Article
American predators in Pakistan
The people of Lahore now see CIA agents like game hunters, operating under paid immunity
Pakistani police escorts arrested US national Raymond Davis to a court in Lahore on January 28, 2011. Photograph: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images
Last summer in Lahore, I had a little party at my house for the final of the football World Cup. It was a pretty relaxed affair, maybe 20 people, cushions on the TV room floor, pizza on the dining room table. Some of my friends brought friends of their own.
One was an American man. He was wearing a light jacket. After he left, my wife told me he was also wearing a gun. Now, I'm open to my friends bringing their friends to my house. But I'm not very accepting of a friend bringing a gun – or, worse, bringing a complete stranger with a gun. Yet that's what happened, and it left me angry and disturbed.
Like everyone else I knew, I'd heard the stories about large numbers of armed Americans in Lahore, staying at such-and-such hotels or working out at such-and-such gyms. Maybe I became more sensitive to their presence after the incident at my house, but suddenly I began to see them all around town. To be precise, I didn't know if the men I was seeing were armed. But they looked like Americans, and they didn't look like rock guitarists or maths teachers or irrigation specialists or heart surgeons. They looked, to my unschooled eye, like what I'd expect trained killers to look like. (Of course it was possible that groups of nonviolent, hard-faced, physically fit, all-male tourist groups with a niche interest not in ancient outdoor monuments but in the interiors of tacky hotels had descended on Lahore, but I thought this unlikely.)
Then, last month, in broad daylight on a main Lahore road, one such man, Raymond Davis, shot dead two Pakistani citizens with his Glock, and a US consular car sent to retrieve him killed another Pakistani citizen while speeding the wrong way down a street. Davis is being held by the Pakistani police, the US government is demanding that he be released and threatening to withhold aid to Pakistan if he is not, and the wife of one of the Pakistani men killed has committed suicide saying lucidly from her deathbed that her reason for doing so is that she does not expect Davis will be punished.
Meanwhile, the Pakistan government has tied itself up in knots over what should be the straightforward issue of whether Davis has diplomatic immunity, and therefore whether he can be tried in Pakistan. On Sunday, the Guardian revealed that Davis is in fact a CIA agent.
What are foreigners with guns doing in Pakistan? I've read articles likening them to Rambo and RoboCop. But I believe another Hollywood film franchise metaphor is more apt. Predator.
The affair has brought home what should have been obvious to us Pakistanis for a long time. Pakistan has become a game preserve, a place where deadly creatures are nurtured, and where hunters pay for the chance to kill them.
Here in the game preserve, money flows to the hunt. Pakistani extremists are funded, armed and trained. And American hunters, whether far away at the remote controls of Predator drones or on the ground in the form of men with the shooting skills of a Raymond Davis, operate under paid immunity. Want a blanket tribal area hellfire missile licence? That might set you back the price of 18 new F-16s. An all-Lahore Glock licence to kill? Perhaps double-oh-seven billion in development aid.
But while the Pakistani population has grudgingly tolerated the notion of a game preserve limited to the Pakistani-Afghan border, the outcry over Davis has demonstrated that a game preserve encompassing the whole country strikes people as a different matter entirely. Which puts both governments in a bind. What are the warden-owners and hunter-consumers of a game preserve to do when the frogs and butterflies and trees and worms that make up the traumatised and hungry population object to its current business model?
Because when I speak to my Pakistani friends the message I hear, though far from uniform, is nonetheless becoming increasingly clear. No more Pakistani extremists. No more American killers. And, if it comes to it, no more American aid either. We don't want to live in a game preserve. We want to get on with our lives and build a future in peace for ourselves and our children.
The multibillion dollar question is this: do the Pakistani and American states have the capacity to listen?
If they do not, then the continued passivity of the long-neglected, inflation-gouged, and violence-subjected people of Pakistan is far from guaranteed. In the meantime, however, widespread reports that our country has produced a more-than-previously-estimated 100 nuclear warheads will surely increase the price of hunting permits.
A version of this article first appeared in Dawn
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User Comments
Lokischild
22 February 2011 8:43AM
" To be precise, I didn't know if the men I was seeing were armed. But they looked like Americans, and they didn't look like rock guitarists or maths teachers or irrigation specialists or heart surgeons. They looked, to my unschooled eye, like what I'd expect trained killers to look like. "
Were they just Americans or did they include Afro Americans, Latino Americans or Native Americans? Or do all Americans look alike to your unschooled eye?
Senesino
22 February 2011 8:43AM
The CIA's credibility worldwide has dropped to a total zero. They're just identified as agents of a thug regime.
I'm not surprised that you were shocked that a yankee would turn up wearing a gun in your house. I'd be shocked too,. But yankees think their medieval gun-culture is acceptable everywhere, and that the whole world needs to swivel around their thuggish methodology.
TimSkellett
22 February 2011 8:43AM
<em>"Blame the Americans"</em> really does not wash at all this time round. You know as well as I do that much of the fuss over Davis has nothing to do with the facts of the matter, and everything to do with a power-push inside Pakistan. It wasn't the Americans who played footsie for so very long with the extremists, or who sent mujahadeen repeatedly into Kashmir, or who murdered Salman Taseer, or who threatened his daughter, or who for that matter set off bombs in Lahore not so long ago. Will you also blame the Americans for Asia Bibi? Col. Imam?
Pakistan is sliding into disintegration owing to increasing fundamentalism, political corruption and an army too compromised by the ISI and the militants. Blaming others for this doesn't work.
MoveAnyMountain
22 February 2011 8:44AM
"Pakistan has become a game preserve, a place where deadly creatures are nurtured, and where hunters pay for the chance to kill them. Here in the game preserve, money flows to the hunt. Pakistani extremists are funded, armed and trained."
And that is where the article should have both started and ended. Yes, there are people who run amok in Pakistan murdering people. Their weapon of choice is the suicide bomb. That is the problem. Not the Americans.
"And American hunters, whether far away at the remote controls of Predator drones or on the ground in the form of men with the shooting skills of a Raymond Davis, operate under paid immunity. Want a blanket tribal area hellfire missile licence? That might set you back the price of 18 new F-16s. An all-Lahore Glock licence to kill? Perhaps double-oh-seven billion in development aid."
This is nonsensical rubbish. America is fighting people the Pakistani regime chooses to arm and allow operate on its territory. They do not pay to do so. They have every right to do so. Davis simply acted in self defence. He is still entitled to the presumption of innocence after all. He was not hunting. He did not pay to do so.
"But while the Pakistani population has grudgingly tolerated the notion of a game preserve limited to the Pakistani-Afghan border, the outcry over Davis has demonstrated that a game preserve encompassing the whole country strikes people as a different matter entirely."
Like they tolerate people who hunt in Mumbai. There is the problem. People who host terrorists, knowingly or otherwise, cannot complain if the victims of those terrorists come looking for them.
"And, if it comes to it, no more American aid either."
Then we can agree on that. Time to cut all ties with Pakistan until it cleans up its act a little.
"We don't want to live in a game preserve. We want to get on with our lives and build a future in peace for ourselves and our children."
Yeah but who is going to bell the cat? Given the weakness of the government and the strength of those terrorists.
Senesino
22 February 2011 8:51AM
<em>"Blame the Americans"</em> really does not wash at all this time round.
So you're denying that Davis is a hired CIA assassin, are you?
The lengths to which the Grauniad Kommentariat will go to defend their yankee paymasters have finally reached incredulity. "No torture-centres", "no torture-flights", "no illegal renditions", and now "no assassins".
And each and every time it's all been proven to be a stinking lie, just like the WMDs.
Teacup
22 February 2011 8:53AM
Mohsin,
a US consular car sent to retrieve him killed another Pakistani citizen while speeding the wrong way down a street.
Who was this unfortunate person? S/he has no name, nor is there any information about her/him. An article somewhere gave me the impression that the person was male. Doesn't s/he deserve the dignity of his/her name in death?
Reki
22 February 2011 8:55AM
The day ordinary Pakistanis stand up to their army which has brought them to this sorry pass is the day their liberation will begin.
TimSkellett
22 February 2011 8:55AM
Senesino wrote: "So you're denying that Davis is a hired CIA assassin, are you? The lengths to which the Grauniad Kommentariat will go to defend their yankee paymasters "
Funny. Who are the "Grauniad Kommentariat"? Can you please give us a list? How much do they get paid by "their yankee paymasters"? Inquiring minds really, really want to know. :-)
" "No torture-centres", "no torture-flights", "no illegal renditions", and now "no assassins"."
Funny, but very weird. Can you explain (if at all) what renditions and tortures have to do with anything?
Marquest1
22 February 2011 8:55AM
No more Pakistani extremists. No more American killers
Get rid of the former and the latter will disappear. Its not as though CIA agents are running around Luxembourg and Tahiti shooting people.
@senesino
They're just identified as agents of a thug regime
Ask 1000 people at random where they would rather live: the US or Pakistan, and see what the response is.
SharminMann
22 February 2011 8:56AM
I imagine it must have been very shocking to discover that an American guest had a gun. I expect guns are very rare in Pakistan, and there is almost no violence there at all.
Teacup
22 February 2011 8:58AM
Mohsin,
The Guardian article states that the third victim was a man and that the two people who mowed him down have already left the country.
MAM,
Just substitute British for Pakistani, Liverpool/Glasgow for Lahore, and Yemeni for American and see if you would still feel the same way about this event.
SELAVY
22 February 2011 8:58AM
Just imagine how many new recruits the CIA and Mossad will now be signing up to infiltrate the nascent new democracies across the middle east....
With regard to the article above, my understanding was that he didn't randomly shoot two Pakistani citizens, but shot two guys who were armed and attempting to rob him.Given the nauseating history of the CIA this may or may not be true, but if it is the case then at least the author should have the honesty to mention the context of the shootings.
Anyone know the facts ?
TimSkellett
22 February 2011 9:00AM
Reki wrote:
"The day ordinary Pakistanis stand up to their army which has brought them to this sorry pass is the day their liberation will begin."
This is getting closer to it all; and thanks for the comment. But it's much, much more, isn't it? The Pakistani people need to declare an end to extremism, to oppression of minorities, to arming militants, to endemic economic corruption. This will require a great deal of work - and luck. Rebuilding a whole society is one arduous task.
MindTheCrap
22 February 2011 9:01AM
Senesino
22 February 2011 8:51AM
The lengths to which the Grauniad Kommentariat will go to defend their yankee paymasters have finally reached incredulity. "No torture-centres", "no torture-flights", "no illegal renditions", and now "no assassins".
And each and every time it's all been proven to be a stinking lie, just like the WMDs.
You forgot to blame the Mossad ......
SoundMoney
22 February 2011 9:03AM
What are foreigners with guns doing in Pakistan?
If you want an honest answer, they are trying to deal with the fact (not opinion) that Pakistan allows itself to be the epicentre of global Islamist terror.
Deal with it. Lock up the mad mullahs. Close the madrassahs teaching evil. Disarm the Taliban and cut off their supply routes. Scrap your illegal nuclear weapons. And try democracy.
Then the CIA will go away.
Teacup
22 February 2011 9:04AM
TimSkellett,
getting closer to it all; and thanks for the comment. But it's much, much more, isn't it? The Pakistani people need to declare an end to extremism, to oppression of minorities, to arming militants, to endemic economic corruption. This will require a great deal of work - and luck. Rebuilding a whole society is one arduous task.
Indeed, but how does a CIA agent shooting two guys and running a bystander over achieve this?
MoveAnyMountain
22 February 2011 9:05AM
Teacup - "Just substitute British for Pakistani, Liverpool/Glasgow for Lahore, and Yemeni for American and see if you would still feel the same way about this event."
Britain also has predators who live among us while plotting suicide bombs. How many no one knows. But if someone else wishes to blow them up with a drone, they will have my blessing.
Britain regularly has scum bags and low lifes appointed here under diplomatic immunity. Many Embassies do not bother to obey the routine laws. Sometimes they have people who do not obey the larger laws too. We do not violate their diplomatic immunity and jail them. Nor should we.
Nor should Pakistan.
Laikainspace
22 February 2011 9:06AM
As someone who is obviously protected by the middle class bubble in Pakistan, a bubble that relies on the indifferent, feudalistic exploitation of your working classes, while playing off your Donkey Mullahs to control them, while you handwring about typical your bourgeois woes and sovereignty.
AND as citizen that from a nation that from its very inception desperately sought to sell it's arse of to America.
I'd suggest you suck it up and grow a spine, you took the money, you're a client state.
Deal with it.
PS How's that funding getting through to the flood victims? How's Aasia Bibi these days?
loewe
22 February 2011 9:12AM
Cut all ties to Pakistan ...
is what some people here seem to demand.
I wonder whether that would be a good idea for the USA.
China, I suppose, would be happy to get such easy way to become the new patron.
Afghanistan may turn more difficult with Taliban now openly supported by Pakistan.
America's weight in this area is going down anyway.
Gunslinging people don't care about such things.
Mr. Davis didn't care about any aftermath oder diplomatic or political consequences of his murdering somebody who ran away and was a good deal away from him and no danger for him any more.
Could the Pakistanis do with Mr. Davis what the USA would have done with a foreign perpetrator in an equivalent case - had it happened in Chicago?
Betteryet
22 February 2011 8:38AM
There is not a single other country in this world which needs a revolution more badly than Pakistan.