistan (our ostensible ally in the Afghanistan War!). It provided a patently false document to the Pakistani Foreign Office claiming Davis to be an employee of the US Embassy in Islamabad (which would have meant he'd have immunity from arrest and detention), when he was actually working out of the Lahore Consulate, where he would not be entitled to any immunity for his actions). It also tried to exchange his regular passport for a diplomatic one a day after his arrest, again retroactively trying to get him immunity from prosecution for his murderous acts.
Furthermore, the US government, according to the Guardian, induced major US news organizations to hide what they knew about Davis's real role from the American public. The paper reported that several US news organizations had also learned on their own that Davis is a spy, but then voluntarily withhheld the information from the American public "at the request of the Obama administration," which preferred to stick to the fictional story line that Pakistan is holding an American "diplomat" in "violation of the Vienna Convention" on diplomatic immunity. In fact, on Feb. 15, when the president lectured Pakistan about releasing "our diplomat"....
Our online newspaper has, over the last three weeks, exposed the fact that the company that Davis claimed to work for in the US, Hyperion Protective Services, LLC, of Orlando Florida, was a fraud (https://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/442)--the address on the business cards that Davis was carrying when arrested we traced to a vacant storefront in a run-down and nearly empty strip mall in Orlando.
Adding to the suspicion that Davis is involved in something more than just spy work or intelligence gathering is the report in today's NY Times that he "has worked for years as a C.I.A. contractor, including time at Blackwater Worldwide, the private security firm (now called Xe)." It's easy why the American government has been trying so hard to keep their Pakistani police and prosecutors from applying the thumbscrew and waterboard to this particular prisoner!