Yeah well the Sharia law thing would be almost true, except that anyone who watched the 20 year old pregnant widow of one of Raymond Davies’ murder victims on AJE Monday would know she said the only justice she wanted was Raymond hanging of a rope at the site where he murdered her husband. She said there was no way she would accept the vast amounts of blood money the US and Pakistan governments were said to have on offer.
This tends to support the accusations coming out of Lahore that the Davis murder victims’ (both ISI agents) next of kin had been bundled into cars at gunpoint, driven to the prison where Davis was held and forced to sign the indemnities with much threats, waving of guns and forecasts of doom befalling their families if they did not.
Remember one wife killed herself, then her uncle had a tough time of it after being fed poison at gunpoint early on in the Davis saga. Apparently the family of the third victim, an innocent who got run over by Davis’ colleagues as they rushed to the crime scene who escaped out of Pakistan, were also inveigled into signing up.
One can only feel for the families of the victims who would have been told that not only have they lost the family bread winner, failure to sign the paper would mean an unending harassment throughout the course of a lengthy (prolly many years) legal process.
There is nothing particularly Islamic about this victim compensation rort, it is common in many societies where there is a large division between rich and poor. Sharia law does provide for families to negotiate as a means to reconciliation and avoiding feud situations but this case isn’t a natural for that, this case is an instance of the system that is used throughout the world, in particular amerika for allowing the rich & powerful to avoid the consequences of their actions.
It functions as a legal way of ensuring there is a way for some to live above the law. The Pakistani media is full of stories about the millions (some say amerikan passports are in the mix) that the victims families are going to receive. It will be just so much blather, if there is any money most of it will be ten percent-ed off the top by the assholes who inserted themselves into the deal and forced this result.
The outcome isn’t really much different than what happens when say, an amerikan millionaire charged with killing a spouse, spends a few hundred thousand on Alan M. Dershowitz or equivalent bottom feeder to beat the case with sophistry and distraction.
Once the Dr Siddiqui swap scenario was taken off the table this outcome became inevitable.
But it should be noted that Pakistanis don’t regard this as being the end of the issue. The much maligned ISI, who lost the two agents they had instructed to tail Davis, are not going to walk away from this.
They will be even more determined to get to the links between the CIA and Tehreek-e-Taliban or TTP (the Pakistani Taliban believed responsible for many of the attacks on civilians in Pakistan and India including the Mumbai action of 2008) before their nation’s administrative and political structures have been completely destroyed by an avaricious amerikan strategy of violence, duplicity and imperial hubris.
The Lahore police who owe no allegiance to Zadari’s PPP (Lahore is the base of operations for the Pakistan Muslim League, the party of opposition leader Nawaz Sharif) found a trove of evidence (maps photos phone directories/address books) in Davis car which the ISI will have also go. These didn’t disappear into the federal administration’s most trusted hands. The problem Zadari faced from day one was that the issue was in the purview of the Punjab provincial government (capital Lahore) and their police, not the Pakistan Federal administration.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Mar 17 2011 0:04 utc | 4

Obama flaunts openness award

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 17 2011 1:10 utc | 6

See how easy it comes from ‘no planes on the air’ to bomb anything on the ground …

Posted by: ThePaper | Mar 17 2011 8:26 utc | 8

See how easy it comes from ‘no planes on the air’ to bomb anything on the ground …

I wouldn’t necessarily take the US statements at face value. With his defense chief opposed to military intervention in Libya, Obama may simply be calling for more intensive engagement as a ploy to to bait an SC veto from the Russians or Chinese.
Such a gambit would be typical of Obama’s approach to politics: arguing publicly for strong action while working behind the scenes to limit his own ability to make good on his promises.
We’ll know more after the vote today whether the Administration is sincere about military action, but like the Brits and the French, I have my doubts.

Posted by: Night Owl | Mar 17 2011 15:17 utc | 10

it is sad for me that night owl reads prudence & caution as cheerleading – the situation in libya remains complex with complex questions
b has on many subjects gone against the grain, most notably with georgia & iran but with other subjects – that did not take a position per se but instead demanded a reasoned approach – in the two case i give – their were rewards in that reflection
that is what b has done with libya – he has stepped out of the hysteria that dominant culture drowns in

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 17 2011 15:25 utc | 12

is it a paradigm that helps understand what’s happening on the ground?
My complaint is not about whatever outdated and simplistic ideological paradigms the Cold War nostalgists at this site wish to apply.
My complaint is about whether there is any factual credibility in claiming that Q has reached Benghazi.
“homicidal blitzkrieg”: the numbers given by western media these days are consistent with battles fought by soldiers, with little civilian casualties
I know there weren’t blogs back in the 1930’s, but if there were, I’d suspect supporters of Franco would have made similar claims about Guernica.
I guess you haven’t read the media reports of Q forces bombing and shelling the city centers of Az Zawiya and Misurata, or of the reports of hospitals and ambulances being attacked and civilians left to die in the streets?

Posted by: Night Owl | Mar 17 2011 15:42 utc | 14

Night Owl @14 – my complaint, instead, is about the simplistic ideological paradigms of the humanitarian and democratic interventionists
for one, they must always identify an Evil side to despise and hate, oblivious to the fact that Good and Evil are often entwined; and that often such moral characterizations simply don’t apply to political conflicts
“homicidal blitzkrieg”: propaganda speech; blitzkrieg just to evoke Hitler (but blitzkrieg is the least bloody form of war), and homicidal because … because … maybe’s there’s some shooting there? what are the “permissible” means through which Gheddafi should fight the rebels?
someone says that’s not even a tribal/civil war, it’s a coup encouraged by Us and Nato; composition of the rebels’ council, and the routing of their army, supports such a view
I don’t think that “colored revolutions” can be fully explained in terms of Cia plotting, etc; there is always a part of real popular (albeit often limited) support in those attempts to unhinge sovereign governments; but in Libya I really didn’t even see an embryo of a colored revolution, just a faction rising in arms against the central government, counting on western military support;
but then, who can really judge from far away? if the people and a faction of the army revolt against the Tyrant, they should win; if they don’t, probably the paradigm is wrong; saying that they’ll lose because the tyrant is so vicious and ruthless is propaganda or, simply, self-deception

Posted by: claudio | Mar 17 2011 16:35 utc | 16

blitzkrieg just to evoke Hitler
No, blitzkrieg used as a technical term to describe a coordinated assault of air, artillery and armor in a fast moving offensive – the very tactics Q is using. The fact that Hitler named and was the first to use this combined arms method is merely instructive, not determinative.
But hey, if the shoe fits….
(but blitzkrieg is the least bloody form of war)
Oh brother. Tell that to 20 million dead Russians.
someone says that’s not even a tribal/civil war, it’s a coup encouraged by Us and Nato; composition of the rebels’ council, and the routing of their army, supports such a view
FYI: We’ve been through this before, and not even b agrees with your tin foil theory about CIA involvement in the Libyan uprising.

Posted by: Night Owl | Mar 17 2011 16:57 utc | 18

Your comments have been consistently interesting and illuminating
thanks slothrop.
Just don’t respond to his stupid generalizations.
Tell you the truth, I don’t really want to get in the middle of your’s and giap’s ongoing pissing match, because going back even as far my old days at Whiskey Bar, I’ve always considered giap a relatively thoughtful commenter.
Then again, my memory may be faulty, because I don’t seem to recall him being such an ideological cheap shot artist either, and you may be right that nowadays its better simply not to respond to such provocations.

Posted by: Night Owl | Mar 17 2011 17:31 utc | 20

a ‘deranged megalomaniac’ is someone who, among other things:
1) is out of touch with reality
2) feels omnipotent
Facts on the ground don’t seem to support such an assessment of Q’s personality; but I see it as a fit definition for western powers and supporters, who insist in imposing their values and judgements on other people, bombing whenever and until necessary, and then never able to establish anything resembling a civil order

Posted by: claudio | Mar 17 2011 18:20 utc | 22

Muammar Qaddafi to Benghazi this morning (9:01 am):

“Just like Franco in Spain, who rolled into Madrid with external support. And they asked how did you manage to liberate Madrid? He said: ‘There was a fifth column, the people of the city.’ You are the fifth column within the city. This is the day on which we should liberate the city. We’ve been looking forward to that day.

Looks like I’m not the only one who sees the parallel.

Posted by: Night Owl | Mar 17 2011 19:23 utc | 24

& i ask you night owl as someone who has posted with you for a very long time – when has us imperialism ever, ever cared about the ‘other’ – when have their interests been taken into account in our lifetime. never. why should libya be any different

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 17 2011 19:53 utc | 26

you can tell how desperate the situation is for the rebels by the Us, Uk and France sudden scrambling to obtain as soon as possible an “everything allowed against Gheddafi” resolution
hope Putin holds out; otherwise, this means that the war will range on for much longer, much more suffering for civilians, and a possible descent of Libya in a failed state scenario

Posted by: claudio | Mar 17 2011 20:07 utc | 28

meanwhile, in bahrain

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 17 2011 23:05 utc | 30

I haven’t been paying too much attention to Libya lately my mind is on events in the Pacific, but I did hear one of the many bbc reporters saying last night that from what he could discern the opposition forces appear to have got their paws on heavy or heavier weapons within the last day. He reported no one was saying whether the weapons had come from a Libyan munitions store or whether they had received them from overseas.
One thing is for sure it probably wasn’t the english the opposition got the weapons from.
Someone commented upthread about english special forces getting captured. That happened over a week ago when the english tried to send a mob of diplomats to talk to the opposition despite having heavy navy hitters already there on boat docked in Benghazi. The opposition thought the english uninvited guests were spies and arrested em. Haha the english were trying to ‘open lines of communication vis a vis shell’s oil concessions’. They used a secret emissary because they didn’t want Muammar to find out in case he won and took revenge on shell oil.
Now that the UN has approved intervention of everything up to “All necessary measures short of an occupation force” surely this argument can stop.
I was going to post on this anyway but now that my personal wish, that everyone stay out so that a negotiated political compromise could have been reached without further violence has gone out the window, it seems even more apposite to state the bleeding obvious.
That is why even bother to keep restating the same proposition when we are going to see exactly how much un-neccesary violence and suffering a no fly zone will bring Libya? We will very soon see exactly who was correct and who wasn’t.
We will see whether Libya quickly returns to being an essentially peaceful society where citizens health housing and other basic needs are underwritten from oil revenue or whether following this intervention it becomes the usual neo-liberal nightmare of a few super rich and everyone else poor, where people get to vote for a choice between tweedledum the theiving lackey to the corporate carpet baggers, or tweedledee the theiving lackey to the corporate carpet baggers. Whether just like Iraq even the most vehement opponents of the old regime amongst the ordinary citizens, soon start talking about ‘the good old days’.
This discussion is essentially no different than those we used to have with the ninny from the dem donkeys when oblamblam was running for orifice, everybody repeats their beliefs in an ever escalating argumentative voice, when a modicum of patience is all that is required to reveal the awful truth.
It is my guess that the USuk euro forces will try to keep the violence runing for as long as they can, so as to ensure the odds of Libyans reaching a compromise are reduced. Because a compromise between the factions is Libya’s best chance of unity against the invaders who will come toting contracts rather than grenade launchers but will not leave Libya until they have every drop of oil stitched up tighter than a snapper’s arse.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Mar 18 2011 1:28 utc | 32

Debs last paragraph is sadly prophetic.
What the UN authorized should not be called a “No Fly Zone” not even if one believed the propaganda that spewed forth from Robert Gates awhile back. What the UN authorized has the potential to turn every Libyan city or small village into ruble with untold civilian deaths and suffering in the process.
Like Debs says, the oil is what’s important, not the people. Very shrewd the way the cards have been played so far. But the game is not over and there are more hands to be played. Maybe Egypt is a wild card. The protests in Bahrain/Saudi will again be severely dealt with, as we have seen in the past few days…too many games at too many tables already for the US, so a blind eye has been and will be watching these other protests. On antiwar.com site, the latest US drone strike in Pakistan killed many – at least 41 confirmed and maybe as many as 80. Where will this all end? This is madness. The “Ides Of March” indeed.

Posted by: Rick | Mar 18 2011 4:06 utc | 34

Well I got what I wanted, in almost exactly the same form I anticipated.

From a diplomatic sense we’d probably be talking about the UN through the security council.
For military implementation we’d most likely be talking NATO via the French or the Brits.
Best for the US (and Italy and Turkey) not to be involved directly.

UN forces will be using the Italian base on Sicily and the Americans will be flying refueling missions, but the French and the Brits will be flying the combat missions. No mention so far of what if anything the Turks are contibuting.
Happy to see this finally authorized, although had it been in place back on Feb 21, a lot more people would be alive and a lot fewer people would have suffered.
In any event, an extremely important milestone in the history of collective security and International Law.
BTW: Not very bright of Q making that Franco comment right before the vote – and especially when he was hoping for a Russian veto.

Posted by: Night Owl | Mar 18 2011 5:17 utc | 36

No fly zone – and the biggest murderers on this planet get to terrorize the sky above another country.
oh please. I really am sick and tired of all the hysterical rantings I’ve had to endure over the last few weeks about the horrible terrible no good very bad evils of a NFZ, when all the while Q has been actually doing to his own people exactly what the scaremongers were warning would happen if a NFZ were implemented.
It’s friggin’ delusional.
Happy…….wtf
Damn right I’m happy. For the same reason the people in Benghazi and all over Libya are happy: that they finally have a real chance to stop this madman’s killing spree.
My hope is that the UN forces won’t need to do much at all. Q has already lost the initiative in the east, the rebels are counterattacking, and Q’s forces, strung out all along the coast from Az Zawiya to Ajdabiyah, are sitting ducks.
You can bet a lot of Q’s commanders are very nervous about their future prospects right about now. And I wouldn’t be surprised if more than a few of them are thinking about throwing Q to the mob to save their own skins.
A few token strikes on radar installations maybe all it takes at this point. If a wider campaign becomes necessary, then expect to see attacks on Q’s mechanized forces in the sparsely populated east.
You have learned nothing then over the last twenty+ years, or else you just are worried about your collective security and the International Law of the monied man?
The ‘monied men’ wanted Q to stay in power. Why so many people have a tough time understanding that simple fact remains a mystery to me.

Posted by: Night Owl | Mar 18 2011 6:16 utc | 38

being in synch with the IC is really something to be proud of
why would such a guy be interested in reading MoA is over my head; a missionary in the land of the heathen?

Posted by: claudio | Mar 18 2011 7:35 utc | 40

Get used to it world: do it our way, or we kill you
Well, at least I can appreciate the belligerent honesty.. That’s why, at least you knew where you stood w/the previous administration, blatant and out in the open, not this knife in the back killing smile from the owners in charge now.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 18 2011 7:47 utc | 42

Bureaucrat-in-Chief and Master-of-Ceremonies , Barack Obama, took time off this week from being awarded his Openness Award, to show up on the sports network, ESPN, to pencil-in his bets, allowing for which teams he thinks will win in the basketball playoffs. What a laugh, Uncle. It’s all part of this corporate Danse Macabre. And like Japan, we have our own Nuke Plants built on fault lines.
Somebody order a pizza!

Posted by: Copeland | Mar 18 2011 9:08 utc | 44

Indeed, Copeland, as Neil Postman wrote some three decades ago, (paraphrasing), boat tan anchorman W/snap on hair and Hollywood teeth comes on and says, ‘World War Three has just begun, now here’s a word from Burger King’…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 18 2011 9:53 utc | 46

This video is unlisted. Only those with the link can see it, you know, in our open and trans-parent (sic) society… These fucks aren’t interested in finding out how they broke laws and ethics against the people, they want to find the peep holes and close them…

Via Wired, here’s a video of the Congressional subcommittee hearing in which Rep. Hang Johnson questions NSA director Keith Alexander and James Miller, deputy under secretary of defence for policy, on the nature of the HBGary contracts.

Congress Opens Investigation Into HBGary Scandal
official fallout scenarios: the future is irradiant!

On the spin
Submitted by Bruce Krasting on 03/17/2011 23:03 -0400
So I was out of touch for seven hours or so. I check in with the news sources just now on all the stories that matter. Unbelievable how much things have changed in a third of a day. Even more unbelievable is that all of the news is good.
First of is the No Fly (“NF”). Jim Cramer said on the TV the other day that as soon as the NF is announced, it is off to the races. The NF means that all that Libyan crude and gas is coming back on line in just a few days. Any supply issues that were nagging the market have been relived by just the news. Oil should be under 90 and headed to 80 in just the next few weeks!
There is also very reassuring news on the Japan nuke front. None other than the leader of the free world has spoken. Obama has made it very clear that there is no risk of radiation on US soil. From Hawaii to Guam and Samoa. From Alaska down to the coast of Mexico. Not any place where the American flag flies is there ANY risk of exposure that would/could have a medical consequence. This is very reassuring news. There is no risk what so ever to America. None.

=====
Not to mention the The Koch brothers exploiting a loopholes funding dozens (in addition to ‘Americans for Prosperity’) of front groups that are advancing their financial interests while masquerading as non-profit organizations…
The Rightwing Koch Brothers funded the DLC

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 18 2011 15:08 utc | 48

EXCLUSIVE: CIA Psychologist’s Notes Reveal True Purpose Behind Bush’s Torture Program
Oh, and in case you missed it, Fuck an A man!

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 24 2011 5:43 utc | 50

Yeah, but you need this original party mix by the Fugs, who wrote the f*ckin’ song.

Posted by: catlady | Mar 24 2011 6:49 utc | 52

Bonus:
Monarch : The New Phoenix Program
A great Buddhist saying stipulates that Meditation is not what you think. Wishful thinking happens when you refuse to see how painful things are.~Unknown

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 25 2011 3:34 utc | 54