Raymond Davis

[omarali50]

I am surprised at the lack of comment about Raymond on this blog. It probably reflects admirable self-discipline, but given the fact that everybody and his aunt is commenting on the Pakistani internet, this reticence is not doing really critical to "avoiding muddying the waters in a tough situation"...
just wondering.

[Ken White]

No one knows enough to comment intelligently and the stories out there offer a number of conflicts. Said conflicts lead to a "who is he and what was he doing" speculation which probably wouldn't be beneficial to him, Pakistan or the US. He's not overtly related to a small war.

[carl]

Omar:

I have some questions. What is the general gist of the comments on the Pakistani net? Is the public mood similar to that concerning the poor Christian woman (whose name I forget) they want to kill for blasphemy? I think you or somebody else said that in these cases the pattern is to milk it for all the public outrage possible and then get the victim quietly out of the country. Do think that will happen in this case?

Here is a link to a Time story that reports the men Davis killed were ISI watchers. I hadn't heard that one before.

http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...047149,00.html

I wonder if this will make the American diplomatic establishment somewhat more suspicious of the motives of the Pak Army/ISI.

[Dayuhan]

Here is a link to a Time story that reports the men Davis killed were ISI watchers. I hadn't heard that one before.

http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...047149,00.html

Interesting article, but raises questions. If he was being followed by visibly armed men for 2 hours, and had the capacity to call for backup, why not call before shooting? If you're on your way to the ATM and realize - or suspect - that you're being followed by armed men, common sense says you don't go to the ATM, you stay in your vehicle and drive to the consulate, or some other place where you have support, calling for help immediately.

Not jumping to conclusions, but that rings a little bit strange to me. Possibly a bit more going on there that the reports are letting on.

[omarali50]

Carl, the Pakistani internet is saying pretty much what the ISI-internet wants them to say. I wrote the following comment on the SWJ blog before I saw your post and I think it answers some of your question and asks some from my side:
Go to http://rupeenews.com/?p=35639 to see the "official" Pakistani version of this relationship. If you doubt the "official" nature of this site, check it out in detail, see the other sites linked there, and reach your own conclusions. (the editor of Rupee news lives in New Jersey, btw, and seems very connected to every pro-army website in Pakistan...and we have a lot of those).
Obviously I have no idea what the inner details of this strange case really are. Did Davis shoot two robbers? did he shoot two intelligence operatives? Was he there working with the Pakistani security establishment or against them? And if he was working against them, was that a smart idea? After all, Pakistan is not a banana republic in the true sense of the word. Its a large country with a very large and disciplined army and effective intelligence agencies and foreign patrons in addition to the US (China and Saudi Arabia, now maybe also Turkey). The security establishment also has a strategic vision that is very different from what the US may desire (not that I can claim to know what the US desires. "The US" is not a person. Its policy makers may be up to stupidities and schemes of individual aggrandizement that are not congruent with the interests of the majority of the American people). To send strategic corporals to such a place does not sound like a smart idea.
My usual thought at this point is that no great power can possibly be THAT stupid, so obviously I just don't know what is going on. But then the thought does come that we are all human beings and we are not a particularly wise species. Maybe the emperor has no clothes?
To add to that, I will put it in somewhat personal terms. When I first started visiting this blog, I was not in the Chomsky-Arundhati mode, but I was open to the idea that the US policymaking establishment is capable of great sneakiness and even evil (especially in Latin America, but probably anywhere they percieve they have a vital interest). But I dont work with fixed opinions. I am just an amateur and I like to think I can change my mind. Well, in this case, I have changed my mind. I think there probably are some secret layers of decision-making where deep and dark evil is planned, but that is not the dominant long-term plan in any country. I think the actual situation on a larger-scale is some combination of naivete, ignorance, arrogance, good intentions, individual bureaucratic empire building and inertia. What makes the US a great power is its (still) great economy and human resources, not some sort of super-clever management of foreign policy and spy agency heroics. In this case, there is obviously some spook stuff going on and equally obviously I do not know what it is, but the overall relationship with Pakistan is a complete mystery to me now and THAT (the overall public policy) is, I think, NOT the public face of some secret plot (against Pakistan, against China, against whoever). Its just CYA bureaucracy trying to get through the next promotion cycle, army people (still the most capable army in the world and therefore, by definition, the most capable army in history) applying their army-level notions to every situation, and policymakers blundering along with whatever notions they learned from TIME magazine last year (forgetting that they probably taught TIME magazine those very notions the year before).
I think this will end badly, no matter what happens in the Davis case. I also think that disaster will be worse for Pakistanis than for the average American..

[davidbfpo]

Try Circling the Lion's Den for a strange podcast, allegedly an in custody interview partly caught on a mobile phone and some other links:http://circlingthelionsden.blogspot....s-messier.html

Curiously this weird story landed and I strongly suspect someone, maybe the Russians, are exploiting the story and the headline says it all 'CIA Spy Captured Giving Nuclear Bomb To Terrorists'. Link:http://www.eutimes.net/2011/02/cia-s...to-terrorists/

Yes, this newspaper makes its stance clear if you read a little more; basically against the New World Order.

[SWJ Blog]

The strange case of Raymond Davis, a ‘strategic corporal’ in Pakistan

Entry Excerpt:

In 1999, Gen. Charles Krulak, USMC coined the term “strategic corporal,” referring to a low-level soldier whose battlefield decisions could have strategic consequences. Raymond Davis, an “administrative and technical staff” employee at the United States consulate in Lahore, may soon be inducted into the “strategic corporal” Hall of Fame. Davis, now jailed in Lahore and awaiting trial for allegedly murdering two Pakistani men whom Davis claims were attempting to rob him at gunpoint, may accomplish what Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and ISI scheming have failed to do, namely cause a fundamental break in relations between the United States and Pakistan.

Click below to read more ...



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[SWJ Blog]

Pakistan frees CIA contractor Raymond Davis

Entry Excerpt:

According to the BBC, “blood money” – very likely from the U.S. government – was paid to the relatives of the three Pakistani men killed in the Davis affair. The BBC reported that under Pakistani law, relatives of a murder victim can pardon the alleged killer. In Davis’s case, 18 members of the victims’ families appeared at a court hearing and requested Davis’s acquittal, after receiving “blood money” payments.

For background on the Raymond Davis affair, see this post.

Nothing follows.



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