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Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Fall of the American Empire



The current turmoil in the Arab world that shows no signs of ending has an extra dimension which is usually glossed over in the stirring debates about the valiant Arabs' determination to free themselves from dictatorship. It is the simple fact that most Arab dictators are indebted to successive American governments for their hold on power. At the height of the Egyptian uprising, when Tahrir Square was filled to overflowing with fearless men and women, and the fall of Hosni Mubarak looked imminent, it was sickening to see the faces of the hypocrites Obama and Clinton suddenly pop up on TV screens, babbling on about an orderly transition of power. The distress they felt at the impending loss of their puppet oozed out of their hypocritical words and it was obvious that their primary concern was to get the spent Mubarak quickly replaced by another yes-man. No one brought out this ugly reality better than Robert Fisk, writing in The Independent. It was a marvellous period, watching the intrepid Egyptians taking on the brutal and cunning Mubarak, and reading Robert Fisk's lucid and perceptive reports. 



So, what is happening in the Middle East today is both a push for freedom by the long-suffering Arabs and a weakening of the USA's grip on its client states. Eventually, as true democracy begins to take shape in the Arab countries, a direct clash with the Americans looms on the horizon. That kind of clash has already taken place in Pakistan, which has exposed the USA's ugly face and will, inevitably, lead to a loss of American influence in Pakistan.


Robert Fisk




The Pretender fails to get himself crowned in Pakistan


For the last three weeks an American contract killer has been languishing in prison, having murdered two young men in a run down area of Lahore, Pakistan, on 27 January.  This is an astonishing development,  coming from the land where Queen Anne [ see Queen of Pakistan ] ruled with such aplomb just three months ago. This shows that the pretender to her throne, Cameron Munter, has failed abysmally to get himself crowned king. In the space of three short weeks he has moved rather quickly from heir apparent to a figure of fun: the fool, whose job it used to be to keep the monarch entertained. Only, the people being entertained are the poor, dispossessed people of Pakistan!


But the Pakistanis have paid a heavy price for witnessing the spectacle put on by the American clowns (yes, Munter is not the only fool around!). Apart from the two men shot dead by the hired killer - who, on being arrested, described himself as a 'consultant' to the American consulate in Lahore - another young man was crushed to death as a US consulate vehicle sped to the scene of crime in a vain attempt to snatch the murderer to safety. The upshot was that the hired killer, whose name has been given as Raymond Davis, is in police custody while the would-be rescuers who crushed an innocent Pakistani have been whisked out of Pakistan, beyond the reach of law. To rub salt into the wounds, the American Consulate General in Lahore refused to hand over the rescue vehicle to the police.


In the meantime, the young widow of one of the murdered men committed suicide when it appeared that Z, Gilani, and their henchmen were up to their usual tricks of completing an underhand deal with their American paymasters at the expense of hapless Pakistanis. Married six months earlier, the dying bride told the doctors fighting to save her life that she did not expect to receive justice from the pack currently ruling Pakistan. If only she could have foreseen the public's backlash that hit the Americans and their stooges shortly after her death!


The clowns of North America


The rising public anger rattled the Pakistani government, which was under immense pressure from the Americans to offer retrospective blanket amnesty to the hired killer, effective from a date well before the murders on 27 January. The Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, dared to speak the truth that diplomatic status had never been extended to Davis for the simple reason that he did not qualify as a diplomat [ever heard of a diplomat roaming around, armed with hi-tech weapons and pumping bullets into the backs of peoople?]. The response of the upstart Qureshi incensed Munter, who immediately contacted his boss, the formidable Clinton. She came down like a ton of bricks on the bewildered Qureshi who, to his credit, held firm. The angry woman cancelled her scheduled meeting with Qureshi and threatened him with serious consequences. True to her word, she and her boss Obama, got their puppets Z and Gilani to get rid of Qureshi. He was summarily kicked out as Foreign Minister and offered an inferior ministry, which he refused. Outside the government, he is proving a formidable hurdle to the machinations of the appalling Z, Gilani and their fellow conspirators.


So, the mighty Clinton had failed, too. What was left? The senators and members of the Congress in the USA, of course. A stream of warnings issued forth, telling Pakistanis to toe the line or face dire consequences. The tremulous gang of Z and Co found itself in a quandry. The case was being decided on by the courts over which the government had no control and, in any case, the people were out in force demonstrating against the suspected deal between Pakistan's puppet govenment and its puppeteers in Washington. Eventually, the super clown Obama appeared on American television and told the Pakistanis that they MUST release Davis because he was protected by "diplomatic immunity" under the Vienna conventions, murders or no murders.


Obama and the rest of his team seem quite ignorant of the new realities in Pakistan where the Judiciary is now free, and independent of the Executive. Eventually, the group of American clowns realised that if all the threats that they had issued were carried out, the harm to the USA's Afghan war would far outweigh anything they might inflict on Pakistan. That called for a change of strategy, of course! So, Senator John Kerry was despatched to Pakistan with a high-level delegation to "knock sense" into the Pakistanis. Kerry was fully aware of his government's ridiculous position - the poor man was reduced to clutching at straws by quoting from the statements of the scatter brained Fauzia Wahab who, until yesterday, was the ruling party's Secretary of Information. Kerry and his team left Pakistan with a better idea of the ground realities but still without their man.


In the comments section of my blog post "The End of Conspiracy Theories", I have given links to articles which explain the background to the lengthening spat between the USA government and Pakistani people. To learn about the latest developments, click the links below:


The Raymond Davis Fiasco
Raymond Davis - the facts
'The News International' editorial


A Trojan horse in Pakistan


Supplementing the shrieks and threats of the Clowns of North America, there have been the activities of men and women sitting in a Trojan horse stationed in Pakistan.  This group is a mix of Americans and their Pakistani stooges. For example an American-controlled publication, The Express Tribune, has started publishing biased editorials and articles which distort facts and poke fun at the Pakistani nation. Let us look at this editorial, which shamelessly distorts the facts and looks for support to the laughable Fauzia Wahab of the ruling party! 


The Tribune editorial   In the comment box I offered my observation to the effect that it was indeed a comical sight to see the editor dangling from the apron strings of Fauzia Wahab! My comment was censored.


An example of an article by a Pakistani lackey: Not for the court to decide


I left a comment wondering if some Pakistanis were determined to prove the Americans right when they humiliate Pakistanis by declaring that the latter would sell their mothers for American dollars. Again, this comment was censored.


Then there are the brainwashed and westernised Pakistanis, educated by foreigners and ignorant of their own history, culture and language. For these people, devoid of any sense of self-esteem as a Pakistani, the concept of honour - 'ghairat'  غیرت -  exists only for foreigners but not for Pakistanis. Here is one example where the writer supports the American position on Davis by poking fun at her own people:


http://tribune.com.pk/story/119878/ghairat-and-other-issues/


This article is a good example of the sort of trash that people churn out when they write for money or to please others. I did leave a comment on some of the author's manic pronouncements - my comment escaped the censorial scissors presumably because my target was no longer the USA.


Was Raymond Davis taking part in a sophisticated "false flag" operation?
                                                                                         
According to a seemingly anti-USA website, Davis's arrest has averted another "9/11" that the American CIA had conspired to launch: 
         
Stranger than fiction?





Tailpiece (added 3March 2011)


An article by Craig Murray, published in The Guardian on 28 February, exposes the reality of Raymond Davis with brutal clarity:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/28/cia-agent-diplomat-pakistan-raymond-davis?


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."



9 comments:

Noor said...

A report in The Guardian today leaves no doubt that Davis works for the CIA. Under pressure from the US government, the American media have suppressed this fact. Below is the link to The Guardian's report.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/20/us-raymond-davis-lahore-cia

Pakistan's Nemesis said...

Mr. Blogger, whether Mr. Raymond Davies was a killer or acted in exercise of self-defense will be known if and only if he is tried in a "proper court of law". Certainly not in sham Pakistani courts where women like Aasiya Bibi are condemned on flimsy grounds of blasphemy.

With reference to "ever heard of a diplomat roaming around, armed with hi-tech weapons and pumping bullets into the backs of peoople?", you seem to have forgotten that a diplomat from another "great islamic nation" fired at a woman Constable Yvonne Fletcher and walked free from the Libyan Mission in London.
At 10:18 on the morning of 17 April 1984, shots were fired into the group of protestors, striking eleven people, including Fletcher. The unarmed officer died of a stomach wound approximately an hour after arriving at hospital. Meanwhile, Libyan radio reported that the embassy was stormed and that those in the building fired back in self-defense against "a most horrible terrorist action".

The subsequent inquest into her death was told that Fletcher was killed by shots from two Sterling submachine guns from the first floor of the Libyan embassy.

Following the shooting, the embassy was surrounded by armed police for eleven days, in the longest police siege in London's history. Meanwhile, Gaddafi expressed 'disgust'that his diplomats were not being permitted diplomatic immunity, and Libyan soldiers surrounded Britain's embassy in Tripoli in response.

The British Government eventually resolved the incident by allowing the embassy staff to depart the bureau and then expelling them from the country. Britain then broke off diplomatic relations with Libya.

So Mr. Blogger, do not as usual dish out nonsense and mislead readers. The world knows about Paki notoriety and lawlessness. The men who were killed were no saints and there are indications that Davis was an embassy personnel with diplomatic cover and falsely implicated on the charge of murder.

Sakib Ahmad said...

Thank you for comparing the USA with Libya. I agree that both show no respect for human rights and international law.

You are absolutely right about the atrocity committed by a bona fide Libyan diplomat in 1984 when Yvonne Fletcher was murdered. The USA has gone one up, getting its hired killer to murder TWO people, and claiming diplomatic status for him AFTERWARDS! What makes this episode so totally revolting is the fact that two ruthless men were sent in a second vehicle to snatch the double killer to safety but they succeeded only in crushing an innocent person to death. These killers are now said to have been flown out of the country by the Americans!

Right now the sadistic Gaddafi is carrying out a massacre of his own people while his counterpart in the USA, the hypocrite Obama, is engaged in a macabre act of genocide in Pakistan - the drone strikes have commenced again after a lull following the arrest of Davis.

The American justice is indeed most perverse when it comes to adjudicating between Americans and non-Americans. A good example is that of Dr Afia Siddiqui who was sentenced to 86 years' imprisonment for allegedly pointing a gun at an American army officer, not in the USA but in Afghanistan! Similarly, the USA media lack the integrity to criticise the government's unjust actions for fear of harming "national" interests.

Davis, having committed a crime in Pakistan, must be tried there. The USA government is free to send the top legal brains to defend Davis in open court. An open court, however, is the last thing that the USA government would want because it cannot afford for its web of conspiracies to be uncovered. As the GUARDIAN report explains, Davis was a CIA agent engaged in highly dubious activities (click on the last link in the post above to get some idea of the fearful possibilities).

Lost-in-cyberspace said...

A New York Times report goes even further than the Guardian report. No doubt your visitor from Israel would be interested in reading it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/world/asia/22pakistan.htm?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Sakib Ahmad said...

The uncle of the young widow who committed suicide has been beaten up and forcibly poisoned to get the family to withdraw charges against Davis:

http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/International/24-Feb-2011/Shumailas-uncle-forced-to-take-poisonous-pills

There are also reports that some politicians and religious parties are putting pressure on the family not to accept offers of "blood money" from the Americans.

The plot is thickening. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice might say in her Wonderland.

Anonymous said...

If you check out the comments under the Murray article you'll read that the author modified his views significantly.

Sakib Ahmad said...

In a sensitive subject such as this it is risky getting into a debate with an anonymous person. If you are an American supporter then you would no doubt be glad to be clutching at straws. There is a lot of nit picking in the debate on Craig Murray’s article, which does not get the USA off the hook.

Craig’s last comment on the debate was:

“Diplomatic Notes are indeed numbered. The correct form would be for it to go from the US Embassy in Pakistan to the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, and the Embassy series would normally simply be numbered with a number and year, eg Note No 468/10.

I suspect the US may be trying to conflate a visa application covered by a state department communication issued in Washington with formal notification to the Pakistani authorities of membership of the Mission. That would not wash, and could well be why they won't produce it.”

Under intense pressure from the two-faced Americans, things seem to be moving towards a secret deal. There are dark insinuations of a deal between the CIA and the ISI, with the tacit agreement of the PPP and the PML(N). To avoid miscarriage of justice it may be best to refer the case to the International Court of Justice, as suggested by Asif Ezdi:

http://thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=34830&Cat=9

Anonymous said...

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Micky Mouse America is dying
_____________________________
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www.MickyMouseAmerica.wordpress.com
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Time for America is now finished.
America will soon die and with it, the international terrorism will die as well.

Read the website of white American, Alex Jones, www.PrisonPlanet.com , where he says that the deadly tsuname in Japan was artificial and it was ignited the biggest terrorist of the world, Micky Mouse America.

You can also check Alex Jones' videos on youtube.

-

Sakib Ahmad said...

Anonymous,

The USA-bashing is not enough. We need to move on to nation building. To do that there has to be a fundamental change in society and in people's attitudes. Any positive solutions?

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