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Brian Ross (disclaimer: often, what we learn from Ross is what the CIA wants us to know, search on “Brian Ross” “anthrax” and “Glenn Greenwald” for details) reports that the US has categorically rejected the concept of trading Aafia Siddiqui for Raymond Davis. At the same time, BBC provides a very interesting background piece on the Davis affair, in which they describe the agendas of various government and non-government entities involved in the legal and political conflict that has arisen from the case. Buried in that description, however, is a very interesting report that the uncle of the widow who committed suicide out of remorse that her husband’s killer would never face judgment now reports that he was attacked by two men who tried to force rat poison down his throat. Possibly (but not necessarily) related is a new report in the New York Times letting us know that Dewey Clarridge’s shadowy group has not yet been disbanded and has been doing work for the FBI. Finally, we also learn from Dawn that at least 45 people whose contact information was in Davis’ cell phone have been arrested.
It appears that the US response to a proposed Aafia Siddiqui-Raymond Davis trade is an emphatic “no”:
According to a senior American administration official and a Pakistani official involved in the negotiations to free CIA contractor Raymond Davis, the Pakistani government proposed trading Davis for Aafia Siddiqui, an MIT-educated Pakistani neuroscientist currently serving 86 years in federal prison for attempted murder.
The offer was immediately dismissed by the U.S. government. “The Pakistanis have raised it,” the U.S. official said. “We are not going to pursue it.”
I think that on this one, I have to agree with commenter quanto, who pointed out this development in comments to my post from yesterday, adding: “They probably don’t want the backlash of the Pakistanis seeing what condition we left her in.”
In the meantime, BBC goes into detail on how the Pakistani federal government and the Punjab provincial government are at odds on the handling of the Davis case:
The Pakistani government, which apparently issued Mr Davis a diplomatic visa, seems inclined to release him and end the diplomatic row.
But, according to political analyst Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi of Lahore, local islamist groups are behind massive anti-Davis demonstrations in the area, and this has the Punjab provincial government bucking the federal government:
He says the PML-N party, which rules the Punjab province, knows “the mood in the streets (and) is not willing to help the federal government”.
But also in this article is a very interesting revelation:
But the latest development was buried deep in the Pakistani newspapers last week. It was a report about a man taken to hospital after intruders tried to force poison down his throat.
The man in question was Mohammad Sarwar, the uncle of Shumaila Kanwal, the widow of one of the men shot by Raymond Davis.
Because she made televised death-bed statements about her suicide, it seems doubtful that Sumaila Kanwal’s suicide was “forced”, but this development regarding her uncle, at whose house she was staying at the time of her suicide, certainly complicates matters.
Because the US has admitted that Davis was a contractor working for the CIA, it seems relevant to consider an article published late Monday on the New York Times website and appearing in the Tuesday print edition. Here, we learn that the shadowy group run by Dewey Clarridge has not yet been disbanded and may have been used by the FBI to gather intelligence on corruption in Hamid Karzai’s administration. This portion of the report stands out:
Mr. Clarridge’s spy network is made up of former C.I.A. and special forces operatives, as well as dozens of Afghan and Pakistani locals. From his home near San Diego, Mr. Clarridge pieces together dispatches from overseas and arranges for the reports to be posted on a password-protected Web site.
Hmmm. So Clarridge has been running a contractor group that includes former special forces operatives, which Davis is, and when reports first came out about his group, it was noted that they were being used to develop targets for assassination in Pakistan and Afghanistan, just as Davis has been accused by some of being involved in choosing targets for drone attacks.
It is going to take a very long time to sort out the various groups the US has operating within Pakistan. As I pointed out yesterday, Pakistan seems to be moving quickly in trying to identify some of these US personnel, as they have inventoried those with diplomatic immunity and arrested at least one US contractor who appeared to overstay his visa, leading others to leave the country. Of further note along these lines is the revelation (again, h/t to quanto in the same comment discussed above) that Pakistan has now arrested at least 45 people whose contact information was in Davis’ phone:
The law enforcement agencies arrested 45 individuals for staying in constant contact with Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore last month, DawnNews reported on Monday.
The individuals had been arrested from Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar and their contact information was taken from Davis’ mobile phone. Investigations were underway.
Stay tuned for further developments.
41 Comments
“Finally, we also learn from Dawn that at least 45 people whose contact information was in Davis’ cell phone have been arrested.”
Any reports on how many of Valerie Palme’s contacts/friends got arrested after the Bush WH outed her as a spy or is that still Classified to Protect the President From embarrassment?
CPPFE?
Philip Giraldi on Raymond Davis, 17min23sec into the interview.
http://antiwar.com/radio/2011/03/01/philip-giraldi-40/
Davis was meeting an agent or covering for someone meeting an agent. Knows all about the unilateral ops the U.S. is running in Pak (the stuff the U.S. is doing in Pak that the Paks don’t know about). He will spill the beans if he faces execution. He’s special ops. Pak media are predicting govt will go down if Davis isn’t prosecuted.
So, presumably they have rounded up Davis’s assets, though who knows what innocents have also been scooped up. It’s spy v spy, with all the counterintelligence paranoia and double or even triple or quadruple games being played. Misinformation is the coin of the realm.
Was the attempted murder of the uncle a message from one side to the other, and which side?
We’ve known for awhile the Clarridge group continues with its off-the-shelf Iran-Contra like operations. Working for the FBI… hm.
Thanks for covering this, Jim.
Btw, if you haven’t seen it, this article on “hand launched drones”, which look like hummingbirds, and even smaller insect-like video surveillance drones to come, and soon, will send chills up your spine.
From AP:
Yesterday you said about 40 people that we knew of had left Pakistan now you say that 45 people had been arrested.
I’m guessing America’s entire spy network in Pakistan is being rolled up? Nobody sane is going to give an American spy info now with Pakistan’s secret police busting everybody.
Nobody sane will do time in a a Pakistani prison?
See my comment above. Giraldi sez Davis knows ALL about every op the U.S. is running in Pak. Guessing there are hundreds, if not thousands, involved. Think Afghanistan during Soviet occupation; well, not quite that extensive, but VERY extensive.
There are some who believe Davis was in Pakistan to incite terrorism. Now why would he be doing that? Isn’t the United States supposed to be spreading democracy?
http://www.alarabiya.net/views/2011/02/26/139329.html
Yes, Jeff, there are so many possible plays that the attempted poisoning could have been that I didn’t even try to offer an explanation.
And let’s hope no innocents got caught up in grabbing Davis’ contacts but that seems almost certain to have happened, doesn’t it?
As for the tiny drones, it’s interesting these stories should come out again. I remember nearly identical reports in 2007 around the time of the September antiwar march and Petraeus’ testimony on Capitol Hill. The difference is that then they said the drones look like dragonflies. My understanding is that battery technology was the largest technical barrier in 2007; maybe they have solved it now.
on poisoning:
Some unidentified outlaws have fed poisonous bills [pills?] to the paternal uncle of Shumaila, the widow of Faheem, who was crushed to death in Lahore in Raymond Davis double murder case. The discussed family also claimed to have received life-threats a week ago for following lawsuit against Raymond Davis, sources said.
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/8284678-raymond-case-shumailas-uncle-poisoned-in-lahore-us-official-said-case-can-be-taken-to-international-court
on Shah Mahmood Qureshi:
The US demand is where Shah Mahmood Qureshi, then the foreign minister, got dragged into the story. All he had to do was sign off on Washington’s contention that Raymond Davis had diplomatic immunity and Washington would be happy.
The foreign minister had a problem, though. He knew that his office had never accorded Raymond Davis diplomatic status. In due course, he received a call from Secretary of State Clinton, who said that Davis was being held illegally in violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention. Qureshi knew what she already should have known. The Diplomatic and Consular Privileges Act of 1972, which trumps the Vienna Convention in Pakistani law, gives the government of Pakistan the final say over who does and does not have diplomatic immunity. He explained the situation and said that he felt it was an issue to be determined by the courts.
Next, Ambassador Cameron Munter called Qureshi and told them that he’d been instructed to tell him that unless he signed a paper giving Davis diplomatic immunity (ex post facto), Clinton would not meet with him in Munich. Qureshi refused and cancelled his trip to Munich.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=32451&Cat=2&dt=2/22/2011
Qureshi said that his stance on the Davis issue was principled and that he would stand by his position.
Qureshi, who stepped down earlier this month during a Cabinet reshuffle but retains influence, reiterated this stance after a meeting with Chairman US Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry — an indication that the American politician may have a rocky time convincing Pakistan to free 36-year-old Raymond Davis.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/16/us-should-realise-pakistans-sacrifices-in-terror-war-shah-mehmood-qureshi.html
Following former Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood’s Qureshi’s dramatic resignation over the ‘thorny’ issue of US operative Raymond Davis’s immunity, a few political analysts had immediately started comparing him to the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. . .Ahmed Raza Kasuri had further stated, “Now that Shah Mahmood’s son is working as Kerry’s assistant, the US Senator must have influenced the Foreign Minister. . .”
http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=4180&Cat=13&dt=2/23/2011
So I wonder if Kerry and the US really want “Davis” returned to the US where he might talk his head off, or does the US want him to stay in Pakistan for Sharia justice.
Any word on who might be weaponizing the hummingbird already?
Thanks for mentioning Quereshi. I had meant to point out that the BBC kind of missed him when saying the Federal government was in favor of releasing Davis. When he balked, he suddenly found he wasn’t Foreign Minister any more.
One person knows everything?
That’s very sloppy.
Or Davis is very senior (which I doubt). Senior people manipulate from behind a desk, not out in the field with a gun
And ,of course, the frightening thing is who gets defined as an “enemy.” HBGary, etc….
Good question on the fallout from Plame. You can bet the details won’t come out in our lifetime.
Pakistan is a sharia state?
Phoenix Project participant recognizes Davis and CIA for what it is.
http://www.counterpunch.org/anderson02282011.html
Jim, Check the story that Dr. Siddiqui’s family is not interested in a swap reported in Lahore papers last week.
It might not be a bad idea to require the engineering undergrads at MIT, Cal Tech, and Cornell to take a course or two in ethics before they receive their degrees.
Wow. That’s a very interesting read.
These articles are very troubling.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/cia-spy-davis-giving-nuclear-bomb-material-al-20110219-224833-452.html
http://www.eutimes.net/2011/02/cia-spy-captured-giving-nuclear-bomb-to-terrorists/
http://polidics.com/cia/top-ranking-cia-operatives-admit-al-qaeda-is-a-complete-fabrication.html
Giraldi is ex-CIA, recognized the kind of routine Davis was caught in right away.
I’m just repeating what Giraldi said. If Davis were an escort, then he would certainly know a lot.
Besides Sloppy R Us characterizes the entire operation Davis was caught at, no?
So, like the U2 incident way back when(powers was traded for some USSR cits arrested in US, no?)the trade has been offered by pakistan, eventually the US will agree.
So, could this be the reason for the entire incident? Someone in pak intel wanted to get her back, so decided that a CIA foot soldier was the way to do it. Except he was armed(james bond syndrome?) and killed the 2 who attempted to grab him-re early press reports from pak govt stating that the 2 were counter intel out to grab davis. Which made the entire deal public, which neither side wanted.
as for the statement by CAHNomics that he will “spill the beans” if faced with execution. I do not think so.
As spec ops he went thru E&E training, which included waterboarding and other things that I still have nitemares about so will not mention.
His entire military career in spec ops emphasized honor, duty, country. So, no, I do not believe that under any circumstances will he “spill the beans” because that is not what spec ops people do. I have never been in spec ops myself, but since I was in Vietnam and worked with spec ops soldiers I also had contact with them while an employee of the fedgov and found every one of them to be very hard core about duty, honor, country. Even when faced with death I do not believe that they would break faith with their fellow soldiers.
It appears Senator Kerry has had a change of heart in the past 30 years.
Keep up the great work Jim.
I’m not offering my own position or knowledge, just repeating what Giraldi said. Go listen to it at my link & leave your objections over at antiwar.com.
Giraldi is interviewed a lot by Scott Horton, so perhaps he’ll be asked about your points next interview.
from the web:
December 13, 2004: Gary Webb, 49, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter from the San Jose Mercury News made America hold its breath in 1996 when he showed us proof of direct CIA involvement in drug trafficking. For a few months many of us had hope. He reportedly died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head two days ago. His body was discovered at 8:20 AM Saturday as movers reportedly found a note on the door of his residence asking them not to enter but to call for paramedics.
Webb’s August 1996 series Dark Alliance for the San Jose Mercury News pulled deep covers away from US covert operations and American denial about connections between the CIA and drugs.
Why? Major newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Washington Post, wrote reports discrediting elements of Webb’s reporting.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/121304_gary_webb.shtml
I did not connect all this until the Iran-Contra hearings when Oliver North was testifying about it. Oliver North was a leader of the Laos operation I was assigned to work with.
I do not know for a fact that Ollie was running Heroin and assassinating the indigenous population as his contribution to the Vietnam War. His neo-con apologists claim he was a hero in the Great South East Asian Land War. Ollie has certainly been part of the Iraq-Afghan Propaganda War against truth. Ollie also planned concentration camps for anti-war protesters.
The CIA tried to turn a living cat into a spy 40 years ago by performing a number of surgeries on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_Kitty
Who knows what they’re doing now.
Webb’s story was a tragic one but he had a hand in his own discrediting. For his story started focusing on the supposed plot by the CIA to enslave Americas inner cities with crack cocaine.
I suspect he was put on this wild goose chase with a strong push of disinformation and a wild goose chase it was. Crack and the gang organizational model of it supply and distribution came out of Detroit. Well it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where cultural phenomina originate but that’s close enough and know that the whole crack thing was ready to happen for all sorts of complex reasons and the CIA in its darkest dreams could not have invented it much less made it successful, if that’s the right word.
But for Webb who I assume became somewhat radicalized by the core story of a literal green light for CIA approved Central Americans to sell coke in the US the crack story was just too believable. However it was a step too far.
If the spooks lead him down the dark ally or not they took advantage and soon the MSM was turned against him like the good sheep they are.
The initial story needed no embellishment. Which is a good lesson in all such stories even this Davis one. Soon one finds oneself drawing flow charts that look like an accident in a spaghetti factory shouting how it all fits together and the real story, the simple story gets buried.
Why do we need such a huge number of they are our ally/s
“Because she made televised death-bed statements about her suicide, it seems doubtful that Sumaila Kanwal’s suicide was “forced”, but this development regarding her uncle, at whose house she was staying at the time of her suicide, certainly complicates matters.”
A threat against other family members can be very effective in forcing a “voluntary” suicide. See “Rommel, the Desert Fox.”
I don’t know…
Are CIA contractors or spies so dumb that they would carry around the contact numbers to their agents on their cell phones? I know it’s popular to say, yeah, they are that dumb. But I don’t think so. It may be the case now and then, but I’d imagine spycraft is a bit more sophisticated than that.
If I were an agent, I might have a few contacts I’d be willing to burn, some ISI we know aren’t “ours”, but if found would make the other side wonder, and sew chaos and paranoia in the ranks, and perhaps some red herrings.
What one would look at are the calls made, to what numbers, how long did the conversation last, etc. This would be true, too, if CIA captured an Al Qaeda cell phone. Same standard operating procedures among most intelligence agencies.
The first thing you do when an op fails or succeeds is clean up: money and telecoms, operative contacts, operatives.
The best line in the film, the Shooter, is by an old coot. He’s a master sniper, wheelchair bound, in his eighties, having a chat with a young one on the lam who has been framed for a political assassination.
The discussion is about tradecraft, and a chance remark about the Kennedy assassination and the guys who did it. The old master sniper claims those guys were buried in the desert within 24 hours. The young sniper asks him how he knows:
“Still got the shovel.”
Our best people, Malcolm Nance for one, say that everyone can be broken; it’s a matter of time and technique. They will then say whatever comes to mind to make it stop. Training only delays when that happens; it can’t prevent it, though some do manage to die beforehand.
My experience with ex-spec ops guys from Vietnam and later tells me their definitions of duty, honor, country vary considerably. One thing they have in common is that fisheye look and an inability to stop until the thing is done. Ordinarily, they aren’t the ones dictating what that thing is.
Interesting report that links Davis and DeHaven (‘Calls from “Raymond Davis’” Cell phone led the intelligence services to DeHaven.’) Also, Davis is referred to as “Davis”, in quotes, as if Davis is not his real name.
http://www.pakistanpatriot.com/?p=34342
Pakistan is currently not any kind of state, one might say, because of all its factions — principally the army and the civilians, but also the several significant Islamist factions, the ISI, mobs in the street, the unrest in the northwest, as well as significant conflict (killings, kidnappings of lawyers, etc.) in the province of Balochistan, which is 47% of Pakistan’s land area.
So I wasn’t referring to what the government might do but to what might be done by others with or w/o government complicity. There have been calls in the Pakistan streets for sharia justice. Pakistan is wild right now, thanks to Obama’s AfPak.
Time magazine is reporting on a resolution today that doesn’t sound that likely, but it also talks about a meeting in Oman last week between American and Pakistani military officers:
Raymond Davis Case Tests U.S.-Pakistan Intelligence Ties “If the deal comes together, the Pakistanis would hand over Davis to the United States. The U.S. government would, in turn, announce an investigation into the incident and financially compensate families of the victims, according to a report in Foreign Policy. (The widow of one of the deceased in the Davis saga would not receive compensation, since she reportedly committed suicide by swallowing rat poison after her husband’s death.) This sort of transaction would avert a murder trial, an obvious catastrophe for the CIA, and would save the Pakistanis the humiliation of releasing Davis outright despite the deaths of Pakistanis on the streets of Lahore. The details emerged following a meeting in Oman last week between top Pakistani military officers and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. David Petraeus, who is the top American commander in Afghanistan, and a laundry list of other American military officials. Whether or not the deal to release Davis comes together, close observers of the relationship between the United States and Pakistan say the Davis incident has severely – and perhaps irrevocably – wounded rapport between the two countries.”
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2011/02/28/raymond-davis-case-tests-u-s-pakistan-intelligence-ties/?xid=newsletter-daily
The US should definitely take this to the International Court of Justice. Clearly, a finely trained killing machine mercenary like Raymond Davis meets the criteria of diplomat and should thus be afforded immunity. What a picture perfect example of American diplomacy he is. Hillary, please come forward to show a vigorous defense of this particular face of our country’s time-honored and much needed delicate, intellectual, and carefully implemented international relations. The world is watching. /s
“and would save the Pakistanis the humiliation of releasing Davis outright”
That’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?
I read that article about the tiny drones. They tried to insert spycams in metamorphosing insects and attempt to control its movements with electrical charges.
The article discussed how emergency responders might scatter them over a disaster area looking for survivors, or how hazmat might use them in chemical spills. Or military operations for searching a building before going in with troops.
But, how about this… once the first responders have access to these things – street cops, firefighters, EMTs, then you can be pretty sure that, like tazers and handcuffs, the average joe will be able to get them.
And that means:
1. Papparazzi’s will have tiny insectoid cams that can fly over celebrity security fences and broadcast streaming pics of EVERYTHING in real time!
2. Estranged spouses and divorcees(some of whom ARE first responders) will have tiny insectoid cams that can fly through chimneys and air vents to literally BE the “fly on the wall”
3. Perverts (pedophiles, rapists, etc) will have easy access to every little girl’s bedroom and bathroom (insects fly in through air vents and open windows and doors). Think about it! A mobile, tiny flying peeping tom cam!! It is undetectable, and can zoom in one moment the door opens, and then hover and wait and fly and park it on the ceiling of the little girls’ bedroom or bathroom. And mom and dad better watch out too! The insect-cam will get them next! Talk about exponential burst of online voyeur-porn…
4. Private Investigators for insurance disability recipients… oh yeah – you know they will find a way to bust EVERYBODY once they can obtain pics of just how easily you took that shower in the “privacy” of your own home…
5. Health Insurance companies — they will now be able to engage in a much greater frequency of claims denial (NOT policy coverage denial – they will sell you the policy, and they will take your premiums, but they won’t pay out your claims) once they can obtain rare and hard to capture footage of just exactly what you do with your spare time (was that TWO glasses of wine at each meal! For shame! Oh, was that the after-dinner cigar? No treatment for throat cancer!!). And much more that a devious mind could imagine…
6. Business competitors — industrial espionage just became a LOT mmore likely. How many times did one business owner/executive say “I wish I was a fly on that wall” of my competitor’s business? OR in the room where the competition was just pitching their business right before your company had its shot? Now everybody will really want to go last in the bidding interview!!! That way they can spy on all the competitors and none will get a chance to spy on them before going!
7. I can go on, but lets stop for now….
Technology for the sake of Power and War – its a bitch, ain’t it?
Obama, December 01, 2009: “. . . we will act with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan.”
Some “partnership.”
And an effective snark it is. Clinton’s success at diplomacy matches Davis’s, i.e. none, zip, nada, nothing but a lot of belligerency.
The swap story is getting huge coverage in Pakistan. There’s a back story there. The Pakistani government is widely accused of having pretended to negotiate her release in the months leading up to her trial and to her sentencing without having really done so — point man believed to have postured without having really negotiated, Husain Haqqani, the ambassador, who was also delinquent for most of her trial.
So now that there’s a U.S. network reporting that the U.S. actually turned down the offer of a swap, people can see that the Pakistani government actually proposed it this time. That’s big news over there.