Remember that post I wrote about Raymond A. Davis last weekend? As sardonically summarized by F.B. Ali at the Sic Semper Tyrannis blog:
The facts of the incident that sparked all this are now fairly clear. Davis, in a rental car, was driving around in Lahore in areas where foreigners scarcely ever venture, tailed by two ISI auxiliaries on a motorbike. After an hour or more of trying to shake them off, they both came abreast at a stoplight. He pulled out a gun and, firing through his windscreen, shot them both. Accounts differ as to whether they made any threatening gesture, but one was killed as he was trying to run away.
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The backup van that Davis called for came roaring up the wrong way on a one-way street, ran over a cyclist, killing him, then turned around and roared off. Davis was arrested, and weapons, ammo and other paraphernalia were found in the car. On his cell phone were numbers that were later traced to phones in the tribal belt where the Taliban operate, while his camera had pictures of religious schools and military sites…
Hat tip to commentor Gen. Stuck for a link to the Guardian‘s latest update:
American who sparked diplomatic crisis over Lahore shooting was CIA spy
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… Based on interviews in the US and Pakistan, the Guardian can confirm that the 36-year-old former special forces soldier is employed by the CIA. “It’s beyond a shadow of a doubt,” said a senior Pakistani intelligence official. The revelation may complicate American efforts to free Davis, who insists he was acting in self-defence against a pair of suspected robbers, who were both carrying guns.
Poor old John Kerry, described as Obama’s “chief diplomatic troubleshooter”, got sent to Islamabad to fetch “our diplomat” Davis home. That didn’t work, although the Guardian suggests elsewhere that three embassy employees (the ones who failed to rescue Davis but did succeed in running over an innocent cyclist) were spirited back to the US on Kerry’s plane. The government of Pakistan, fearful of “Egyptian-style protests”, has announced that it needs until March 14 to decide whether David is entitled to diplomatic immunity.
Washington’s case is hobbled by its resounding silence on Davis’s role. He served in the US special forces for 10 years before leaving in 2003 to become a security contractor. A senior Pakistani official said he believed Davis had worked with Xe, the firm formerly known as Blackwater. […] __
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. A Colorado television station, 9NEWS, made a connection after speaking to Davis’s wife. She referred its inquiries to a number in Washington which turned out to be the CIA. The station removed the CIA reference from its website at the request of the US government. […] __
A senior ISI official denied the dead men worked for the spy agency but admitted the CIA relationship had been damaged. “We are a sovereign country and if they want to work with us, they need to develop a trusting relationship on the basis of equality. Being arrogant and demanding is not the way to do it,” he said.
Complete recap of the story to date, replete with cinematic detail, at the Guardian “Special Report: A CIA spy, a hail of bullets, three killed and a US-Pakistan diplomatic row“.
… Press coverage zings with unlikely stories about Davis – that he howls in his prison cells when the five-times daily call to prayer rings out; that the CIA plans a “Hollywood-style heist” to spring him; that he is the linchpin of the CIA’s drone programme.
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One popular suggestion has it that Davis should be swapped for Aafia Siddiqui, the US-educated neuroscientist jailed for 86 years in 2010 on charges of attempting to kill American soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan.
(Thanks to commentors Par4 and Sharl for the original SST link.) Of course, anything that involves the wounded dignity of a religiously divided and economically struggling nation-state with access to a nuclear arsenal has to be taken seriously… and then there’s Pakistan’s national pride, as well. But I’m still seeing Mr. Davis as less Matt Damon/Jason Bourne and more Will Ferrell…
Yutsano
This story just gets stranger and stranger the more I read about it. One of the issues is the Pakistani penchant for stretching the truth. After all, they have it sold to their people that India will invade and conquer them any day now so they need a strong military and suspension of human rights. I get the feeling we may never know the exact truth here, although CIA working out of our embassies is not all that unusual.
Villago Delenda Est
What.a.mess.
This entire situation could have been avoided by, oh, I don’t know, not getting ourselves enmeshed in the Afghan tarbaby in the first place?
Of course, Embassies are, traditionally, intelligence gathering operations. That’s really their prime purpose…diplomacy being a close second.
Sharl
The incident might have offered promising source material for a modern day Cold War comedy, except for, y’know, the corpses.
Martin
Yay! We’re helping!
scav
I’m getting hints of Jeff Redfern’s Red Rascal fantasy to the whole thing as well.
Boop
Pakistan ≠ South America
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think we were going to get sucked in at some point any way, seeing that the Taliban is less a fundamentally religious trans-Afghan political political party than it is a Pashtun nationalist movement that straddles the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, far too close to Pakistani nukes, India and China. If ever there was a likely flashpoint that might trigger the end of the world as we know it, it’s there.
Villago Delenda Est
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
You’re probably right. The reason to stay involved is the nukes that could fall into the wrong hands…non-state actors who are, by the bye, religious fanatics who think they’re doing “God’s will” by lobbing or detonating some nukes.
And that’s just in our Air Force, mind you.
WarMunchkin
So, uh, to clarify matters, our guys murdered some guys for no real reason, and Pakistan wants to press charges? In, like, a courtroom? What barbarians.
Gosh, you would have thought a country captured an American citizen as an enemy combatant for no reason, tortured him and indefinitely detained him without a trial for a period of ten years or something.
Pooh
We have no good options here – we really can’t hang our guy out to dry. But at the same time whatafuckingmess.
Bennie
meanwhile Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal has increased from like 70 to 110 nukes with the help of China, but they can’t feed or educate their own citizens….
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@WarMunchkin:
That’s the question, isn’t it? What’s the reason? Magic 8-Ball says, “Reply hazy, try again.”
Smells like dude was paranoid and went all quick-draw. Doesn’t justify it, but doesn’t exactly make it a CIA assassination plot, either.
Amir_Khalid
Blackwater again. Like the song says, everywhere you look it’s Murder Incorporated.
At the very least, this man Davis is trigger-happy. The bit about him defending against an attempted robbery still seems to hold up, but there’s no way to claim he used a proportionate level of force. And this whole business is caught up in the profoundly dysfunctional relationship between the US and Pakistan,
Justice would be served if Davis were to be tried and convicted, in Pakistan, of manslaughter. But I get that however badly-judged Davis’ action was, the US cannot afford, for the sake of other diplomatic staff, to set a precedent by waiving his immunity.
Short of that, the Guardian suggests that Pakistan expel Davis and the US compensate the dead men’s families. That seems to me the least-bad way out of this mess.
Hart Williams
Dammit, when are you people going to “get” it?
Those North Vietnamese patrol boats were just about to *sink* our destroyers, and then our aircraft carriers would have been defenseless. From there, it was only a boat ride to the West Coast!
When you’ve got troops in 170 of the 193 countries on Earth, what’s a couple of kids on bikes compared to the Über-Empire? I get so tired of this liberal twaddle about human rights and dignity.
Amir_Khalid
@Hart Williams: You’re snarking, right?
WarMunchkin
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): It’s almost like you’re suggesting an investigation be carried out.
Silentbob
Moderator.
Please delete my other comment.
*
American penchant for stretching the truth:
“The question should be put to the CIA and the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) as to why this wasn’t known before the false information was put into (a key intelligence estimate) sent to Congress, the president’s State of the Union address and my February 5 presentation to the U.N.” – Colin Powell.
El Cid
The Pakistani daily Dawn has an interesting related (presumably) story:
El Cid
Remember that the US is supporting Davis’ claim that he shot at attackers during a robbery attempt.
From the State Department’s press briefing Q & A last week with Acting Deputy Department Spokesperson Mark Toner:
Hart Williams
@amir
Yes. I’m snarking.
I realize, in retrospect, that writing what I thought was so obviously idiotic that no functional human being could possibly be that dumb would be obvious reductio ad absurdum, but then I remembered Breitbart and Malkin.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hart Williams:
There’s that darn Poe’s Law rearing its ugly head, again…
Hart Williams
@Villago Too true.
Well, at least nobody’s broken Godwin’s Law. Yet.
(But the night is young, and so is Carl.)
Arclite
@Amir_Khalid:
This seems to be the most likely scenario.
Here’s how I see it: Davis is tailed by a couple of guys on motorbike. He is thinking Al Qaeda, Daniel Pearl. The bike pulls up and he sees the gun so he strikes first. The article show the prosecutors having doubts:
Okay, first, you shoot 10 times, b/c you shoot to kill. This is what you are trained as a soldier or police officer to do. Not doing so puts you at risk for return fire, either b/c the suspect is missed or not fully incapacitated. Second, it’s irrelevant that the gun was not cocked. You’re being pursued by two guys on a motorcycle in Pakistan and one of the guys has a gun. You use the force that is necessary to protect yourself. Should he have been running around spying in Lahore in the first place? Should he have been carrying an illegal gun? No, probably not, but I find the prosectution’s pauses unconvincing.
Arclite
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!
Why is it when you have a carriage return in the blockquote that WP will end the blockquote prematurely??!? I’ve been seeing this bug for years, how is it possible that so obvious a bug has not been fixed yet?
Hypnos
Seven killed in Pakistan by US drone attack.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/21/us-drone-strike-pakistan
Going all in guys?
Are your operatives trained by Hollywood stunt actors? Can’t you get some ex-KGB guy to tell you how spying is supposed to be done? I guess they’re all working for BP now.
(spoken in jest. I know sane Americans actually feel as bad as the rest of the world about this shit)
bkny
you’d think the cia wouldn’t outsource a very dangerous job in one of the most hostile areas to westerners (esp american booyah boyz). i mean, look at that guy. is there anyone who wouldn’t mistake him for exactly what he was. what happened to the keep a low profile/blend in way of doing business.
Calouste
“American who sparked diplomatic crisis over Lahore shooting was CIA spy.”
A former of the special forces connected to an American embassy works for the CIA? No shit Sherlock, next thing you telling me the Pope is a Catholic.
And because the CIA is involved, I don’t believe a single word of the American side of the story, including ‘a’ and ‘the’.
cleek
@Arclite:
just FYI, it’s not WP per se. it’s something about BJ’s comment auto-formatting stuff. it closes the blockquote tag at the first blank line.
Ramiah Ariya
@Arclite – what you are saying MAY apply if Davis was an innocent journalist. If you are a CIA spy, who has worked with Blackwater, two guys trailing you in a bike must be standard procedure.
Reacting this way happened, it is clear, because Mr.Davis tried to use his diplomatic immunity and show his contempt for the natives That is certainly how it strikes me – after all, civilian deaths in Pakistan ARE frequently caused by the United States.
It seems to be a case of brown lives being cheap, knowing recent history
John
Dude’s neither a soldier nor a police officer. He’s a “consulate official” driving around in a foreign country. Do you really think that such people should be entitled to behave as though they’re soldiers in combat?
Jack Bauer
No need to worry, this guy will be home soon enough, either bought or traded out of Pakistani custody. Even if he really fucked up (more than the obvious killings and getting caught).
It could have been a robbery, could have been local security services, and could have been terrorists. We’ll never know.
Jack Bauer
@John:
That’s exactly what they are though. This guy especially. To describe Pakistan as the front line in the Great War On Terror, is no exaggeration. I don’t support it but there we are.
Ramiah Ariya
I don’t remember the United States applying such stringent principles of “diplomatic immunity” when the 5 Iranian diplomats were arrested in Iraq and held incommunicado. No charges were ever filed. I think they are still there in some American hellhole in Iraq.
Jack Bauer
@Ramiah Ariya:
Surely they were just hikers, young kids who went too far off the beaten path, who are most definitely NOT SPIES. Oh no, that was us.
Ramiah Ariya
@Jack Bauer – First of all, Pakistan may be a front line of some random American war at any time; but it is still a functioning country. There is a tendency in America to see Pakistan as some kind of dysfunctional society – but this is not exactly the case everywhere, and not certainly in Lahore or Karachi or Islamabad. It serves American purposes to show that country as already in chaos, so that they can justify the drone attacks and random killings.
Drawing a frontline as far away from the American (creepy term) “homeland” and depicting potential “frontlines” as populated by chaotic barbarians is in America’s interest.
I hope they file charges on this Davis guy, and convict him.
Ramiah Ariya
@Jack Bauer – all that I am saying is that the Americans were not honoring diplomatic immunity at that time – irrespective of whether the diplomats were spies or anything.. By the way, those diplomats did not shoot random people in the streets and get caught. As I noted, there were no charges – while Pakistan is actually charging the killer in court. The “frontline” in the Global War on Terror certainly seems more civilized.
Svensker
@Hypnos:
Where’d you find them? Please send them home, they’re needed here.
Jack Bauer
@Ramiah Ariya: I don’t really disagree with you or your sentiments.
It is what it is though. Those Iranians in Iraq? Very likely not diplomats, whatever their claim.
I’m not trying to justify any of it, only offering my perspective on what’s happening.
Svensker
@bkny:
A friend worked for the US embassy in Saudi in the 80s. He said you could always tell the CIA guys because they all drove matching black Fords and they all answered their supposed embassy phone with a number, as in “five six four nine!” while everyone else answered with “supply department” or “administrative desk” or whatever.
They’ve always been clowns.
Svensker
@Ramiah Ariya:
You act as though anything matters except Americans and American will. Don’t be silly.
Viva BrisVegas
The US State Department changed the status of Davis from consular to diplomatic as soon as they realised that consular status offers far less protection than diplomatic status. And that was despite Davis’ own claims to consular status.
So I think it’s pretty safe to say that the US is quite willing to trash diplomatic immunity for the sake of this guy.
He must know something very interesting.
But if the Pakistani authorities get up enough courage to actually ask if Davis is actually Davis, things will likely get even more exciting.
The widow of one of the dead men committed suicide. So far that makes four dead civilians on Davis’ account.
Graham Greene must be really be pissed off about being dead right now and missing material like this. Nobody since has been able to capture the tragic absurdity of half baked clowns like Davis.
Pococurante
I consider the fact Pakistanis are willing to bargain for a terrorist that targeted Americans lends credence to Davis’ story.
On the Pak street this has been represented from day one as “innocent” motorcyclists about to fill two gas cans. Assassins on motorcycles are a pretty common fact of life in the middle east.
I’m not particularly interested in whether or not he’s a diplomat – regardless it comes across as self-defense.
Ramiah Ariya
@Pococurante – Pakistan is not in the middle east.
Which country in the actual middle east has assassins in motorcycles?
I dont understand how the Pakistani government’s negotiation for a trade points to Davis’ innocence. It is in the US interests that Davis not go to trial.
Pococurante
@Ramiah Ariya: Wikipedia disagrees with your definition of Middle East. Consider applying as an editor to change it.
Your question is answered by google.
Your last two sentences don’t correlate.
burnspbesq
@Villago Delenda Est:
A bit late for that. Got any constructive suggestions? Or are you only interested in being smug and sanctimonious?
Stefan
This story just gets stranger and stranger the more I read about it. One of the issues is the Pakistani penchant for stretching the truth.
Well, thank god there’s no American penchant for stretching the tru…oh. Aha. Never mind.
Bill Murray
@burnspbesq: really Villago, getting smug and sanctimonious is burnspbesq’s patented schtick. He’ll sue you for infringement if you aren’t careful.
Rpx
The modern conception of America’s role abroad is for our local partners to be completely flexible and understanding when one of our mercenaries mistakenly shoots a few of their citizens. Though to be fair to the Pakistanis, they’re probably asking what the point is of employing mercenaries to do our dirty work if we can’t hang them out to dry now and then?
Stefan
That’s exactly what they are though. This guy especially. To describe Pakistan as the front line in the Great War On Terror, is no exaggeration. I don’t support it but there we are.
If that’s the case, then he’s not a diplomat, he doesn’t get diplomatic immunity, and he goes on trial in Pakistan for murder, where he’s welcome to advance the theory that he’s a highly trained killing machine operating on a hair trigger in his defense.
Stefan
On the Pak street this has been represented from day one as “innocent” motorcyclists about to fill two gas cans. Assassins on motorcycles are a pretty common fact of life in the middle east.
Pakistan is not in the Middle East.
Stefan
Wikipedia disagrees with your definition of Middle East. Consider applying as an editor to change it.
No, Wikipedia omits Pakistan from the definition of Middle East. Consider brushing up on your reading comprehension.
Arclite
It’s irrelevant if Pakistan is in the middle east or not. Drive-by shootings on motorcycle happen right here in the USA. These two motorcycle guys targeted him. They approached him. He reacted. How differently should he have reacted? What should have he done differently? Let them approach and get the draw? Pull his weapon, but not fire? That he shot through the glass indicates he felt immediately threatened. And windshield glass can deflect bullets, especially low velocity pistol rounds. It’s not surprising that he shot 5 times.
Should he have even been there? No. Should he have been carrying a gun? No. If such an event happened here in the USA, a good lawyer could beat the murder rap. They guy would probably only be convicted of illegal possession of a handgun. Now the driver that ran over the cyclist should be
charged with manslaughter, and would probably be convicted.
Stefan
If such an event happened here in the USA, a good lawyer could beat the murder rap.
Speaking as an attorney, that’s unlikely. But that’s anyway irrelevant, because it did not happen here in the USA, it happened in Pakistan, and therefore Davis is subject to Pakistani law and has to answer for his actions in a Pakistani court — just as would happen in the reverse if a Pakistani spy shot two men to death on the streets of New York.
As you mention, he may have defenses which he can raise in a courtoom — but none of those defenses excuse him from getting arrested, charged, and tried in Pakistan.
Ruckus
@Stefan:
Just to throw a little gas on the fire there is a wiki entry which does include Pakistan in the greater middle east.
It is of course a made up term by Bush the moron to include countries outside of the traditional middle east. I’m pretty sure this was done because if IRC bush couldn’t find his ass with both hands, let alone a country on a map.