Pakistan's intelligence ready to split with CIA

[Ali_Syed]

Re: Pakistan’s intelligence ready to split with CIA

The CIA, the ISI and ‘desi liberals’ | The Express Tribune

The CIA, the ISI and ‘desi liberals’
By Yousuf Nazar
Published: February 28, 2011

**The most important fact to come out in the open is not that Raymond Davis is a CIA contractor, but that it is beyond any doubt that he was a covert operations person, as has now been officially acknowledged by the US. It has astonished me that so many of our ‘desi liberals’ have been defending him, and focusing just on the academic question of immunity or the possibility that the ISI might be exploiting this.

It is critically more important to find out what hundreds of CIA agents (according to scores of reports including those carried by top US papers) are doing in Pakistan, and why they were provided cover by an embassy whose facilities are being upgraded by a massive spending programme exceeding one billion dollars, according to official US documents.**
We are being told that the ISI was not even aware that Raymond Davis was a CIA agent. According to The New York Times, the ISI has demanded an accounting by the CIA of all its contractors working in Pakistan. Does all this represent a major turf battle between the ISI and the CIA in which Raymond Davis happens to be a pawn? Or is it that the military establishment was so embarrassed by WikiLeaks, revealing its close ties with America, that it decided to use this incident to prove to the Pakistani public that it is not them but the politicians who are American puppets?

The ISI was most certainly aware of the drone attacks and indeed gave permission to the CIA to conduct them as I had documented in my article “Whither Sovereignty?” (The News, September 14, 2008). Permission was given by General Musharraf in January 2008 — months before the PPP came into power. As far back as September 2008, the Los Angeles Times had reported that Pakistan’s military leadership had agreed to receive US military ‘advisers’. It is no longer a secret that some, if not all, drone attacks were launched from an airstrip near Quetta. Was the ISI also not aware of this?

Many ‘desi liberals’ had dismissed earlier reports of the presence of hundreds of CIA operatives as right-wing conspiracy theories. But now US officials have confirmed this to papers like the Washington Post. Moreover, they have acknowledged that Raymond Davis was a CIA agent, that he did work for Xe (formerly Blackwater), that he did live in a private home in Lahore and was so important that the CIA specifically requested the American media to not disclose his association with the agency and his background. It is therefore, no longer rational, or in fact possible, to dismiss questions about the presence, motives, activities and scale of the operations of CIA agents in Pakistan.

‘Desi liberals’ would do well to reflect upon the perception that in their zeal to fight extremism, they have by default, intent or design become defenders of the most blatant and biggest CIA ‘covert’ operation in the history of Pakistan — or, for that matter, one of the biggest in the CIA’s history.

But that is a secondary issue. The real issue is that either the ISI allowed the CIA to send hundreds of agents, and is pretending ignorance or innocence now that the beans have been spilled, or it didn’t know this in the first place — which means that questions should be asked about the agency’s job performance.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 1st, 2011.

[shami2k]

Re: Pakistan’s intelligence ready to split with CIA

This CIA agent is no diplomat | Craig Murray

This CIA agent is no diplomat
The US says Raymond Davis should have immunity in Pakistan. Just another attempt to flout the rule of law outside its borders

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Craig Murray
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 February 2011 18.12 GMT
Article history

Pakistani security officials escort Raymond Davis to a court in Lahore. Photograph: Hamza Ahmed/AP
I tread with some caution in discussing the case of Raymond Davis, the CIA agent facing charges of double murder in Pakistan and the threat of the death penalty. I add my plea to the voices urging the Pakistani government to ensure Davis does not hang.

But one thing I can state for certain: Davis (as we will call him for now) is not a diplomat and does not possess diplomatic immunity. There is some doubt as to who he really is, with the charges against him in Pakistan including one that he obtained documents using a false identity.

Watching Barack Obama’s presidency has been a stream of bitter disappointments. His endorsement of Davis as “our diplomat” and invocation of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations was, in its sheer dishonesty, as sad an Obama moment as any.

As a general rule, international treaties are written in very plain language and are very accessible. That is certainly true of the Vienna convention. Unfortunately I can see scant evidence that any journalists have bothered to read it.

Leaving aside staff of international organisations recognised by the host country as having diplomatic status (and there has been no claim yet that Davis was actually working for Unicef), in bilateral diplomatic relations the provision for diplomatic immunity is tightly limited to a very small number of people. That makes sense when you consider that if Davis did have diplomatic immunity, he would indeed be able to avoid detention and trial on a murder charge. The world community is not going to make that impunity readily available.

Full diplomatic immunity is enjoyed only by “diplomatic agents”. Those are defined at article 1 (e) of the Vienna convention as “the head of the mission or a member of the diplomatic staff of the mission”. Helpfully the diplomatic staff are further defined in the preceding article as “having diplomatic rank”. Those ranks are an ascending series of concrete titles from third secretary through to ambassador or high commissioner. Davis did not have a diplomatic rank.

But there is a second category of “administrative and technical staff” of a mission. They enjoy a limited diplomatic immunity which, however, specifically excludes “acts performed outside the course of their duties”. (Vienna convention article 37/2.) Frantic off-the-record briefing by the state department reflected widely in the media indicates that the US case is that Davis was a member of technical staff covered by this provision.

But in that case the US has to explain in the course of precisely which diplomatic duties Davis needed to carry a Glock handgun, a headband-mounted flashlight and a pocket telescope. The Vienna convention lists the legitimate duties of an embassy, and none of them need that kind of equipment.

It appears in any event unlikely that Davis ever was a member of the technical staff of the embassy or consulate. Under article 10 of the Vienna convention the host authorities must be formally informed – by diplomatic note – of the arrival and departures of such staff, and as embassies under article 11 are subject to agreed numerical limits, that in practice occurs when another member of staff is leaving. If this was not done Davis was not covered even in the course of his duties.

Pakistani senior ex-military sources tell me there is no note appointing Davis as embassy or consulate staff, and that appears to pass a commonsense test – if the note exists, why have the Americans not produced it?

Finally, possession of a diplomatic passport does not give you diplomatic status all over the world.

I hope this helps clarify a position that the US government, and the media it influences, have deliberately muddied. Sadly this whole episode reflects the US’s continuing contempt for the basic fabric of international law. It sits with its refusal to sign up to the international criminal court so that US citizens may not be held accountable for war crimes, with its acknowledged overseas assassination programme, its one-sided extradition treaties and claims of extra-territorial jurisdiction over offences committed outside the US.

We hoped it might get better under Obama. It is not.

“We’ve got a very simple principle here that every country in the world that is party to the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations has upheld in the past and should uphold in the future, and that is, if our diplomats are in another country, then they are not subject to that country’s local prosecution,” Obama said in a press conference. “We expect Pakistan, that’s a signatory and recognises Davis as a diplomat, to abide by the same convention … I’m not going to discuss the specific exchanges that we’ve had [with the Pakistani government], but we’ve been very firm about this being a priority.”

[Ali_Syed]

Re: Pakistan’s intelligence ready to split with CIA

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/guest-commentary/pakistan-a-powder-keg-we-ignore-at-our-great-peril-1.1088444

Pakistan a powder keg we ignore at our great peril

Published on 4 Mar 2011
AS volatile places go, forget Libya and Egypt for a moment.

While the world’s attention remains caught up with the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East we seem to have taken our eye off the ball when it comes to nuclear-armed Pakistan. Some very troubling things are happening there right now.

So serious is the situation, in fact, that, should it spiral out of control, we would be as well to tear up any long-term strategic blueprint for peace and stability we have for neighbouring Afghanistan.

The violence of the last few days says it all. Yesterday, it was a suicide bomber that killed nine people. The day before it was the assassination by al Qaeda-linked Pakistani Taliban of Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who challenged a law on blasphemy towards Islam.

Bhatti’s death comes barely two months after the killing of Punjab governor Salman Taseer, who was shot dead by his bodyguard for his own staunch opposition to the law that mandates the death sentence for anyone insulting Islam. What all these events point to is the unrelenting march of Islamic extremism in a strategically crucial nation, ostensibly the ally of Washington, but where US influence of late has been considerably eroded and undermined.

Just how far relations between the two nations have deteriorated is epitomised by the controversy surrounding US citizen, Raymond Davis, and the open hostility that now appears to exist between the countries’ respective intelligence agencies – the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI (Interservices Intelligence Directorate).

Davis, a contract security officer working for the CIA has claimed he acted in self defence when he shot dead two men in a busy Lahore street before being arrested by Pakistani police in January.

During the incident a third Pakistani man was killed by a US diplomatic vehicle that came to Davis’s assistance, and since then American officials have denied Pakistan access to the vehicle and the occupants are believed to have left the country.

Following an initial hearing a few weeks ago, Davis refused to sign the copy of the charge sheet, insisting he be released and claiming he had diplomatic immunity.

While a Pakistani court is due to rule on this later in March, the intervening political fallout has been immense, and the revelations that Davis was a CIA contractor has fuelled anti-American feeling within Pakistan, piling the pressure on President Asif Ali Zardari’s already fragile Government. All of this of course has given Pakistan’s Islamic extremists the spark to ignite potentially destabilising unrest across a country where many fear a strain of violent religious conservatism is rapidly becoming more mainstream in society.

By far though, it is this growing acrimony between the CIA and ISI that gives the most cause for concern.

Both organisations of course have never really had what might be called a cosy relationship.

By their very nature intelligence services are not of a sharing mindset, and in ISI’s case many in the CIA and other western agencies have long been of the view that Pakistan’s spooks have been holding out on them.

Perhaps the biggest bone of contention has been over sharing information on high-value al Qaeda, Taliban and other militant targets hiding out in Pakistan’s porous tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

In theory, ISI is meant to use its local intelligence gathering prowess to pass on names and locations to the Americans, who, mainly through the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, then launch missile attacks to kill those militants identified.

The problem is that for decades ISI has fostered surrogate Islamic militants to serve its own strategic interests in places like Kashmir and Afghanistan. Because of this, there are concerns ISI has been playing the Americans off, providing intelligence on militants it sees as a threat to Pakistan, while being less than forthcoming with information on groups that might prove handy to Islamabad when coalition forces eventually leave Afghanistan.

Some US intelligence analysts even go as far as to say ISI knows the location of senior al Qaeda and Taliban members and have simply avoided handing over such intelligence to the Americans.

According to some in Washington and elsewhere, patience with ISI is running out, and warnings have been issued that should any major terrorist strike damaging to the west be traced back to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, then Islamabad will suffer the diplomatic consequences. Just what those consequences might be however is difficult to imagine.

Probably the last thing the situation needs right now is for threats and pressure that might weaken Zardari’s Government and so play into the hands of Islamic extremists who increasingly wait in the wings anticipating the moment when they can cause maximum disruption within Pakistan.

On its own this spat between the US and Pakistan’s spies over the Raymond Davis case and sharing of intelligence would be limited cause for concern.

But, allied to the fact the Pakistan Government is both caught in the political crossfire while simultaneously failing to deliver on education, healthcare or improvements in the economy to its increasingly radicalised citizens, and the situation has the makings of a perfect political storm.

Over the past three decades Pakistan’s military and political leaders when under pressure have often appealed to Islam as a source of strength in the country. While based there in the 1980’s I well remember how the then president and military dictator, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, courted Islamist political parties and promoted orthodox Muslims in the armed forces and government bureaucracy.

In these volatile and dangerous times for Pakistan, the West must take stock of its diplomatic options in a way that will not exacerbate an already precarious situation.

Yes, the rallying call for democracy might be resounding across North Africa and the Middle East right now. For a new generation in the Arab world these are undoubtedly exciting times, full of hope and expectation.

But let’s not get carried away; not only is it early days, but in the wider Islamic world the current political climate often has a very different set of prevailing conditions.

Pakistan’s potent political brew right now is one we must handle with supreme care and ignore at our peril.

[La_Parisienne]

Re: Pakistan's intelligence ready to split with CIA

Why do many of these articles talk about "not only Davis but there are lots of other CIA agents roaming in Pakistan" as if it is a new fact or surprise? CIA has always had agents roaming every country in the world. That is how they gather intelligence. When such 'roaming' came down, that is what is cited as one of the main reasons for 9/11 to have occurred.

And given history in troubled regions you would expect more of them.

But the level of cooperation between ISI and CIA has indeed changed significantly. US (not just CIA) seems to have cornered them a bit too much and that leaves no other option but start to fight back from the ISI view.

Finally, if this friction started because of ISI relationship with the 'surrogate islamic militants' as the above article says, then the question to ask is if that could happen without sanction of the government which includes the military and so ISI.

Under these circumstances, nobody in Pakistan can be safe - especially those not seen as friends of military or one of the stronger militant groups

[Ali_Syed]

Re: Pakistan’s intelligence ready to split with CIA

http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=ar&nid=460

Time to rip the masks off!
Maimuna Ashraf

The debate on Raymond Davis has now moved much further, his identity doesn’t seem a riddle now as much has been revealed about his status. In recent times many reports have appeared regarding his status; US media itself is digging out the realities behind this case.

Lately the most famous and esteemed intelligence website of US Startfor which is being run by ex-members of CIA and American intelligence, is coming up with many reports in this regard. It recently revealed that ‘The American detained after shooting two Pakistanis, Raymond Davis, was part of a covert CIA-led team collecting intelligence and conducting surveillance on militant groups deep inside the country’. It clarified that he is not a diplomat but he is CIA contract security officer, so he cannot enjoy the relaxation and security which a diplomat do and he must have been told about this when he joined CIA. It says that before sending to Pakistan, Raymond must have been told by his company about his status, that though he is a contract officer but US government will help him in anyway in case of any unpleasant situation. Hence a reliable source that too from US itself has declared his status as a contract security officer which obviously doesn’t enjoy diplomatic immunity.

New York Times also wrote that Raymond Davis is retired army personnel, he established an intelligence company with his wife Remika Davis in 2006 which later started working for CIA. Thus different reports are coming up about his identity but none of them says that he is a diplomat. That’s why now US media is directly asking US government why US is reluctant to declare him a diplomat. Hence if it was cleared that he is non diplomat then why US State Department was silent on this identity, why spokesman of State Department said that he is not permitted to tell the actual identity of Davis and why US was reluctant to convince Pakistan that he should be given blanket immunity?

Nevertheless now the question is not merely stuck to Davis identity and status, now everything related to him has become considerable and is divulging secrets. Panic of US government, President Obama influx in the issue, arrival of John Kerry in Pakistan, Phone call to COAS of Pakistan, all these signs are thought provoking. International media and many Pakistani security analysts are suggesting that US government is in panic because Raymond Davis is an agent of Blackwater or from Joint Special Operations Command Pakistan Unit (JSOC), which is an armed group of American armed forces. Main objectives of JSOC are to overthrow government, establishment of terrorist groups against anti-US states and searching of nuclear arms. It is an intelligence terrorist group of American army. **Pakistani security analysts are saying that from the past JSOC is working against Pakistan through Afghanistan and it is involved in insurgency inside Pakistan. Russian Intelligence Agency SVR has claimed that CIA agent Raymond Davis was trying to steal Pakistani Nuclear Material to give it to terrorists so that America gets an excuse to attack Pakistan. They further said, ‘it is also found that Raymond Davis has connections with terrorist groups that are involved in terrorist attacks in Pakistan, because America wants to start a new war with any country to save dying Western economy’. These reports doesn’t seem mere stories as telephone numbers and addresses of people of TTP and Asian Tigers have been recovered from Raymond and they all were trying to establish terrorist groups in Southern Punjab. **Till now the law enforcement agencies arrested many individuals for staying in constant contact with Raymond Davis.

Subsequently now the ground realities are revealing that Davis is the head of much larger snake, the evidence, equipments and data that come out so far almost confirms his link with Tehreek-e-Taliban terrorism inside Pakistan as different attacks took place inside Pakistan on security establishment of Pakistan and as well as his link with the drone attacks are also almost confirmed. Thus now the issue is not just limited to the assassination of those two boys on the streets of Lahore but now it is of identifying the much larger network of CIA inside Pakistan, that is why we find every day our security establishment tightening more the security around Davis. This is the reason that America wants Raymond as soon as possible, and due to these realities whole episode is coming up with two interesting hypothesis, first says that any Mission Impossible type scenario can take place in order to rescue Davis, while the other says there are great chances that even the CIA can make plots to assassinate him just to make him silent because he knows much to disclose and there is much more to this incident than we are just seeing.

As Pakistani security analysts are of the view that the backup vehicle which came to rescue Davis didn’t come to rescue Davis it came to rescue a much larger target sitting in the vehicle next to him, the rescue vehicle smashed the person and gone in other direction while Davis went in other direction just to distract the attention. Panic in the US government is increasing day by day which clearly suggest that Davis has some very critical information to reveal, the information which seems to be very much related to the US operation in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and this is what Pakistan’s security establishment is very keen to know. Davis must be screened and squeezed in order to get out the information which can be extracted from him. About Davis as every body is suspicious that it’s not his real name so his real identity is yet to come and that must come out that for whom and with whom he was working for? What type of spy game is going in Pakistan? These critical questions need to be answered. The spy game which is going on in Pakistan should be disclosed now. Obviously the revelations which can come out from Davis is raising extremely huge pressure for US government and the pressure is now coming over to Pakistan to hand over Davis to US, but the issue is now almost out of the hand of Pakistani government and now it’s more in the hand of Army and security establishment. So now the Americans are totally confused and in panic situation as the Pakistani security establishment are firm, they are holding the tight squadron around Davis till the time they acquire the required information. To rip the masks is the demand of nation and time!