The American assassin held in Pakistan for shooting two people dead on the street was not just a random guy who wandered off his AARP tour bus, but in fact is a soldier of fortune employed by the CIA to murder people in foreign countries. Working for one of the thousands of covert assassination teams you pay for with your tax dollars, “Raymond A. Davis, a retired Special Forces soldier, carried out scouting and other reconnaissance missions for a Central Intelligence Agency task force of case officers and technical surveillance experts.” The people are rising up around the world, revolutions are arranged via Facebook and Twitter, you can watch HD videos of teenagers cutting themselves on your wireless telephone, but the American Government still conducts its international business the same way it did a half-century ago.
Mr. Davis’s arrest and detention, which came after what American officials have described as a botched robbery attempt, has inadvertently pulled back the curtain on a web of covert American operations inside Pakistan, part of a secret war run by the C.I.A. It has exacerbated already frayed relations between the American intelligence agency and its Pakistani counterpart, created a political dilemma for the weak, pro-American Pakistani government, and further threatened the stability of the country, which has the world’s fastest growing nuclear arsenal.
The only real difference between the clumsy brutality of Yankee thugs today and 50 years ago is we no longer have a Graham Greene to turn this human garbage into compelling literature. Not that anybody would buy compelling literature today …. [NYT]
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The chickens are coming home to roost, and it appears that they are heavily armed.
Those are pigeons, and someone's been feeding them laxatives.
Chicken! RUN!
Buzzards.
(Blackwater-Xe)
But worry not, his pension plan and medical benefits are secure.
So what's the bad news?
Cant a Drone fix this?
Are we talking about the kind that fly around and hit wedding parties with Hellfire missiles, or the kind that wear a suit and sit in a cubicle using antiseptic bureaucratese to justify hitting wedding parties with Hellfire missiles? Either way, the answer is yes.
Predators Drones: The Cause of, and Solution to, All of Life's Problems.
Our Man in Peshawar.
Look, other countries, if you don't want CIA trained would-be super spies who've read too much Tom Clancy gunning people down in your streets then you should stop being in areas we consider to be of strategic interest to us. This is as much your fault as ours: it takes two to tango right?
Amanda Knox also.
Raymond A. Davis can cut guns in half with his mind.
he's got sparkly eyes too
…but does he stare at goats?
…awwwwwww, the good 'ol days! When a communist spy could be found shot twice in the back of the head and hung and the CIA would declare it a suicide!
They still do.
They still do.
They still do.
They still do.
I couldn't open your last two but wanted to add another one. This was in the 90's but yeah, another day at the office for the CIA. http://www.citizenslaw.org/Casolaro.htm
When I first heard this story two weeks ago, all I could think of was George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt et al in a 2015 movie. This is like Syriana, Men Who Stare at Goats, Bourne Identity all rolled into one. Can anyone be surprised that this was a planned hit and that this guy is a spy?
If it was a planned hit, I want my money back. Spies are suppose to fall into the dark night after a hit. There's no excuse for being shitty at your job.
Raymond Davis must have thought he was in Arizona.
In last week's edition of the Economist, they reported that Mr. Davis worked for Hyperion Protective Consultants, whose motto is "Your first choice in loss and risk management." They also reported he shot one man in the front and three times in the back.
I don't know if he would be my first choice in risk management.
It would depend on who he shot. I can think of several people whose elimination would reduce my risk.
Well, we may not have Graham Greene, but there's probably a George Clooney move in it.
As long as there's a good car fight, I'll watch it.
Michael Bay is on it!
Needs moar T&A.
Well, then, we'll add in bitchy, irreverent Meghan Fox for good measure.
Got to be better than "The American." What a dumbass movie!
In the NYT article, it mentions a botched rescue attempt by the consulate that killed a motorcyclist… "As the Land Cruiser drove “recklessly” back to the consulate, the report said, items fell out of the vehicle, including 100 bullets, a black mask and a piece of cloth with the American flag."
A black mask, bullets and an American flag? Jeebus H. Criminy- you mean they forgot the CIA stationary and pictures of Leon Panetta?
Yep, they've got the whole chain of command framed and hanging in every CIA technical.
Having a hard time filling Valerie Plame's shoes are they?
they let the American flag touch the ground? isn't that blasphemy?
In some states, sure. I even hear that saying The Lord's name in vain is like a Class A felony in the South.
You can't make this shit up, huh?
He should have worked for Black Water. That way he would have gotten flown out of the country for killing before he was caught. This is why the private sector is the place to be if your an unhinged mercenary.
My understanding is that he did work for Blackwater/Xe but was let go.
Couldn't make it in the private sector, back to the public tit with its promise of immunity!
I believe he *did* work for Blackwater, aka XE. So The Guardian says, anyway.
…but the American Government still conducts its international business the same way it did a half-century ago.
And it's working on conducting its domestic business the same way it did a century ago. How long before the army is called in to bust strikes, like in the good ol' days?
~
300 Wisconistan National Guard members were welcomed back from Iraq yesterday by Scott Walker. Care to take a guess as to their next deployment?
Hey, National Guard! Stay away from Suds McKenzie and Natl_Indecency_Cmdr!!!!!! They have Wonketeer immunity from prosecution.
Moar Kent State, Pleeze!
Come on, do you really want a new James Bond movie unless they test market the plot first?
Who needs compelling literature when you can govern ala Michael Bay?
Looks like out little stalker and pulled his hand out of his own ass and has been downfisting folks. I upfisted as many as I could only to come back later and find those self-same folks downfisted again. Serial downfisting? Drive by trolling?
At least Eleanor said somthing then down fisted us! This guy can't even snark first. LAME!!!!!!!
Gol durn it! I'm never goin' to get my p-ness to 100 at this rate.
(I almost wrote "3-digit p-ness" but since I already use 5 …)
I gotta coupla spam I can forward to you that promise to solve that exact problem.
Leave no Wonketter behind! Have an up-fist.
Is that why I have only 70 peee?
That could very well be. IntenseDefeat counts down thumbs more heavily than up thumbs, or so I've heard. I have no idea why this is.
Will this little problem rise like a Phoenix from its own ashes? Nah, that was the prehistoric whack-a-mole pogrom in Vietnam. Now we use drones, which are harder to catch, and if caught the following trial and execution of the drone don't fire-up the locals so much.
However, the drones blowing up wedding parties seems to irritate the locals no end.
They are just so picky about what constitutes appropriate social behavior.
They showed the trial of TR-425 on Onion News the other night.
American diplomacy is an oxymoron.
As is American Intelligence.
American Exceptalism! If it was any other country who send someone in to assassinate people, American Wingnuts would be the first ones to scream that they are a Terrorist State.
So. . . . where are all those pro-life republicans who always complain about their tax dollars being used for shit that goes against their beliefs?
Oh, yeah. They are off polishing their hypocrisy until it shines.
Didnt even bother to give us some Vodka-Ass pictures first.
Pussy. Sara Palin would nevar have been taken alive.
Geez, in the movie I'm now playing in my head, Raymond Davis is just a poor schmoe, ala Hitchcock's North by Northwest, they finally decided to give up in place of the real CIA agents who would need to have their families taken care of….
If he hadn't stop to lick vodka off their asses, he would have never been caught. This is why you don't privatize some things.
HAHAHAHAHA!
This is just like the Watergate sabateurs getting caught by that random piece of tape discovered by that random security guard. Well, it's not, but hopefully someone, somewhere will bring this up in a deliberative body that might make a difference.
Jesus, I'm getting so vague that I'm just typing nonsense now, like the WaPo editorial staff (and Brooks).
We should just start outsourcing this stuff to the Chinese, like everything else.
We should give up on trying to rule the world, as have the Mongols, the Russians, the Spanish, the English….
So David Blow – is the U.S. the worst in the world at running covert operations involving the killing of foreign nationals?
A: Why yes they are.
A botched robbery? HAHAHAHAHA!
Hawt damn. Our boys are back and as good as ever. Intelligence is our middle name.
Good thing this didn't come by way of Wikileaks or else it could be bad news for diplomacy.
Not to mention John McCain.
" . . . inadvertently pulled back the curtain on a web of covert American operations . . . " Superb writing as usual, Timesians. Still, not grammatically illegal, as was this gem from Friday: "In the Ugandan general election, voting proceeded in an orderly, albeit slowly, fashion."
Fishwrap of Record.
Why can't America's real-life spies be super sexy chicks in tight outfits, like Jennifer Garner or Scarlett Johansson? At least Russia knew to send them to spy on us.
We just can't have anything nice, can we?
This is a country that made Snooki a bigger star than Jennifer Garner and Scarlett Johansson put together. Do we deserve anything "nice"?
No, I suppose we don't deserve anything nice – not when you put it like that.
"Jennifer Garner and Scarlett Johansson put together" – I like. Can we make that happen? I really want that to happen. (No, I have no life, what's your point?)
Personally, I would say both Jennifer Garner and Scarlett Johansson are already put together. Very nicely.
They were conning the Kremlin out of money for houses, etc.
Expect some more of that quaintly named "blowback" shortly, American friends…
I see Mr. Davis also prefers the Glock.
Is "blowback" when you sneeze onto the mirror through the rolled up hundred dollar bill held to your nose?
At least the guys he whacked were ISI (and therefore likely to kill and/or torture him given the chance) and not random wedding guests (the CIA's normal target of choice).
ISI guys can't be going to weddings?
Pakistan is this generation's Byzantium.
At least this fuckup won't get blamed on Australia's torn-condom albino.
I am shocked! Raymond Davis worked for the CIA. Who would have ever thought that?
Don't blame the NYTimes. They dutifully concealed the perpetrators link to the CIA. The Guardian spilled the beans and then the State Department handed out a permission slip to NYTimes to publish actual facts.
Needs more shirtless Matt Damon. And cowbell.
Genius Alt Text.
This was one of the plots for Burn Notice. Old news. Nothing to see here. Move on.
Why can't the CIA find out what Russian agency Sarah has been working for all these years? Come on everybody call your spies home and we'll all start over. In 3. 1, 2,
I had wondered what Ray was up to since the Kinks disbanded.
Blowback is a bitch, to paraphrase Chalmers Johnson.
Since the Pakistani ISI is backing the Afghan Taliban who oppose the American CIA in order to secure Kashmir from India the only thing that makes sense out of all this is people are dead.
That's kind of my feeling, no snark. What makes this newsworthy is how sloppy we've gotten. It's like we just stop trying. Our James Bond is now a dude in a flannel shirt.
Our James Bond has always been a dude in a flannel shirt, at least metaphorically. A dude in a flannel shirt with delusions of James Bond-hood.
Why are the Pakistanis cockblocking us? I mean, shouldn't we be able to let the eagle soar without this kind of abuse from these people? I'm starting to suspect that that one guy was right. "They hate us for our freedom." Oh, well. Sorry. I didn't mean to drone on.
"“We all know the spy-versus-spy games, we all know it works in the shadows,” the official said, “but you don’t get caught, and you don’t get caught committing murders.” "
Well, maybe if you didn't have people named Raymond freakin Davis tryin to be all clandestine in Lahore. I mean, Leon Panetta himself would fit in better.
Gee. What's this world coming to when an American assassin is arrested in a foreign country for simply fulfilling his job description? Snark off.
The sad thing is, all three yokels involved were "just doing their jobs."
So our trained killer killed their trained killers? I bet it was over a girl. Mr. Davis broke the cardinal rule, bro's before ho's!
Oh, absolutely. Jukesgrrl just sparked my imagination by saying that and I ran with it. Yummy.
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