Maybe it was UFOs.
"Pakistan places limits on travel of US diplomats" July 31, 2011|By Chris Brummitt, Associated Press
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has placed new travel restrictions on American diplomats living in the country, a US official said yesterday, the latest sign of the breakdown in ties between Islamabad and Washington....
A smart move after the whole Raymond Davis affair.
Related: A Diplomatic CIA
"CIA officers serving overseas often use the State Department as their official “cover’’ to avoid revealing the true nature of their work"
Also see: CIA chief promises spies 'new cover’ for secret ops
Then I will simply take it for granted that all Americans overseas are CIA.
The move to restrict diplomats’ movements adds a new irritant to the relationship and suggests military-to-military tensions are bleeding into the civilian sphere.
A letter from the Foreign Ministry sent to the American Embassy last month states that all of its diplomats must apply for special permission to leave the capital five days in advance of travel, including visits to cities where America has consulates.
Such curbs appear to be an unusual step between friendly states. The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations requires host states to allow foreign diplomats “freedom of movement’’ in the country except for restricted areas. Other foreigners living in Pakistan are free to travel around most of the country.
There are ways, however, to restrict the movement of diplomats without violating the convention.
The Foreign Ministry letter was dated June 13. A second letter was sent this month from the Civil Aviation Authority to security officers at Benazir Bhutto International Airport instructing them to carry out the Foreign Ministry order.
US officials confirmed the new restrictions and said the embassy was working with the government to resolve the issue. In Washington, the State Department said it was concerned about the restrictions and in a statement called on Pakistan “to ensure freedom of travel to diplomatic personnel.’’
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The United States is nominally a partner with Pakistan, but many Pakistanis, including those in the government, media, and armed forces, regard it with mistrust or hostility....
And vice-versa.
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And I just CAN'T IMAGINE why Pakistanis would feel that way!
"American consultant abducted from Pakistan home; No group has so far claimed responsibility" August 14, 2011|By Salman Masood, New York Times
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A group of armed men broke into the home of an American development specialist in Lahore yesterday and abducted him, Pakistani and American officials said.
American officials identified the man as Warren Weinstein, the Pakistan director for J.E. Austin Associates Inc., an international development consulting company based in Arlington, Va.
This is already starting to stink of a false flag!
Weinstein had been based in Lahore for seven years, according to his profile on the LinkedIn networking website. A Pakistani police official said he had been living alone in Model Town, an old, affluent neighborhood, since 2006, and that he had been planning to leave Pakistan within the week.
What timing, huh?
The J.E. Austin website said Weinstein had been working on the company’s Pakistan initiative for strategic development and competitiveness. He has 25 years of experience in international development projects, speaks six foreign languages, and earned a doctorate in international law and economics from Columbia, according to a company biography.
He sure smells like CIA to me.
Over the last several years, Weinstein has worked on projects with the US Agency for International Development and corporations in Pakistan to increase exports in a number of Pakistani industries, including dairy, furniture, and medical instruments.
And AID = CIA!
According to several Pakistani news accounts, Weinstein has recently been involved in an effort to strengthen Pakistan’s leather industry by training more skilled workers and bolstering exports....
The police said at least seven or eight men broke into Weinstein’s home between 3 and 4 a.m. yesterday.
American and Pakistani officials have not speculated on a motive, and by last night there had been no claim of responsibility or ransom demand. Weinstein’s driver and three security guards have been taken into custody for questioning by Pakistani intelligence agents.
Yes, this is REALLY GETTING STRANGE!
Though relations between the United States and Pakistan have been strained recently, the State Department said it was working with Pakistanis on the case....
Relations between Pakistan and the United States have sharply deteriorated since January, when a security contractor for the CIA shot and killed two Pakistanis in Lahore, and worsened after American commandos flew into the country in May to kill Osama bin Laden without notifying Pakistan.
I swear the AmeriKan media works that fiction about bin Laden into every article about Pakistan.
The State Department issued an alert this month warning Americans of the risk of traveling to Pakistan.
Hmmmmmmmm!
“US citizens throughout Pakistan have also been kidnapped for ransom or for personal reasons,’’ the alert stated, noting the June kidnapping of an American in Lahore, the 2010 kidnapping of an American child in Karachi, and the 2009 abduction of an American official working with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Baluchistan.
“The kidnapping of Pakistani citizens and other foreign nationals, usually for ransom, continues to increase dramatically nationwide,’’ the alert said.
In July, the Pakistani Taliban, linked to Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for kidnapping a Swiss couple in Baluchistan....
Pakistani journalist Raza Rumi, a columnist and consulting editor at The Friday Times, a liberal weekly published in Lahore, said, “How will aid workers come and serve in Pakistan if such incidents continue to happen? Pakistan needs aid and development, and perhaps the criminal gangs and jihadi militants want to keep Pakistan underdeveloped.’’
Or someone does.
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What is even more odd is Weinstein has been forgotten since.
"Pakistani Taliban say they have Swiss tourists" July 29, 2011|Ishtiaq Mahsud, Associated Press
The Pakistani Taliban have custody of two kidnapped Swiss tourists and will free them if the U.S. releases a female Pakistani scientist convicted of trying to kill Americans, the No. 2 commander of the militant group told The Associated Press.
Then why kidnap Swiss?
Gunmen abducted the man and woman as they traveled in the southwestern Baluchistan province earlier this month. Authorities later said the two were taken to South Waziristan....
The commander, Waliur Rehman, spoke to an AP reporter on Thursday in the Shawal area of South Waziristan. He said his group ordered the kidnapping in a bid to gain freedom for Aafia Siddiqui, a U.S.-educated neuroscience specialist and mother of three who is serving 86 years in an American jail for trying to shoot U.S. security officials in Afghanistan.
See: 86ing Aafia Siddiqui
Rehman said that if Siddiqui is not freed, a Taliban court will decide their fate. He did not give any deadlines. “We have not tortured this couple, and we have no such intention,’’ he added....
Yeah, Taliban don't torture, we do.
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And the Swiss tourists have also been forgotten, but while in Baluchistan:
"Bomb destroys Pakistan hotel; 12 dead" August 15, 2011|Associated Press
QUETTA, Pakistan - A bomb attached to a timer ripped through a two-story hotel in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan Province yesterday, reducing the building to rubble and killing 12 people, police said....
No group claimed responsibility for the attack.
The hallmark of an intelligence agency false flag.
But Baluchistan has experienced a decades-long insurgency by nationalists who want a greater share of the region’s natural resources.
Of course, they must have done it.
Btw, Baluchistan one of the AmeriKan media's well-kept secrets.
The province, next to Afghanistan, is also believed to be home to many Taliban militants.
Elsewhere in Baluchistan, two gunmen riding a motorcycle killed a local journalist in the city of Khuzdar, located some 170 miles from Quetta, said area police chief Qadir Shaikh.
See: The Motorbike Murderers of Balochistan Strike Again
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Aid also getting abducted:
"US lawmakers seek cuts in Pakistan aid package" August 14, 2011|By Karin Brulliard, Washington Post
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - In 2009, Congress passed with fanfare a five-year, $7.5 billion aid plan intended to prove Washington’s long-term commitment to Pakistan’s weak civilian government. Both countries touted the package as a way to reset relations long centered on military ties.
But two years later, only $500 million has been spent as the program has run into bureaucratic delays, disagreements over priorities, and fears about corruption. Now the remainder of the funding is under scrutiny in the Republican-led House, where two panels have approved broad cuts in foreign aid and stringent conditions on assistance to a number of countries, including Pakistan.
All except that which goes to Israel.
Although the Obama administration is fighting the cuts, US officials say they expect lawmakers to shrink the aid package while requiring greater evidence that Pakistan is fighting terrorism and that the funding is reaping benefits.
At this point I think most Pakistanis would say keep the money and get the f*** out of our country.
The debate over civilian aid has transformed it from a potential tool for healing the deep rift between the United States and Pakistan to yet another flash point in a relationship that has reached new lows in the three months since US Navy SEALs killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.
And there it is again.
In Pakistan, the slow start for the aid program - and the likelihood that the total amount delivered will be less than originally pledged - is reinforcing impressions of the United States as an unreliable ally, officials here said.
If the shoe fits.... Pakistan wouldn't be the first nation to which we have broken promises.
Many Pakistanis still resent the United States for cutting aid after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, and the White House’s recent decision to withhold $800 million in military aid and reimbursement is being cited as a new example of American fickleness.
Not to mention the Predator drone strikes pocking the mountainsides.
“You’re not going to get hearts and minds if aid’s given in dribs and drabs,’’ said Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States. Additional cuts, even those resulting from belt-tightening in Congress, she said, “will be seen as punitive.’’
Oh, we've lost those -- at least, those of the living. To those we have killed, we have the heart, mind, lungs, legs, well, what remained of them (if anything) anyway.
US officials say that the aid program, also known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman package for its three top congressional backers, has recently gained momentum and that their task is to increase the pace while tempering expectations.
Looks like a real JERK AROUND.
But in Pakistan, the focus has been on the dollars spent....
Officials with the US Agency for International Development say that they did not receive funding for the program until September 2010 and that, including previously unused funds, the agency has spent more than $2 billion on civilian aid in Pakistan since late 2009.
AID = CIA.
The Obama administration pledged to channel about half the new money through the Pakistani government and local organizations, rather than international contractors. But identifying Pakistani agencies that have clean records and are competent has required months of audits and reviews, US officials said.
“There’s a danger that if we spend too fast, we’re going to spend irresponsibly,’’ said Andrew Sisson, the USAID mission director in Pakistan.
As if that ever concerned the U.S. government before.
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Also see: US believes Pakistan let China inspect craft
US Noise Over Stealth Copter ‘Empty Posturing’
China To US: Any Attack on Pakistan Would be Construed as an Attack on China
