Pakistan

Our Man in Pakistan - by Stephen Lendman

Raymond A. Davis, CIA agent, is one of many working covertly with assets infesting virtually all countries worldwide, especially ones vital to America's imperial agenda.

On February 21, New York Times writers Mark Mazzetti, Ashley Parket, Jane Perlez and Eric Schmitt headlined, "American Held in Pakistan Worked with CIA."

Correction - worked for the CIA, conducting intelligence covertly, spying on Pakistan for Washington, The Times saying:

On January 27, he was arrested and detained for shooting two men at a crowded Lahore traffic stop. Washington called it a botched robbery attempt. Pakistan charged him with murder and possession of a concealed, unlicensed gun. Davis said he acted in self-defense. Pakistani authorities knew otherwise when they learned he shot the men 10 times in the back, fled the scene, and was carrying a telescope, a GPS set, bolt cutters, a survival kit, and a long-range radio.

Spanish Court Allows Guantanamo Torture Investigation To Continue

Mar 2nd, 2011 - On Friday, the Spanish National Court (Audiencia Nacional) gave hope to those seeking to hold accountable the Bush administration officials and lawyers who authorized torture by agreeing to continue investigating allegations made by a Moroccan-born Spanish resident, Lahcen Ikassrien, that he was tortured at Guantánamo, where he was held from 2002 to 2005.

U.S. Support for War Crimes Investigation of Libya Hinged on Exemption for Americans

March 2, 2011 - In an effort to hold Libya accountable [1] for its violent crackdown on protesters, the U.S. and other members of the United Nations Security Council voted in favor of a resolution [2] asking the International Criminal Court to investigate whether the Libyan government has committed crimes against humanity. The ICC announced today [3]that an investigation was found to be warranted and would proceed.

As the Associated Press has noted, it’s the first time that the U.S. has voted in favor of the war crimes court but in keeping with its longtime fear of being prosecuted by the ICC, the U.S also included in the resolution a carve-out [4] for itself. The AP reports that the provision was a "deal breaker" for the U.S.:

At the Movies: A Veteran’s War

March 1, 2011 - It was a long way from a machinegun mount in a military convoy in Baghdad. Robynn Murray’s getup was very elegant on Sunday at the Academy Awards in Beverly Hills, California. What made her stand out from the famous movie stars at Hollywood’s gala event was the brace of tattooed pistols perched on her chest atop a stunning black and gray dress.

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.

NEW ORG WEBSITE LAUNCHED ON CASUALTY RECORDING

At a time when the issue of civilian casualties in Libya has been dominating the international agenda, our Recording Casualties of Armed Conflict programme has launched Every Casualty.org, a website aiming to raise the profile of casualty recording worldwide and the organisations that undertake it. The site is a one-stop shop for information on casualties of conflict worldwide. It engages 22 of the organisations that record them in the International Practitioner Network convened by ORG.

By John Grant
 
It’s considered unsportsmanlike to say, “We told you so.” But since all’s fair in love and war and we’re definitely at war, it’s fair to say the peace movement has been right about the whole sordid reality of US war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That may sound audacious or ridiculous to some, especially to those knee-jerks who love to ridicule the antiwar movement while knowing nothing about what it really stands for.

It’s important to note, here, that the peace/antiwar movement doesn’t have quite as extensive a public relations and propaganda program as that employed by the military and its supporters in the federal government and the mainstream media.

For instance, the peace movement doesn’t have well-funded, highly-trained Psy-Ops Teams such asRolling Stone has shown the military has. So no one is able to brainwash US congress members intocutting the military budget and de-funding the wars.

Hicks lawyer acts for Habib

February 27, 2011 - THE former lawyer for convicted terrorism supporter David Hicks is now acting for Sydney man Mamdouh Habib in his quest to sue the US over his CIA-engineered rendition and torture in Egypt.

Stephen Kenny told The Sun-Herald he had already held talks with American lawyers about the best way to proceed with the action in the US courts. ''We need to keep pursuing these matters, otherwise in the future others could be at risk of it happening to them,'' he said.

Sen. James Webb, D-Virginia, helped establish the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among other things, a new report proposes that the government restrict reliance on contractors.

February 25, 2011 - A new report blasts the U.S. government for wasting tens of billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan by relying too much on contractors and doing too little to monitor their performance.

The interim report from the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan points out that contractors in the war zones sometimes have exceeded the number of military personnel. Numbering 200,000, contractors now roughly match the military force.

This week on War News Radio, we hear about the Boeing company and its defense contracts.

Then, we look at coverage of the recent Veterans rape scandal.

Finally, we talk with author and professor Richard Sobel about changing public opinion regarding the U.S.’ involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But first, a round up of this week's news.

 

By Dave Lindorff

Pakistani and Indian newspapers are reporting that Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor in jail in Lahore facing murder charges for the execution-slayings of two young men believed to by Pakistani intelligence operatives, was actually involved in organizing terrorist activities in Pakistan.

As the Express Tribune, an English-language daily that is linked to the International Herald Tribune,reported on Feb. 22:

“The Lahore killings were a blessing in disguise for our security agencies who suspected that Davis was masterminding terrorist activities in Lahore and other parts of Punjab,” a senior official in the Punjab Police claimed.

22 February 2011 - For Fiscal Year (FY) 2012, which begins on October 1, 2011, the Obama Administration has requested a base budget of $553 billion for the Department of Defense (DOD). This is $13 billion below the Pentagon’s Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) estimate, released last year, but represents about 3 percent in real growth over the funding the department would receive for FY 2011 under the current continuing resolution, which expires on March 4. {continued}

By Kevin Zeese

President Obama and the Congress have taken 66% of discretionary spending in the federal budget off the table – the Security Budget – while proposing a freeze to the rest of the budget and deep cuts to some programs that provide necessities for the American people. His budget crystalizes a choice that U.S. presidents have been making since President Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex – investment in the military vs. investment in the civilian economy.

The bloated and sacrosanct security budget – the military, domestic security and intelligence budgets –all saw rapid growth under President Bush when the DoD doubled its budget. Under President Obama the trend has continued with record military, intelligence and domestic security budgets.

JAPAN AND THE IRAQ WAR/ Koizumi went ahead without consulting his Cabinet team

2011/02/21 - In August 2010, President Barack Obama declared an end to the U.S. military's seven-year combat operations in Iraq.

Nevertheless, the country's security situation remains as unstable as ever.

The Iraq War was supposedly fought for two main reasons: weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and connections with international terrorist organizations.

Even though neither of these situations actually existed, more than 100,000 Iraqis have reportedly lost their lives in the conflict.

By Dave Lindorff

A report today in the British Guardian newspaper is confirming that Raymond Davis, the man jailed in Lahore, Pakistan charged with murdering two young Pakistanis who were almost certainly themselves working for Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), is an employee of the CIA. The paper says that based upon its reporters' interviews with both Pakistani and US sources, it is "confirming" that Davis is a CIA spy.

The paper adds that Davis's wife provided information numbers for him to a local TV station and those numbers turned out to be the CIA. Meanwhile, Agence France Press reports 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", saying, "We can't throw this agent over."

Shaukat Qadir

Islamabad--By now journalists everywhere (except in the US) have come to the conclusion that there is far, far more to Raymond Davis than is being revealed by the US or by Pakistani officials. That he was engaged in anti-state activities in Pakistan and that the two young men he killed were intelligence agents tailing him is virtually an accepted fact.

The US, never famous for its diplomacy (The Ugly American, which made that point more than half a century ago, became a best seller and a very successful movie, starring Marlon Brando), seems to have discovered fresh depths to its strong-arm, coercive diplomacy. The mere fact that no less a personage than the US President has asked that this low-ranked person be granted absolute immunity, is indicative of the US desperation to get him him out of Pakistan and its court system.

<------- Remember these? They were a big joke and joy for a group still calling themselves republicans and happened as the Country were sending Military Troops into war once again, wars that still continue, and never a real apology for their joke. I'll bet some of them still have some handy to be used and laughed about when their need arises to do so as they wave the flag and condemn others who don't agree with them. Oh and while they seem to get joy about Soldiers being wounded in our wars and awarded the "Purple Heart" these were pointed directly at a brother In-Country Vietnam Navy Veteran, my tour there, as a Navy GunnersMate 3rd, was my last year of my four '70-'71.

By Dave Lindorff

President Obama, before he was a President or a Senator, was a constitutional law professor. He should know the law.

And yet in the increasingly dangerous show-down over Pakistan’s arrest and detention of Lahore consular contract “security official” Raymond Davis, who is charged with two counts of murder for the shooting deaths of two young Pakistanis on January 27, the president has grossly misstated what international law is with respect to the immunity from prosecution of diplomatic and consular officials.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has chosen a new special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan: a long-time controversial neocon, a man who has been famous for parading as a foreign agent in the lobby circuit, the scandalous former diplomat Marc Grossman. The not-so-gradual resurrection of the old neocon cabal under the Obama administration, led by Hillary Clinton, should not come as a surprise. According to Washington insiders, Daniel Perle and Douglas Feith have been consulted more than a few times in their ‘unofficial’ capacity, but are not far down in the queue to receive ‘official’ acknowledgement. This shouldn’t come as a surprise; at least to those who’ve been following the steady momentum building at the Obama White House towards a soon-to-come Neocon Easter.

READ THE REST AT BOILING FROGS POST

By Yasmeen Ali

Lahore, Pakistan--You cannot open the TV, or read a paper here without more and more news about Raymond Davis and his murderous act. His killing on Jan. 27 of two young Pakistanis has created international waves, too, plunging the Pakistan-America relationship into stormy waters.

A great deal has been written about the case: Raymond Davis’s employment status, whether he is a diplomat or not, who his victims were and what led to their demise at his hands, and finally whether or not Davis can be detained and ultimately tried under the Pakistani Law.

Interestingly though, nobody in the media has made a study of the Vienna Diplomatic Coventions that discuss diplomatic immunity. The convention of 1961 gets cited routinely by the American government, which claims it grants all diplomatic workers immunity from prosecution.

But that claim overstates the case. The actual document -- never actually quoted -- is more nuanced.

ACLU in Court Monday in South Carolina to Hold Former Officials Accountable for Torture of Jose Padilla

Group Takes on Case Against Rumsfeld and Others Seeking Accountability for Unlawful Detention and Abuse of U.S. Citizen

February 10 - The American Civil Liberties Union will be in federal court in Charleston Monday at 10:00 a.m. EST to argue that a lawsuit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other government officials for their role in the unlawful detention and torture of a U.S. citizen should not be thrown out. The ACLU was recently retained to represent Jose Padilla and his mother in the lawsuit.

This aired yesterday, 11 February 2011, morning prior to the results later in the day, night there, of the total collapse of the Mubarak reign of rule, but is pretty much spot on about us and especially that whole region of the planet and it's free people under autocratic rule supported by us.

"The great danger to the administration right now is that they might end up losing influence on both sides. They might lose influence with the autocrats we've been supporting for so long, but they might also lose influence with the protesters and the forces for democracy in freedom."

- Amjad Atallah, New America Foundation

While I respect Senator Murray and was happy she was picked to take over from Senator Akaka on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee her attack is another disconnect in what Agencies can do with what Congress, the peoples representatives, gives them as I wrote a short note to her yesterday. The Veterans Admin. has been underfunded, and in many times politically run, since Korea as they moved funds from the Korean Vets to our brother 'Nam Vets and ignored what we were even telling the Country, i.e. PTSD, Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome and more. The Country hasn't wanted to fund the results of their wars and Congress follows that bid especially the tax cutters of which just recently they extended the 'Non Sacrifice', especially for the wealthy many making wealth off these wars and readily pony up big campaign contributions, cuts now over the whole decade of these two conflicts.

By Dave Lindorff

The mystery surrounding Raymond A. Davis, the American former Special Forces operative jailed in Lahore, Pakistan for the murder of two young motorcyclists, and his funky “security” company, Hyperion-Protective Consultants LLC, in the US continues to grow.

When Davis was arrested in the immediate aftermath of the double slaying in a busy business section of Lahore, after he had fatally shot two men in the back, claiming that he feared they might be threatening to rob him, police found business cards on him for a security company called Hyperion-Protective Consultants LLC, which listed as its address 5100 North Lane, Orlando, Florida.

A website for the company gave the same address, and listed the manager as a Gerald Richardson.

By Dave Lindorff

The mystery of American Raymond A. Davis, currently imprisoned in the custody of local police in Lahore, Pakistan and charged with the Jan. 27 murder of two young men, whom he allegedly shot eight times with uncanny accuracy through his car windshield, is growing increasingly murky. Also growing is the anger among Pakistanis that the US is trying to spring him from a Punjab jail by claiming diplomatic immunity.

Davis (whose identity was first denied and later confirmed by the US Embassy in Islamabad), and the embassy have claimed that he was hired as an employee of a US security company called Hyperion Protective Consultants, LLC, which was said to be located at 5100 North Lane in Orlando, Florida. Business cards for Hyperion were found on Davis by arresting officers.

However Counterpunch Magazine has investigated and discovered the following information:

Synopsis

On February 7, 2011, the ninth anniversary of the day former president George W. Bush decided the Geneva Conventions did not apply to so-called “unlawful combatants,” CCR released a Bush Torture Indictment. The Indictment provides a strong factual and legal basis to hold Bush accountable--in any of the 147 countries which have ratified the Convention Against Torture (CAT)--for having authorized torture . Learn about it, tell others, and help us build pressure to secure accountability for torture by top U.S. officials.

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Japan parliament calls for Iraq war inquiry

Feb 4, 2011 - The war on Iraq is still raging in this building, but in a far different manner than it did in Iraqi towns and cities. Some one hundred members of parliament are demanding that the government investigate Japan's support of the war.

They are not happy about the lukewarm reaction to their request and they feel the Japanese people deserve more.
Japan, in 2004 under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, supported the war on Iraq and pledged 5 billion dollars for what it called the reconstruction of the country.

This is born out in the testimony of the Brit Iraq War Inquiry especially in the early testimony!

I used the following, and there were other references, in a post during the early phase of the Inquiry, day nine to be exact: