Tag Archives: Shakil Afridi

SFRC Clears Villarosa, Liberi, Mull, North, Olson, Macmanus with Looming Senate Holds

September 20, 2012 By in Af/Pak, Ambassadors, Congress, Foreign Service, FSOs, Nominations, Senate Hold, SFRC, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee(SFRC)  cleared the following ambassadorial nominations on September 19, 2012.

  • Sharon English Woods Villarosa, of Texas, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Mauritius, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Seychelles.
  • Dawn M. Liberi, of Florida, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Career Minister, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Burundi.
  • Stephen D. Mull, of Virginia, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Career Minister, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Poland.
  • Walter North, of Washington, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Career Minister, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Papua New Guinea, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Solomon Islands and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Vanuatu.
  • Richard G. Olson, of New Mexico, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
  • Joseph E. Macmanus, of New York, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Representative of the United States of America to the Vienna Office of the United Nations, with the rank of Ambassador.
  • Joseph E. Macmanus, of New York, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Representative of the United States of America to the International Atomic Energy Agency, with the rank of Ambassador

Two nominees for UNGA were also cleared:

The Honorable John Hardy Isakson, of Georgia, to be a Representative of the United States of America to the Sixty-seventh Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations

The Honorable Patrick J. Leahy, of Vermont, to be a Representative of the United States of America to the Sixty-seventh Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations

The nominations will now go to the Senate for the full vote.

The SFRC, by the way,  just held its confirmation hearing for Ambassador Robert Beecroft (US Embassy Iraq) on September 19, so he was not included in the cleared nominees on Wednesday.  The Cable says that according to committee aides, “there was broad support for dispatching the Beecroft nomination out of committee without a formal vote so he could be confirmed this week before the Senate leaves town.”

However, all these nominees could get entangled in Senator Rand Paul’s hold.  He has reportedly placed a hold on the Olson nomination over Pakistan’s Afridi case. And according to The Cable, there is also the the ongoing dispute between Senate leadership and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) over Paul’s demand for a floor vote on his amendment to cut off all U.S. aid to Pakistan, Libya, and Egypt.

We don’t think Dr. Afridi should be in jail, but taking away what, $33 million from over a billion US aid to Pakistan, and a very public congressional pressure to released the good doctor — is not going to help much. No country, particularly one like Pakistan would like to be seen as publicly relenting to such foreign pressure, especially one coming from the United States, a perceived enemy by a great number of its population. To do so is contrary to the laws of political self preservation.  Can you imagine any US President acceding to a foreign senator’s demand to release a prisoner from one of our jails?  Of course not.

Senator Paul says, “If Pakistan wants to be our ally — and receive foreign aid — then they should act like it, and they must start by releasing Dr. Afridi.” He has more here.

Even if the elected Government of Pakistan may be amendable to releasing Dr. Afridi, it would be foolish to do so now, in the most public way. Or if it does, and it falls, who would we have next to deal with?

If screaming from the Senate chamber works perfectly in conducting foreign relations, why the heck do we have a diplomatic corps?  More congressional shock and awe is not going to help the cause of Dr. Afridi, it just drags it longer.  Senator Paul should understand this.  It’s not about him, it’s about them.  He should lift his hold so Ambassador Olson can join his embassy in Islamabad and our diplomats can do the work they need to do.

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Senator Rand Paul Blocks Olson Nomination Over Pakistani Doctor, Shakil Afridi

August 9, 2012 By in Af/Pak, Ambassadors, Congress, Media, Senate Hold, SFRC, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

In our blog post on the recent confirmation of ten ambassadors (see Confirmations: Cunningham, Cretz, Malac, Armbruster, Wharton, Holtz, Laskaris, Ries, Koenig, Kirby) , we noted that it did not look like Ambassador Richard Olson’s nomination made it out of the SFRC.

In fact, his nomination did make it out of the SFRC. But according to The Cable’s Josh Rogin, there was no SFRC business meeting on the Olson and Cunningham nominations, and both were discharged from the committee and sent to the floor without the committee weighing in.

Apparently, two GOP Senate aides told The Cable that some Senate Foreign Relations Committee members were upset that the Cunningham and Olson nominations were rushed through the process and they didn’t have time to submit questions for the record and get answers. The good news is — it’s not personal, so there usually is a resolution. Excerpt below:

The concerns about Olson, who previously served as ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, aren’t personal, but committee members want more detail on the would-be envoy’s proposed approach to the Haqqani network, the militant group that has been waging cross-border attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Olson promised to make the issue a priority at his July 31 confirmation hearing, but multiple senators want to use the opportunity to gauge if the administration plans to include the Haqqani network in any effort to negotiate an end to the Afghanistan war.

So the Olson nomination is on the floor but now Senator Rand Paul has placed a hold on it. More from The Cable:

For Paul, his hold on the Olson nomination is part of his overall effort to pressure the Pakistani government to release Shakil Afridi, the doctor who worked with the CIA to help positively identify Osama bin Laden. Afridi was sentenced in June to 33 years in jail for treason. Paul is not only holding up the confirmation of the U.S. ambassador, he is also threatening to force a vote to cut all U.S. aid to Pakistan over the issue, the aides said.

Paul’s office did not respond to our request for comment, but The Cable caught up with the senator himself in the hallways of the Capitol Thursday. He said he had met with the State Department and with Pakistani Ambassador Sherry Rehman, and told them that he will keep pressing the issue unless Afridi is released. Afridi’s next hearing is Aug. 29.

Senate leadership is dead-set against letting Paul have a vote on his amendment, out of concern that senators won’t want to publicly stand up in defense of sending more American taxpayer money to Pakistan. But Paul said he plans to use Senate Rule 14 to force a vote. It’s not clear if this legislative tactic will work, but Paul is confident.

Read in full here.

The Cable surmises that there is little chance the Pakistani courts will respond to Senator Paul’s demand, “so his hold will prove useless and will probably be lifted under pressure next month.”

As to the Senate hold on Carlos Pascual’s nomination to be Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Energy Resources (ENR), that one is reportedly related to the “Fast and Furious scandal,” which unfolded while he was ambassador to Mexico.  This report did not indicate who placed a hold on this nomination.  But he can be Acting A/S for ENR while awaiting confirmation; Ambassador Olson cannot be in an acting capacity for US Mission Pakistan while stuck in WashDC.

We’ll see what happens after the August break.

Domani Spero

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Proof that our ally, Pakistan is not/not complicit in hiding Bin Laden in plain sight

May 23, 2012 By in Af/Pak, CIA, Follow the Money, Foreign Assistance, Huh? News, Quotes Tags: , , , , , ,

… it just awarded Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, a medal worth 33 years of jail time. If folks complain that the medal is such a weighty reward for helping capture the most notorious terrorist of our time, just pause and think — the reward could have been a lot bigger or swifter. No, not a bigger medal, obviously; but Dr. Afridi could have been put to death by suspension by the neck, also known as hanging, reportedly the only legal method of execution in Pakistan. So putting him in jail obviously, if you’re watching clearly, is a gesture of friendship.

Below via NYT:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A Pakistani doctor who helped the Central Intelligence Agency pin down Osama bin Laden’s location under cover of a vaccination drive was convicted on Wednesday of treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison, a senior official in Pakistan said.

A tribal court here in northwestern Pakistan found the doctor, Shakil Afridi, guilty of acting against the state, said Mutahir Zeb Khan, the administrator for the Khyber tribal region. Along with the jail term, the court imposed a fine of $3,500. Dr. Afridi, who may appeal the verdict, was then sent to Central Prison in Peshawar.

He had been charged under a British-era regulation for frontier crimes that unlike the national criminal code does not carry the death penalty for treason. Under Pakistani penal law, Dr. Afridi almost certainly would have received the death penalty, a Pakistani lawyer said.
[…]
“The doctor was never asked to spy on Pakistan,” said a senior American official with knowledge of counterterrorism operations against Al Qaeda in Pakistan. “He was asked only to help locate Al Qaeda terrorists, who threaten Pakistan and the U.S. He helped save Pakistani and American lives.”

It looks like Pakistan does not see it that way.  And this is when we say — well, even “friends” occasionally disagree, correct?

English: The compound where Osama bin Laden wa...

English: The compound where Osama bin Laden was hiding. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As further proof of that, our “friends” would reportedly allow us to bring in supply trucks from Karachi, on Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coast, to the Afghan border (blocked since November when two dozen Pakistani soldiers were killed in an U.S. air strike from Afghanistan) for a transit free of “upward of $5000.”  Now, don’t get mad because $5,000 is really a great deal for “friends” only, especially considering that the air route cost per container through the Manas airbase in Kyrgyzstan is $15,800.

Of course, these are the same “friends” who already receive top US dollars in aid.  Further, under the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009, Pakistan is slated to receive $1.5 billion in annual nonmilitary aid from FY2010 through FY2014. So even the senators over at the Armed Service Committee did not like the ka-ching sound of that transit fee.  “I think that’s called extortion,” Senate Armed Services Committee ranking Republican John McCain (R-AZ) told The Cable yesterday. “We can’t look at aid in that light. It’s now becoming a matter of principle.”

The Congressional Research Service reported in April that “Since 1948, the United States has pledged more than $30 billion in direct aid, about half for military assistance. Two-thirds of this total was appropriated in the post-9/11 era from FY2002 to FY2011. Many observers question the gains accrued to date, viewing a lack of accountability and reform by the Pakistani government as major obstacles. Moreover, any goodwill generated by U.S. aid is offset by widespread anti-American sentiment among the Pakistani people.”

Hump! The CRS what do they know, huh?

Meanwhile, in Islamabad, the news is that a “constitutional petition” has reportedly been filed in the Supreme Court yesterday “to restrain the authorities from constructing huge building structure and secret bunkers in the basement of American Embassy’s premises.”

The Nation says that Lt Col (Retd) Inam-ul-Rehim filed the petition under Article 199 of the Constitution.  “His point is that the US government is bent upon to weaken Pakistan and destroy or to take over the possession of its atomic assets.”

The complainant is asking that “a high-level commission be constituted comprising persons of high repute from retired judges of Supreme Court or High Courts, lawyers of high repute and civil engineers to visit the site of US embassy building and submit a detailed report before the apex court.”

Terracotta army 5256

Terracotta army in the bunker (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And here’s the lesson for the day on friendship:

Friends let friends put each others do-gooders in jail, not hang them.

On money matters, friends give each other a discount when appropriate.

Best of all — friends let friends inspect each others bunkers.

Domani Spero

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