Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
This call for resolution of the diplomatic crisis surrounding Raymond Davis appears today (actually Monday, local time) in Pakistan. In my dreams, the writer was influenced by our embassy's Machiavellian public diplomacy team. Well, I can dream.
Cut the Gordian knot
Having a trial for Davis in the U.S. is unwarranted, however, I see no reason why we could not have a face-saving judicial review of some sort, one that would no doubt find he acted in self-defense. (A Pakistani court would probably come to the same conclusion itself, absent the political pressures they would face if they tried Davis).
This strikes me as workable. The Pakistani government sends Davis home with a great harrumphing and a wag of its finger, the embassy sincerely apologizes for the loss of four lives, a review board in the U.S. finds that Davis was justifiably in fear for his life, and both governments tactfully avoid the subject of the driver of the second car.
It's got to work better than what we're doing now.
Cut the Gordian knot
S Iftikhar Murshed
Monday, February 14, 2011
There has been stern criticism as well as exaggerated approbation on my article of February 7 in this newspaper on the Raymond Davis incident. The criticism was more instructive than the appreciation in as much as it demonstrated that unbridled emotion, no matter how sincere and spontaneous, impedes rational discourse. The reality is that the situation has rapidly deteriorated into a full blown diplomatic crisis which is becoming more serious by the day.
This is evident from reports in the American print media, aired as breaking news by almost all Pakistani television channels, that if Davis is not released by February 11, Washington would close its consulates in Pakistan, ask Ambassador Haqqani to leave the US, and cancel President Zardari’s visit to Washington. Though this was denied by the US Embassy in Islamabad, it highlights the escalating tension between the two countries.
Under dispute is whether or not Raymond Davis is entitled to diplomatic immunity after shooting dead two allegedly armed men, Muhammad Faheem and Faizan Haider, in Lahore, on the presumption that they were about to do him harm. A third fatality was that of a man crushed by a US Consulate vehicle speeding helter-skelter down the wrong end of a one-way road in a desperate attempt to reach Davis.
The Shakespearian soliloquy “when sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions,” proved depressingly true with yet another related death. In desperation, Faheem’s grief-stricken 18-year-old widow, Shumaila Kanwal, committed suicide on February 6. As she breathed her last, she lamented that she did not “expect any justice from this government” and pleaded: “I want blood for blood. The way my husband was shot, the killer should be shot in the same fashion”. This heart rending tragedy has further inflamed public anger and is fraught with serious consequences.
It is possible that Shumaila might not have taken her own life had the federal government, and more specifically, the foreign office, come forth with the facts. She did not “expect any justice from this government” because she was unaware of the whole truth which was drowned by her overpowering grief and the din of the popular outcry against the killings. No person in authority dared to state publicly that: (i) Raymond Davis had no apparent motive to kill her husband and his companion other than the claim that he perceived a threat to his life from them and had acted in self-defence; (ii) the right of self-defence is conceded by the Pakistan Penal Code; (iii) the argument advanced by some commentators that the response to a perceived life threat should be proportionate is nebulous, vague, and cannot be quantified, and; (iv) if Davis is a member of the technical staff of the US Embassy as claimed by the Americans, he has diplomatic immunity under article 37 (2) of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Silence on the part of the government fuelled sensational media reports as a result of which emotions soared sky high. The tragedy has been exploited with abandon by politicians, retired bureaucrats and military officials, commentators and intellectuals alike mostly for no higher motive than self-projection. The refrain that has been reiterated time and again in television talk shows is that Pakistan is a sovereign country, it must therefore stand up to US pressure and enforce its laws. This is as it should be, but the ground realities are somewhat different. The state has surrendered territorial sovereignty to terrorist groups in parts of the tribal areas, ideological and perhaps even political sovereignty to the religious right, and economic sovereignty to external donors.
Excessive caution and prevarication have generated a diplomatic crisis which could have been avoided had the government come out openly on whether or not Davis has diplomatic immunity. Its Hamlet-like indecision has placed it in a situation where it has to navigate through treacherous waters and the options available are not only limited but also difficult. If Davis is released under American pressure, the government may not be able to withstand the tidal wave of protests particularly after the Shumaila Kanwal suicide. The beneficiaries would be the extremist elements who would unleash a reign of nationwide terror. There would be more violence, more suicide bombings, more target killings and the ongoing military operations against terrorist outfits would receive a severe setback.
Should the government stand firm and proceed with Davis’ trial, the consequences would be equally disastrous. The bitter truth is that Pakistan, which spends a trillion rupees more than it earns and has one of the lowest tax to GDP ratios in the world, is dependent for its survival on external assistance by far the biggest portion of which comes either directly from the United States or through American-controlled international financial institutions. According to Christine Fair of the Georgetown University, it is a pity that Pakistan, which has sufficient resources of its own, “must grovel at the table of the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral and bilateral donors.” If Washington were to terminate, or even curtail, economic and military aid, not only would the government collapse but the country would hurtle towards chaos and anarchy. In such an eventuality, the only winners would again be the terrorist groups.
There is however a possible face-saving way out of this situation. The Gordian Knot can still be cut but it entails initial compromise by Pakistan which can always be followed by decisive action to assert its sovereignty. The compromise lies in conceding diplomatic immunity to Raymond Davis as per article 37 (2) of the Vienna Convention. Islamabad would have fulfilled its obligations under international law because of the official notification by the US government that Davis is a member of the technical staff at its embassy in Islamabad.
The firm course of action would involve promptly declaring Raymond Davis persona non grata. Under article 9 of the Convention: “The receiving State may at any time and without having to explain its decision notify the sending State that the head of mission or any member of the diplomatic staff is persona non grata or that any other member of the staff of the mission is not acceptable.” If the sending state does not comply with this demand, the receiving state is not obliged to recognise the person as a member of the mission and may therefore initiate legal proceedings against him.
For such an outcome, Washington would also have to make concessions. Since it has claimed that Davis is a member of the technical staff at the US Embassy in Islamabad, it should apologise for the deaths its officials have caused. Second, it should give a public assurance that Davis and the persons in the speeding vehicle, if they are American nationals, will face trial in the US. If they are locally recruited, then they should be handed over to the Pakistani government so they can be brought to justice.
These measures have to be taken quickly. The longer the delay, the more intense the popular outrage is likely to become. Procrastination is not only the thief of time, but it also eliminates opportunities which usually exist only for a brief moment.
Having a trial for Davis in the U.S. is unwarranted, however, I see no reason why we could not have a face-saving judicial review of some sort, one that would no doubt find he acted in self-defense. (A Pakistani court would probably come to the same conclusion itself, absent the political pressures they would face if they tried Davis).
This strikes me as workable. The Pakistani government sends Davis home with a great harrumphing and a wag of its finger, the embassy sincerely apologizes for the loss of four lives, a review board in the U.S. finds that Davis was justifiably in fear for his life, and both governments tactfully avoid the subject of the driver of the second car.
It's got to work better than what we're doing now.
Raymond Ibrahim (bio here) has a post on his website that cites some of the worries voiced by Official Washington about the radicalization of domestic Muslims. Congress worries about that a lot.
Official Washington also worries about radicalization of Muslims outside the U.S., but, in the case of foreign Muslims, it thinks it has a solution to the problem - we can counter radicalization with all sorts of programs to 'promote liberty and democracy' abroad.
This leads Ibrahim to ask a really excellent question about Muslim radicalization, one that has implications for our whole overseas effort:
If American Muslims, who enjoy Western benefits — including democracy, liberty, prosperity, and freedom of expression — are still being radicalized, why then do we insist that the importation of those same Western benefits to the Muslim world will eliminate its even more indigenous or authentic form of "radicalization"?
After all, the mainstream position, the only one evoked by politicians, maintains that all American sacrifices in the Muslim world (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) will pay off once Muslims discover how wonderful Western ways are, and happily slough off their Islamist veneer, which, as the theory goes, is a product of — you guessed it — a lack of democracy, liberty, prosperity, and freedom of expression. Yet here are American Muslims, immersed in the bounties of the West — and still do they turn to violent jihad. Why think their counterparts, who are born and raised in the Muslim world, where Islam permeates every aspect of life, will respond differently?
Read the whole article here.
The senior anchor at DawnNews, a television station associated with Pakistan's most influential English language newspaper, described the damage the Davis case has done to the U.S. image there in an opinion piece at Dawn.com today. You don't have to agree with all of his premises to accept his main point, which is that our public diplomacy efforts in Pakistan are pretty much dead.
Hearts & minds campaign?
The time to evaluate the impact of this issue on the vital strategic relationship between the two countries will come later. But at least in one significant respect, Pakistan-US ties are already badly damaged. And this relates to the nature and direction of public discourse in Pakistan about the United States.
The Davis issue has disfigured the environment in which the strategic partnership with the US was being nurtured. Raymond Davis endorses the typical Pakistani image of the US as a trigger-happy bully. In popular perception, Davis is the personification of a policy conduct Washington has displayed all around since 9/11 at a much larger scale — from the sands of Iraq to the mountains of Afghanistan and in the Fata region.
-- snip --
This nationwide welling up of anti-US emotion pushes further down the already declining US ratings in Pakistan. This is major damage to the ‘hearts and minds’ outreach programme that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been spearheading to fashion a better image for her country in Pakistan.
The policy worked at three levels: promotion of goods and services that the US brings to Pakistan; dilution of criticism of Washington’s policies by a robust media policy of rebuttals, denials and counter-charges; and isolation of those organisations and individuals whose sense of reality did not conform to Washington’s interest in Pakistan.
Admittedly, this policy worked rather well. The voice of America in Pakistan got considerably amplified, thanks primarily, though not only, to well-planned vigorous pro-US media activity carried out by known native advocates of Washington’s interests.
To change negative publicity into a positive profile, Washington carried out vast and constant diplomatic engagement with the politicians and the military top brass alike. Statistics show that in the last year and a half, Pakistan has been the US officials’ most ‘visited’ country in the world.
-- snip --
How many hearts and minds exactly turned in Washington’s favour, we don’t know. Perhaps not many. But something did change. Thorny controversies that once defined public discourse on the US disappeared into thin air. Towards the end of 2010 and on the eve of 2011 not a whisper was heard about the presence of Blackwater in Pakistan, expansion of US embassy premises, unauthorised and suspicious movement of US diplomats and embassy personnel. Even the matter of granting visas to US officials became a non-issue. The Kerry Lugar Bill’s preconditions for getting aid were totally forgotten.
But then came Mr Davis with his Glock handgun taking Pakistani lives and shooting through the heart the hearts and minds campaign. Since then Washington’s public profile has been completely defiled.
The strategic communication regime Washington’s spin doctors had put in place to create an enabling environment for successful diplomacy — called propaganda in old times — is completely dysfunctional. The trust deficit in the realm of public diplomacy is as wide as never before.
This is long-term damage recovering from which would take much longer than settling the issue of diplomatic immunity.
We do not know what Davis’s real mission was, but he certainly performed one task of strategic scale: ruining whatever little hope public diplomacy campaigners might have had of convincing the simple folk of Pakistan that the US was just a friendly giant they had no reason to run away from.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
A heavy police deployment guarded the court premises as Raymond Davis was presented in court. –Photo by AP
Yesterday, on the day Davis's remand to police custody for investigation of the charges against him expired, the Lahore High Court placed him on a 14-day judicial remand. Presumably, the next step after judicial remand is to bring him to trial, unless the Pakistani federal government finds that he has diplomatic immunity.
“He has been remanded in judicial custody for 14 days. The next hearing will be on February 25,” Punjab government prosecutor Abdul Samad told reporters.
“He is being sent to central jail Kot Lakhpat,” said police official Suhail Sukhera in reference to the high-security prison in the eastern city of Lahore, where the US official confessed to shooting two men in self-defence last month.
Punjab Prosecutor Abdus Samad says the judge also has ordered that the Pakistani government clarify whether or not the man enjoys diplomatic immunity, as the US says he does, AFP reports.
The US says the American, identified by Pakistanis as Raymond Davis, shot two Pakistanis dead in late January in self-defense because they were trying to rob him.
Washington insists his detention is illegal under international agreements covering diplomatic immunity.
The U.S. Consul General in Lahore, Carmela Conroy, responded with this statement:
Good evening.
Today, American diplomat Raymond Davis was remanded into judicial detention in Lahore in connection with an incident in this city on January 27.
We understand that eyewitnesses at the scene said that Ray acted in self defense when confronted with two armed men on a motorcycle. We also understand that these men were found with stolen property and, as the police stated today, a loaded gun. We regret that authorities did not consider these eyewitness accounts and physical evidence when they stated that this was not a case of self-defense.
As a member of the Administrative and Technical staff at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Raymond Davis is entitled to full immunity from criminal prosecution by Pakistan under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961. All countries, including my country and your country, freely agreed to abide by these rules. Under the rules, he should be freed immediately.
We respect the law and Pakistan's sovereignty, and expect all representatives of our government to respect the laws of our host nation. We respect the people of Pakistan and enjoy working and living in this country. Americans and Pakistanis can accomplish so much together. We need to resolve this case immediately and continue our work, including cooperation in education and health, our common fight against extremist violence, and building bridges between the people of Pakistan and America.
This incident was a tragedy, and we feel tremendous sorrow over the loss of life. We extend our deep sympathy to all the family members who have been affected.
Thank you.
I take it as a bad sign that Davis has now been placed in jail, whereas until yesterday he had been held much more safely and discretely in an office at a police training center.
But at least we now have a statement of regret from a U.S. official - we feel tremendous sorrow over the loss of life - and that small gesture, however belated, might actually have some calming effect on the Pakistanis who control Davis's fate.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Update. A few minutes after I posted this I saw the following press release from the State Department spokesman:
In light of the political changes in Pakistan and after discussions with Afghan and Pakistani officials in Washington, it was agreed to postpone the Trilateral Meeting scheduled for February 23-24. We remain committed to robust engagement between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States, as we share many issues of mutual concern and benefit from being at the same table. We look forward to convening a very productive Trilateral Meeting at the earliest opportunity.
I had discounted the vague murmurs about U.S. retaliation that appeared in the press over the last couple days, but evidently they were true. We are making the Davis case a major diplomatic incident.
H/T to Wired's Danger Room for this dance mix of past birthday celebrations for the Dear Leader of the People's Republic of Korea.
The great occasion won't be until the 16th of February, but the official party planning committee is already hard at work to make this year's party the best ever. And that bar is set so high the committee must be dizzy. Click on the video to check out those endless ranks of goose stepping troops, the sea of robotic yet smiling faces, the splendidly be-ribboned generals on the reviewing stands, the celebratory cannon fire, the happy couples in traditional Korean dress, the female troops in miniskirts dancing with sabers, the endless vistas of red flowers, and so much more.
I can't even imagine what the after-party for Kim's closest friends must be like.
The great occasion won't be until the 16th of February, but the official party planning committee is already hard at work to make this year's party the best ever. And that bar is set so high the committee must be dizzy. Click on the video to check out those endless ranks of goose stepping troops, the sea of robotic yet smiling faces, the splendidly be-ribboned generals on the reviewing stands, the celebratory cannon fire, the happy couples in traditional Korean dress, the female troops in miniskirts dancing with sabers, the endless vistas of red flowers, and so much more.
Already, parties have been thrown by the Cambodian embassy in Pyongyang, the North Korean Agricultural Workers Union and the have thrown early parties. And Foreign diplomats even got to take in a special birthday showing of the celebrated North Korean blockbuster movie “Wheel of Happiness.” Jealous yet?
Going forward, Pyongyang has a photo exhibition running to honor of the occasion, featuring pictures that depict the “energetic external activities” of the birthday boy. And starting on the 15th, figure skaters from all around North Korea will gather to wish Kim many happy returns at the 20th Paektusan Prize International Figure-skating Festival.
But the real magic takes place on the 16th. That’s when Kim can take a rest from the hard work of inspecting duck farms and bringing the world to the brink of nuclear conflict to take in some of the more elaborate festivities held in his name. North Korean state media makes the electrifying promise that the day will be filled with “colorful events” including “synchronized swimming” and athletic feats performed by “excellent sportspersons.”
I can't even imagine what the after-party for Kim's closest friends must be like.
I just read the most fascinating, recently declassified, memo to the SecState written by a former U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East. It includes a digression on the historical parallels between the crisis of that moment and the lessons we - should have - learned from our experience in Vietnam regarding the problems and limitations of U.S. intervention:
Does all that remind you of a current Middle Eastern intervention or two?
It is perplexing. It seem this sort of cautionary advise never sinks into the historical memory of Official Washington, and we end up learning and then unlearning the same lessons over and over again.
The problem might be a lack of continuity in our leadership over time. After all, the senior officials who were around during Vietnam, and in the two or three decades after, aren't the same ones who have been making the decisions about Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade.
Well, maybe some of them were. The U.S. Special Envoy who offered this excellent advise was none other than Donald Rumsfeld. You can read the whole memo at The Rumsfeld Papers, a website set up in conjunction with the publication of his memoir, Known and Unknown.
Lessons So Recently Learned. I can't help but note some parallels [between our involvement with a Middle Eastern nation in conflict and] the U.S. role in Vietnam. While certainly not on all fours, there are some similarities, including:
-- The degree of influence and investment (people, money, prestige) we have in a country about which we know little;
-- A commitment in an area where our clients, their friends, and their enemies know we don't live and suspect we may not stay;
-- Like Vietnam, few would honestly question our intentions, but the U.S. ability to bring about our desired outcome is limited;
-- There is a question of whether the U.S. may be training and equipping the [local military forces] to fight the wrong war. I don't have a conclusion, but I will look into it;
-- Continuous infiltration from neighboring nations;
-- Frequent changes in U.S. players (SecState, NSC advisors, ME envoys, Ambassadors, Military personnel, etc.), with all the reeducation required, opportunities lost, errors repeated and slippage, as well as, understandably, the sense that it conveys here of a lack of U.S. seriousness and consistency;
-- A key local military leader quite intimate with the U.S. raising the question of who is in whose pocket, and, inevitably, questions by some as to whether he might become a threat or an alternative;
-- Sense that if we pull out, our client will go under and the U.S. interests in the region with it;
-- A "Catch 22" relationship between the necessity for military success to achieve popular support for the government and visa versa;
-- The desirability of changing the balance of forces on the ground to have sufficient stability to achieve political cohesion and to change the enemy's mind, yet with political constraints against doing so (Congress, our MNF [Multinational Force] allies, etc.)
-- A skittish Congress sending out mixed signals as to our staying power and an un-unified Executive Branch sending out multiple signals, privately and publicly, by word and action;
-- A secret desire on both sides to have a U.S. "Proconsul" with the inevitable weakness and crippling that regulation and control cause to those regulated;
-- Complex and overlapping lines of authority and chains of command, both military and civilian, with all the risks inherent therein;
-- Numerous (too many) visiting codels [Congressional Delegations];
-- A skimpy quiver of arrows, some too blunt, some too mild, and far too few in between; it is a bit like trying to build a house with a hammer and a saw instead of a full set of tools;
-- Facing an unscrupulous opponent who has endless patience and steel and no internal restraints (Congress, press, etc.) as to the means he selects (war, terrorism, assassination, etc.).
The analogy should not be overdone, but it may be worth some reflection, not because of risk of our being drawn into a land war, but because of the many opportunities to do harm to ourselves and others through error, inattention or miscalculation.
American goodwill, intuition and logic in an area that is non-intuitive and hardly logical in our context is a formula for trouble. In the one case, the damage was sizable. My nose tells me that the odds are strongly stacked against us here. I wish we hadn't gone in. We need to be looking for a reasonably graceful way to get out.
Does all that remind you of a current Middle Eastern intervention or two?
It is perplexing. It seem this sort of cautionary advise never sinks into the historical memory of Official Washington, and we end up learning and then unlearning the same lessons over and over again.
The problem might be a lack of continuity in our leadership over time. After all, the senior officials who were around during Vietnam, and in the two or three decades after, aren't the same ones who have been making the decisions about Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade.
Well, maybe some of them were. The U.S. Special Envoy who offered this excellent advise was none other than Donald Rumsfeld. You can read the whole memo at The Rumsfeld Papers, a website set up in conjunction with the publication of his memoir, Known and Unknown.
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