[Peace-discuss] "Black advances" to get US war with Pakistan on?

[C. G. Estabrook]

Pakistani and Indian Newspapers Say US CIA Contractor Raymond Davis is a Terrorist
Thursday 24 February 2011
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.

"His close ties with the TTP [the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan] were revealed 
during the investigations," he added. "Davis was instrumental in recruiting 
young people from Punjab for the Taliban to fuel the bloody insurgency." Call 
records of the cellphones recovered from Davis have established his links with 
33 Pakistanis, including 27 militants from the TTP and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi 
sectarian outfit, sources said./

The article goes on to explain a motive for why the US, which on the one hand 
has been openly pressing Pakistan to move militarily against Taliban forces in 
the border regions abutting Afghanistan, would have a contract agent actively 
encouraging terrorist acts within Pakistan, saying:
/
Davis was also said to be working on a plan to give credence to the American 
notion that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are not safe. For this purpose, he was 
setting up a group of the Taliban which would do his bidding./

According to a report in the Economic Times of India, a review by police 
investigators of calls placed by Davis on some of the cell phones found on his 
person and in his rented Honda Civic after the shooting showed calls to 33 
Pakistanis, including 27 militants from the banned Pakistani Taliban, and 
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an group identified as terrorist organization by both the US 
and Pakistan, which has been blamed for the assassination of Prime Minister 
Benazir Bhutto, and for the brutal slaying of Wall Street Journal reporter 
Daniel Pearl. (You'd think this would be a big story for the Wall Street 
Journal, especially on the editorial page, but so far, there has been no mention 
of it in Murdoch's rag.)

Meanwhile, while the US continues to claim that Davis was "defending himself" 
against two armed robbers, the Associated Press is reporting that its sources in 
Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), are 
telling them that Davis "knew both men he killed."

The AP report, which was run in Thursday's Washington Post, claims the ISI says 
it "had no idea who Davis was or what he was doing when he was arrested," that 
he had contacts in Pakistan's tribal regions, and that his visa applications 
contained "bogus references and phone numbers."

The article quotes a "senior Pakistani intelligence official" as saying the ISI 
"fears there are hundreds of CIA contractors presently operating in Pakistan 
without the knowledge of the Pakistan government or the intelligence agency."

In an indication that Pakistan is hardening its stance against caving to US 
pressure to spring Davis from jail, the Express Tribune quotes sources in the 
Pakistani Foreign Office as saying that the US has been pressing them to forge 
backdated documents that would allow the US to claim that Davis worked for the 
US Embassy. President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other top US 
officials have been trying to claim Davis was an Embassy employee, and not, as 
they originally stated, and as he himself told arresting police officers, just a 
contractor working out of the Lahore Consulate. The difference is critical, 
since most Embassy employees get blanket immunity for their activities, while 
consular employees, under the Vienna Conventions, only are given immunity for 
things done during and in the course of their official duties.

The US had submitted a list of its Embassy workers to the Foreign Office on Jan. 
20, a week before the shooting. That list had 48 names on it, and Davis was not 
one of them. A day after the shooting, the Embassy submitted a "revised" list, 
claiming rather improbably that it had "overlooked" Davis. At the time of his 
arrest, Davis was carrying a regular passport, not a diplomatic one, though the 
Consulate in Lahore rushed over the following day and tried to get police to let 
them swap his well-worn regular passport for a shiny new diplomatic one (they 
were rebuffed). Davis was also carrying a Department of Defense contractor ID 
when he was arrested, further complicating the picture of who his real employer 
might be.
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