graeme

Some news from the net:

Sat, Feb 19, 2011 The Nation/Asia News Network

LAHORE/ISLAMABAD - The Chief Justice of Lahore High Court Friday directed the Punjab police to arrest the driver of the US consulate's vehicle which had crushed to death a Pakistani following murder of two citizens by a US national, Raymond Davis.

The court passed this order on a petition moved by Ijazul Rehman, the brother of deceased Ibadur Rehman. The petitioner sought free and fair investigations into the case.

The US consulate's vehicle carrying two persons overran motorcyclist Ibad while rushing to help Davis who was detained after he shot down two Pakistanis at Cordoba Chowk on Jan 27. Ibad died on the spot while the jeep sped to the US consulate where the inmates are believed to have taken shelter

I got more on the story here. It doesn't sound very good. Executed....??? Yikes...!!!

This is the inevitable extension of te war against Afghanistan to a war against Pakistan.

Combine that with resistance in the middle east and latin america, and we may be wathing a collapse of the american empire much more quickly than I though possible.

Its really bad stuff graeme. Donald Trump may  run in the election but its really too late for the U.S.A. no matter who runs. Nobody can fix it as it goes deeper and deeper into the mire.

Quote:

Further complicating the situation, a Pakistani intelligence official said that the two men Davis killed were not, as he has said, armed robbers intent on stealing money, his telephone and perhaps his car, but intelligence agents assigned to tail him. This official said the two intended to frighten Davis because he crossed a "red line" that the official did not further define.

Both the military's Inter-Services Intelligence service and the Interior Ministry's Intelligence Bureau regularly use motorcycle tails to track the movement of U.S. officials, another Pakistani official said.

On Sunday, the widow of one of the men killed by Davis committed suicide in the city of Faisalabad. According to a doctor at the hospital where she was admitted after ingesting rat poison, she said she did it because she feared Davis would be released without facing trial.

(

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/07/AR2011020705790_2.html

The other interesting angle is the involvement of US President Barack Obama in the case and his issuing a statement also saying that Raymond Davis had diplomatic immunity. It is highly unusual for the US president to get personally involved in a matter involving an apparently low-ranking employee of any US embassy.

Even the US Congress is asking interesting questions. For instance, if Raymond Davis is a diplomat, then why was he carrying weapons? And if he is indeed a diplomat then what was he doing in Pakistan’s border areas, taking photographs and carrying a GPS decoder? There are also reports that he posed as a convert and tried to establish links with banned outfits in Pakistan. Is the Pakistan government going to stay silent on this issue of a US ‘diplomat’ spying in Pakistan? And what about his combat experience in Afghanistan? I am quite sure that combat experience is not among the requirements for becoming a diplomat. Neither is skill in the use of arms, nor is undercover work. All of these, however, are requirements if one wants to join the ranks of counter-intelligence and espionage. ( I lost the link for this)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604576150700376521050

Edit: moved to new topic. See Donald Trump.

There is no evidence whatever that he is a diplomat of any sort. He was carrying no diplomatic idientification. His passport was the regular one. The only infor Obama has made public is some diplomatic IDs that were printed after the arrest, and back dated.

I think Obama is very afraid of what he might say at a trial.

My hope is that Davis will face justice in Pakistan's court system.  Maybe this will force the American military to get rid of a very bad strategy.

I hope he lives that long. Both the American and Pakistani governments would find it better if he were to suddently become fatally ill. Both almost certainly have the capacity to get to him, even in a prison.

The case of Pakistan is much worse than I thought. It seems Davis is the acting head of the CIA in that part of the world. There are reports of him choosing targets for drones and, much worse, some reports of him supplying "biological agents" to Moslem terrorists for use against American targets. That's not as wild as it sounds. The US may want an excuse for a war on Pakistan - something like Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

What is known for certain is that he was contracted to the CIA by Blackwater - and Pakistan could well be on the edge of a civil war over this. It is also known that all US news agencies have been aware of who Davis is since this started - but had not published it on the orders of the White House. Only when the truth appeared in British papers did the White House lift its ban. The New York Times has admitted all this.

There's a great many things the US news media have not told Americans about.

One thing that I worry about is that the US establishment will rush to start another world war, in order to divert attention from those that wrecked their economy, and as an way to jump start their economy.

I am hoping that the Arab countries quickly form a federation after getting new governments. This would be a could be a good strategy to empower them when standing up against The US and Israel.

graeme

quote:

"There are reports of him choosing targets for drones and, much worse, some reports of him supplying "biological agents" to Moslem terrorists for use against American targets. That's not as wild as it sounds. The US may want an excuse for a war on Pakistan - something like Saddam's weapons of mass destruction."

SCARY STUFF .

It's as scary as it can get. Only part of the reason is that such a war would be difficult to limit. It looks as though the neo-cons are making one, last and desparate attempt to dominate the world economy through military force - just as they promised in their project for the new American Century.

Oh - has anyone seen the news that in its border agreement with the US, the two countries are making plans of how to deal with civil unrest. Each country (presumably at the request of the other) could send troops to the other. That could mean canadian troops being used to shoot at American rioters. Or American troops moving in to Canada on the excuse of protecting the oil fields. It would also mean an even futher integrationof the Canadian and American military which, so far, has made it impossible for Canada to use its mlitary in any independent way. And we become the prisoners of American policy.

graeme

Bits and Bites of News:

Feb. 23 update. Will it make a difference to the Davis case if its true?

Quote:

well, the first source I would distrust is The Telegraph. Look at the use of language in that report, at the downplaying of Davis' background, at the failure to say where its information is coming from For Britain, the best are The Manchester Guardian and The Independent.

Davis' background is not in doubt. He owns a "security" business (i.e. he rents out thugs). He was under contract to the CIA. The Telegraph says the two men were gangsters working for Pakistan intelligence. Quite possibly so. But I find the next part hard to believe.

They dorve up waving guns. Davis did a quick draw and killed both before they could shoot him. Really? I doubt whether even Wild Bill Hickock was that fast or accurate.

Is Davis a pawn? You bet. Most of Pakistan is furious at American drone bombings. Their have been over a hundred and sixty of them. And any reliable source I have seen says innocent civilians have been, by far, the majority of casuaties.

As well, the district where he is held is led by the national opposition party. At this point, anybody who released Davis would probably set off a civil war.

If Davis was not a spy, why was he there to meet a senior CIA official? If he was a spy, what does it matter whether his camera had tourist photos in it?

If he was a diplomat, how come there is no record of him ever having been a diplomat in his life? How come he wasn't listed as one?

Why did the White House immediately request all American news media to avoid the story? (The NY Times has admitted that much; and says the ban was lifted only when news agencies alll over the world were covering it.)

We don't yet know the whole story. We know enough that we can be sure The Telegraph is doing a coverup. And that's normal for The Telegraph - as it is for many news media.

Consider this possibility. Neo-Conservatives announced almost twenty years ago (Project for the New American Century) that the US had a window of opportunity to economically dominate the world through the use of military power. That is the origin of Iraq and Afghanistan fighting - and drone bombing of Pakistan.

The wars, and domestic greed, have ruined the economy; and the American military have  not been able to win a military dominance. The window of opportunity is closing fast. What if the time has come for desparate measures - like taking out the only Moslem country that has nuclear weapons?

graeme

I don't know......it boggles my mind!  There were 5 other guys living with Davis, CIA it says ? I find the Paki-U.S. relations totally confusing. Do you think Bin Laden is there if he's even alive?  How would the U.S. get around the Paki nukes re war?

We had a speaker in from Afghanistan/Pakistan into Church House last month.  He was reporting on the successes of farming education projects sponsored by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and was, predictably, asked about the presence of violence and terrorism in Pakistan.

He reminded us that Pakistan has had both a flood and a drought in the past year, and that there were families growing inedible plants to eat - because they had no other access to food.  To feed a family, it is not incomprehensible for a man to make the decision to find work for a terrorist organisation.

It hit me - like anywhere else, Pakistan is full of people.  Like anywhere else.  Yes, there are 'evildoers'... but so often we don't realize why they have the followers they do.  It made the work the Canadian Foodgrains Bank was doing seem incredibly relevant, and I had the strong feeling we weren't doing enough of that type of work.

Quite so. The west has also been noted for its failure to extent much help to Pakistan in those terrible conditions. Nor has our news media paid much attention to the scale of civilian dead in American drone attacks.

The role of al quaeda has probably been much exaggerated. Our press uses the term pretty loosely to mean just about any group that is both terrorist and Moslem. People in that part of the  world don't need encouragement to hate the US. In the case of Pakistan, the US has poured money out to corrupt leaders and to the army brass. But rather little help in feeding families. Pakistani intelligence has always been ambivalent about working with the US. They don't trust the US. And with good reason.

The bankrolling of dictators and their armies was the same with Khaddafi and , even more so, with Mubarak.

Latest reports, by the way, suggest that Davis shot the two intelligence agents in the back. That seems far more plausible than The Telegraph story. Oh, and his camera did not have just tourist sites on it.

Faerenach

Yes, living conditions for the poor in Pakistan are hellish. I was reading that many are committing suicide, no hope at all. Supposedly there was 815 million donated or pledged but I'm thinking like in Haiti it probably hasn't been forthcoming. Canada donated 46 million from the people, gov't supposed to match it.  Today I read they donated part of it then, 19 million,  and the rest now.  I  read that the people and gov'ts have donor fatigue plus there's no trust re dispensation. Its a horror show, very sad. Canada says it gave 71 million in total.

From the net:

graeme

I'm still digging around for updates. I can't vouch for the truth of any of it.

'Davis had close links with Taliban'

Updated on Tuesday, February 22, 2011,

Net News Continued:

• Lahore, where the event went down, is a very strange place for Davis to have been. It’s way over on the border with India, across the country from Peshawar and the Afghanistan border and well away from the capital in Islamabad, as well. This just gets more and more curious as it goes on.

  Here’s the CIA Pakistan map:

  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/maps/maptemplate_pk.html

• 
  

   

We may never know the truth. Very often, governments don't know the truth - or they hide it - as in the case of Oliver North.

Convert or die?
 

Actually, some of the truth did come out on this one. Most of what the American authorities said was lies. Davis was a CIA agent working with a ring in Pakistan. The two men he shot were Pakistan intelligence officers assigned to follow him. And, as we know, Davis is now home and free.

Pakistan is in sad shape.    This CIA thing is just one tiny thing in the bucket of Pakistan worries.

The floods that Stardust documents were devastating.  But with people making threats about non-Muslims coming in to help, aid agencies are reluctant.  

They have been going downhill ever since the Islamic fundamentalists became prominent, was is Zia Ul-Huq I believe it was.  This was not the intent of the founders of Pakistan.   It is very sad because most of the population just wants to live a normal life, but the government is infiltrated with fundamentalists, who keep making everyone's life miserable. 

The dispute over Kashmir has also been very bad for Pakistan.  We can blame Britain for that. 

So maybe what is going to happen/is happening is 'Western Interests' are going to be 'invading' Pakistan and certain other countries to make sure that the Jihadists are kept in check and never voted in to power (which presents problems for 'Democratic' countries).

'US aid has never been very starry. Nor has Canada's. The US still has not delivered any of the aid it promised to Haiti so long ago. But it has found the time and resources to provide increased "aid" in the form of weapons to places like Bahrain.

The US could have extended aid to Pakistan through Moslem agencies. (Yes, I know. Moslem agencies would be corrupt -  unlike ours.). All help to Pakistan going back for years has been in weapons and corruption. They don't give a damn about suffering.

It doesn't matter what I say.  If I say 2 + 2 = 4, Graeme will twist that into a negative comment somehow.  

Yup. 

thank you, EO abd Mely. Your most articulate posts yet.