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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kumar who wrote (417906)	3/21/2011 4:50:02 PM
From: Brian Sullivan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794327

It was recently paid by the USA in order to secure the release of Raymond Davis Blood money well spent EXASPERATING AS it may be, the US-Pakistan relationship is too important to be undone because of an obscure cloak-and-dagger incident. So praise is due to the American and Pakistani officials who obtained the release of CIA contractor Raymond Davis, who stood accused of murdering two Pakistani men who were allegedly armed and threatening him. A third Pakistani was run over and killed by a US embassy vehicle seeking to extract Davis from the crime scene. After much debate over whether Pakistan would allow for diplomatic immunity and release Davis to the United States, American and Pakistani officials arranged a religiously sanctioned payment of “blood money’’ to the families of the men who were killed in a still-murky incident in January. In a country where anti-American feelings run extremely high — inflamed by US missile attacks on Al Qaeda and Taliban targets inside Pakistan, and stoked by a conspiratorial-minded national media — furor over the Davis case had cast a pall over efforts to improve cooperation between the two governments. Minor parties have staged protests against Davis’s release, but since Shariah law permits the payment of blood money and the forgiving of Davis by the victims’ relatives, the largest religious party in Pakistan has been notably restrained. The manner in which the crisis was resolved serves both Pakistani and American interests. The Pakistani government and military saved face, resolving the problem without compromising their country’s sovereignty. The Obama administration got its man back without the dangerous precedent of a Pakistani court ruling that Davis was not entitled to diplomatic immunity. What must come next is a reconciliation between the CIA and its Pakistani counterpart, the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency. The ISI wants to know about CIA officers and contract employees entering Pakistan. Such professional courtesy is commonly granted between allied intelligence organizations, and should be observed with Pakistan. But Washington is no less entitled to know the full extent of ISI connections to the Afghan Taliban and all terrorist groups operating in Pakistan.