File this under very strange, to say the least.
In a nutshell:
The American arrested in Pakistan for killing two Pakistanis turns out to be a CIA agent/contractor (not a US diplomat) and former Blackwater guy, who also may have been dealing with the Taliban up to and including providing them with biowarfare secrets!
Weird right? More detail below.
First up here are the five articles that talk about the case. I have gone through them and tried to summarize as best as I can
1. http://www.zerohedge.com/...
2. http://www.thestar.com/...
3. http://edition.cnn.com/...
4. http://www.salon.com/...
5. http://in.news.yahoo.com/...
Background:
In Jan. 27, 36-year-old Raymond Davis was arrested by police in Lahore after he shot and killed two local men who he says were trying to rob him as he drove through the city in a white Honda Civic.
Davis reportedly fired nine times with his Glock and hit the two would-be robbers seven times. Pakistani officials say he shot one of his armed assailants in the back, which justifies a murder charge against him.
Davis was taken to jail and is awaiting his fate. In the meantime stories around what really happened and what Davis was really up to are spreading like wildfire.
Cover-up:
At first the US tried to claim Davis had diplomatic immunity. But journalists dug up that he was in fact a CIA agent/contractor and a former XE/Blackwater agent.
Davis began working for the CIA nearly four years ago. He was assigned to Pakistan in late 2009. He was living with other security personnel at a safehouse in Lahore before the shooting incident.
And there is this commentary:
"Suppose we not only lie about the fact that he's a spy, but we lie about the fact that he has anything to do with the embassy in Islamabad. And then, to top it all off, not only is he not in Islamabad, he's in Lahore. He's not even working in the premises of the consulate. He's working in a secret facility that we have not announced. The Vienna Convention specifically obligates the U.S. to tell Pakistan about where their premises are. And not only that, he's carrying a weapon -- we didn't tell the Pakistanis that," Mlotek says. "At what point do you say the diplomatic note was not valid?"
We also have the US apparently leaning on a number of media outlets not to cover the whole story.
Link:
Davis’s link to the C.I.A. was first mentioned in the western press on Sunday by the London Guardian newspaper after several U.S. news organizations, including a Denver TV channel, the Associated Press and The New York Times, agreed to hold stories about Davis’s shadowy employer.
A columnist on Salon.com wrote Monday that the Times, America’s most influential broadsheet, should be “humiliated” for “allowing the U.S. Government to run around affirmatively depicting Davis as some sort of Holbrooke-like diplomat" while it concealed “ highly relevant information about Davis because the Obama administration told it to.”
The Colorado TV channel 9News learned of Davis’s link after tracking down his wife. She referred a reporter to his employer, a C.I.A. spokesperson in Washington. 9News reported the development, but quickly deleted the story from its Website.
The Real Story:
When you think it can't get any weirder, there is now this from the Russians.
Double murder-accused US official Raymond Davis has been found in possession of top-secret CIA documents, which point to him or the feared American Task Force 373 (TF373) operating in the region, providing Al-Qaeda terrorists with "nuclear fissile material" and "biological agents," according to a report.
Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is warning that the situation on the sub-continent has turned "grave" as it appears that open warfare is about to break out between Pakistan and the United States, The European Union Times reports.
The most ominous point in this SVR report is "Pakistan's ISI stating that top-secret CIA documents found in Davis's possession point to his, and/or TF373, providing to al Qaeda terrorists "nuclear fissile material" and "biological agents", which they claim are to be used against the United States itself in order to ignite an all-out war in order to re-establish the West's hegemony over a Global economy that is warned is just months away from collapse," the paper added.
Conspiracy theories:
Now like everyone else I love a good conspiracy theory, but I also realize that most are just that, theories, and pretty flimsy ones at that. This one though is starting to look more and more interesting. We have all the ingredients of a great story. American spy, the CIA, the Russians, documents with a CIA - Taliban connection, and US media suppression.
Thoughts?????