Raymond Davis Free

Guardian article

I just noticed this article this morning. It's an interesting story if you have been following.

An American in Pakistan shoots two armed Pakistanis, claims he was being robbed. A third is crushed by a vehicle of the Americans(likely CIA) that attempt a rescue/evac. The pakistanis claim the men were ISI agents and that he had known them and planned to kill them. At first after he was arrested, he was alleged, by the US government to be a US diplomat and that he should be given blanket immunity and the State Department claimed that his name, circling in the media at the time and on his identification papers was false. A few weeks later, his name was officially recognized by the American government after the Pakistanis were arguing that he was not a diplomat in their records and regardless, if his papers were false they could not recognize any status granted him. After this, it became apparent that he was in fact working as a contractor for the CIA and was an employee of Blackwater(Xe), the American media had known of this but was censored and it was British media outlets that had reported it (a change of pace given the frequent gag orders and libel laws in the UK).

It seems he had been operating in the tribal regions where was a number of drone strikes, possibly performing reconnaissance for future targets. It's alleged that when he was captured/arrested he had in his possession surveillance photographs of a pakistani paramilitary base. At one point Russian Intelligence was claiming that he had been meeting with Al-Qaeda and supplying them with fissile materials to create a dirty bomb that would create a false flag for the Americans (I feel it's plausible, however unlikely. Regardless, the propaganda is interesting).

At in an interesting anti-climactic ending, the charges are dropped as the families of the victims are paid off for a relatively meager sum (upwards of $700,000 each) according to a Sharia law whereby a murder case can be dropped if the families of the victims are satisfactorily compensated. H Clinton claims the US government did not pay the settlement and that if you want to know who did you should ask the families.

I realize international politics, espionage and power brokering isn't black and white and we probably won't ever know what really happened. But it's a wild story.

Jason Bourne no doubt would have done better.

Money talks... scum walks.

  On 3/16/2011 at 8:26 PM, Joyrex said:

Money talks... scum walks.

The moral of this story, if I understand it, is that if you ever find yourself enjoying murder fantasies and you have a couple million in the bank, visit pakistan and take a life or two in broad daylight. It's perfectly legal as long as you pay for it.