Frederick Douglass

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them..." Frederick Douglass

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Propaganda Alert: In An Unusual Criminal Case, the U.S. Points the Finger at Pakistan’s Top Spy Agency Again

I mean I just don't know where to begin. There is layer upon layer of manure in this epic fiction.

In a move that could add to the tension between the United States and Pakistan, the FBI Tuesday accused a Pakistani-American of secretly funneling at least $4 million from Pakistan's top spy agency into American political activities, aiming to influence U.S. policy on Kashmir.

The U.S. attorney's office in the Eastern District of Virginia announced the one-count criminal complaint [1] shortly after the arrest of Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, 62, who ran the Kashmiri American Council, also known as the Kashmir Center.

It's not clear where all the money went—much seemed to go to setting up conferences—but some was funneled into campaign contributions to members of Congress and other political candidates. The supporting affidavit says the money has been coming in from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI, since 1995.
First, four million is nothing. Is it possible to "influence" US policy with such a negligible sum? Particularly when most of it went to setting up conferences?

One count? That's it? Have you ever heard of this before? Isn't it standard practice to throw in a few bogus charges just to have something to surrender in negotiations? Call me crazy, but is there a chance this filing was meretricious?

Not clear where the money went? You mean the prosecutor filed this charge before he determined where all the money went?

This has been going on for 16 years? This story just keeps getting funnier. Why arrest him now? Is it possible that this money (particularly the part which they don't know where it went) was spent with the tacit approval of the US government; that ISI was doing for our intelligence services what they couldn't legally do themselves? After all, we have been giving "aid" to Pakistan since its birth, and in exchange for that aid Pakistan agreed to give right of approval to the US as to who would head the ISI. One would think that in the course of 16 years the US could have had their man in Karachi put a stop to it, if stopping it was their wish..

"Mr. Fai is accused of a decades-long scheme with one purpose—to hide Pakistan's involvement behind his efforts to influence the U.S. government's position on Kashmir," said U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride of the Eastern District of Virginia in a prepared statement. "His handlers in Pakistan allegedly funneled millions through the Kashmir Center to contribute to U.S. elected officials, fund high-profile conferences, and pay for other efforts that promoted the Kashmiri cause to decision-makers in Washington."

If we arrested every agency of this type for doing specifically this, our jails would overflow.

And a good many of the detainees would be Israelis.

"This charge is extremely rare," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They don't happen very often. The government generally works to get someone into compliance rather than charging. I am not aware of any other cases that have involved Pakistan."

Indeed!

In March 2010, after Indian news reports referred to Fai as a Pakistan agent, the U.S. Justice Department sent Fai a letter asking him to register the council as a foreign agent if the claim was true. He denied acting for Pakistan's government, the affidavit says. In 2007, he had told the FBI that he never had met anyone he believed to be in the ISI and didn't believe the ISI was operating in the United States.

Well whaddaya know, the charge originates with America's new best friend in South Asia, and Pakistan's chief rival. I don't know whether this is being done as part of some kind of seedy deal with India, or India made the charge at the insistence of the US. But it is impossible to believe that the billions of dollars the US now has invested in India would be put in jeopardy for the sake of a lousy four million dollar Pakistani lobbyist.

The case is striking not necessarily for its severity—the charges against Fai and Ahmad would mean a maximum of only five years in prison—but for its depth. The supporting affidavit from an FBI agent is 44 pages long. The investigation appears to have started six years ago, when a jail inmate offered to trade information for a reduced jail sentence. More than anything, the case highlights how, after years of U.S. officials publicly treating the ISI like a close ally in the war on terror, their relationship has fallen apart.

I mean this piece is one of the worst things I have ever read. For its depth? But they don't know where most of the money went? Forty-four pages? Wow! Must have taken a staffer the better part of a whole day.

Leaving no cliche unturned--a jailbird sang this tune. Just how many jailbirds have the inside dope on crimes of international espionage? Who is this jailbird, if he exists at all.

I could go on, but it isn't worth it.

http://www.propublica.org/article/in-an-unusual-criminal-case-the-u.s.-points-the-finger-at-pakistans-top-spy