State Magazine Notes the Cost in Lives For 75 Years of Diplomacy in Pakistan

It's quite a good article, which you can read here:

One sobering statistic is that 19 U.S. civilian and military personnel have lost their lives in the line of duty, from terrorist attacks and in an airplane crash in Pakistan. Four died in a single day in 1979 when a mob attacked the old U.S. Embassy, trapping nearly 140 American and Pakistani employees and a journalist in a secure suite of rooms for hours as violent vandals ransacked and burned the compound in Islamabad. A Marine corporal died of a gunshot wound while observing the mob from a roof, an Army warrant officer perished in a fire in a residence building, and two Pakistani staff members died of asphyxiation elsewhere on the compound. 

Two Embassy employees died in a terrorist attack in 2002, two in 2006, three in 2008, one in 2009, three in 2010, and two as recently as 2016. Additionally, Ambassador Arnold Raphel and Army Brig. Gen. Herbert Wassom died in a plane explosion that also killed then-President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq in 1988.

That's quite a toll for maintaining a diplomatic presence and advancing our national interests in a country that is not currently having a war or revolution.

Requiescat in pace

Question Raised About Fatal Traffic Accident in Islamabad, Pakistan

The business end of the attaché's SUV (VOA photo)

Last Tuesday's State Department press briefing included a question from a Pakistani journalist about the status of the U.S. Defense and Air Attache who struck and killed a motorist in a traffic accident in Islamabad on April 7 and, after at first being denied permission to leave Pakistan, finally departed on May 15. The question concerned whether the U.S. government is conducting any kind of an inquiry.

From the press briefing transcript:

QUESTION: Thank you. Thank you so much. Jahanzaib Ali from ARY News TV, Pakistan. Just wanted to get some update on already tense relations with Pakistan, while secondly an American diplomat was involved in a traffic accident in Islamabad, Pakistan. One person was injured there; another was seriously injured. We know that he got the diplomatic immunity in Pakistan but he’s now back in the town – Mr. Joseph, I think, the name of the American diplomat. So is there any kind of investigation at the department level on that?

MS NAUERT: I will have to look back into that for you and see what I can get for you on that one, okay? I don’t have any updates to provide beyond what we’ve provided already. Okay?

Whatever she gets for him on that one might not satisfy the Pakistani government, which appears to be under the impression that the U.S. government promised to initiate some kind of criminal or administrative action. At least, that's what Spokesperson Heather Nauert's counterpart at the Pakistan Foreign Office told his journalists on at least two occasions.

From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs press briefing by the Spokesperson on 17 May 2018:

Question - Given the recent development of Colonel Joseph's release, we have seen a positive impact on Pak-US relations. In your view, how will the upcoming 7th FATF Session be a reflection of this positive streak in our relations post Col Joseph's departure from Pakistan? (Mohsin Raza - Asas Group of Publications)

Answer - Let me explain it. It is not that way. diplomats have diplomatic immunity while serving in the country of their accreditation. In this context, Col Joseph was allowed to leave the country based on this diplomatic immunity. The US has assured us that it will initiate criminal/administrative action against Col. Joseph in US courts.

And from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs press briefing by the Spokesperson on 12 April 2018:

Question - What is the update on the investigations involving the US diplomat, who killed a Pakistani national last week? It is ironic that our Prime Minister is screened thoroughly without any protocols at an airport in the US, while a Pakistani national has been killed for more than a week and no action has been taken so far? (Fakhar Rahman - SAMAA TV)

Answer - On the last question, on 7th April, at around 1500 hours, a US Embassy vehicle driven by Colonel Joseph Emanual Hall, Defense and Air Attache of the US Embassy in Islamabad, was involved in a car accident on the 7th Avenue-Margalla Road junction that killed the motorcyclist (Mr. Ateeq Baig) on the spot and injured the co-rider (Mr. Raheel). FIR has been lodged and matter is under investigation at this stage. The Foreign Secretary has conveyed to the US Ambassador that justice will take its course in accordance with the law of the land and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961. The US Ambassador has assured the Foreign Secretary of full cooperation in this issue. We await results of the investigations before discussing the issue any further.

Regarding the fatal traffic accident, the facts look pretty clear, and it was captured by a traffic camera.



So, back to you Spokesperson Nauert, what do you have for us on that promised criminal or administrative proceeding?

The Contractor: So Quick to Shoot, So Slow to Get Away

“If you’re going to send a Jason Bourne character to Pakistan, he should have the skills of a Jason Bourne to get away,” Pakistan's Ambassador Haqqani told CIA Director Leon Panetta, according to the New York Times. Touché, Ambassador Haqqani. You put your finger on the first and biggest problem with the Raymond Davis incident: it wouldn't have happened at all if Davis had simply shot the two Lahore street thugs who had pointed pistols at him, and then driven off. But he didn't. He hung around the scene until a crowd formed and he couldn't drive away, and then he surrendered himself to Lahore police officers. He stayed in prison while the CIA, it's Pakistani counterpart, and our respective Ambassadors eventually cut a deal for his release.

In his book, Davis boasts about how quickly he can draw a pistol and hit a target, only 1.1 seconds on average. So the shooting part didn't take much time, but, then he spent the next seven weeks in prison while his fate was decided by others. Davis doesn't seem the reflective type, but should he reflect on it, he would probably agree with me that he ought to have done a little more training on putting a car into reverse and departing at high speed. 

The NYT's video embedded above of an interview with Davis is short - just six minutes - and superficial. Back in 2014, the NYT had a very good article about the Davis incident and how it was finally resolved after doing a great deal of damage to U.S.-Pakistani relations: How a Single Spy Helped Turn Pakistan Against the United States. I'd read that for context before reading Davis' own, more limited, account.

The damage Davis caused to our relations with a necessary ally isn't over yet, by the way, since Davis' book is currently feeding Pakistan's appetite for conspiracy theories. Did you know his book was secretly cooked up by India's intelligence agency as a means to slander Pakistan's Army and democratic institutions? Yeah, it's true, according to today's Pakistani press, to take just one random example of Pakistani media reaction.

On a personal level I have to feel sorry for Davis. He was a personal services contractor who by all accounts provided useful service for a long time in Pakistan, not just in Lahore but also in the far more dangerous city of Peshawar. I've heard it suggested that a career employee in his same situation would have had the good sense to get away after the shooting, because he'd know that his career would be over if he caused a public spectacle, whereas a short-term contractor like Davis didn't have the same long-term interest. That could be. Another part of the problem may be that Davis believed he was operating under wartime rules - during the interview he repeatedly refers to Lahore, or Pakistan, as "a war zone" - but of course, we are not at war with Pakistan. If Davis came to confuse discreet personal protection work in Pakistan with military service across the border in Afghanistan, then that was the fault of his employer and supervisors.

One last thought: why has everyone on the U.S. side of the incident forgotten the innocent victim, the third Pakistani killed that day, a bicyclist who was run over and killed by some of Davis's fellow contractors who were driving against traffic in an attempt to extract him from the scene of the shooting? Unlike the two armed criminals Davis shot, that guy was just a plain victim. Yet, the U.S. never even expressed regret for his death, so far as I recall. 

All in all, not a good showing by our side.

The Last Diplomat, But Almost Certainly Not The Last Time

The Wall Street Journal has an article up tonight - and in front of the pay wall - about the 2014 arrest of Robin Raphel on suspicion of espionage, the FBI's failed struggle to understand her function as a veteran diplomat and senior advisor on Pakistan, and the subsequent dismissal of all charges against her. Read it here, The Last Diplomat.

Her problems with the FBI began with this:

"Two FBI agents approached her, their faces stony. “Do you know any foreigners?” they asked."

Two years and over $100,000 in legal fees later, her legal problems were over, but her experience with law enforcement left an adverse impact on national security that will continue.

“What happened to Raphel could happen to any of us,” said Ryan Crocker, one of the State Department’s most highly decorated career ambassadors. Given the empowerment of law enforcement after 9/11 and the U.S.’s growing reliance on signals intelligence in place of diplomatic reporting, he said, “we will know less and we will be less secure.”

“Look what happened to the one person who was out talking to people,” said Dan Feldman, Raphel’s former boss at State. “Does that not become a cautionary tale?”

Donald Trump (if that really is his name), Born in Pakistan?

Traffic Police in #Peshawar say they've had to confiscate number plates from vehicles celebrating Donald Trump. (This country = Surprises) pic.twitter.com/jBvhLQjgxH

— Iftikhar Firdous (@IftikharFirdous) November 16, 2016

Not that I think for one minute that President-Elect Trump was born in Pakistan, as this report from Neo News has it, but then, it might explain the burst of local pride in Peshawar this week.

Maybe Trump's real name was Dawood Ibrahim Khan, orphaned in Waziristan in 1954, taken to London by a kindly British Army officer, and then adopted by the Trump family a year later.

I mean, that could kind of happen, I suppose.

Was It All That Bad To Have a Few American Center Libraries Torched? Discuss

A Golden Oldie, USIS Library Karachi

Consumer Notice: This post is certified 100% free of Matters of Official Concern that are not referenced from publicly available sources of information.

Two weeks ago the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy (ACPD) repeated some very old arguments that blame the current decline in public diplomacy programs on the post-1985 creation of security standards for overseas diplomatic missions, as well as the replacement of old embassy office buildings with so-called Fortress Embassies, and - most of all - a 1999 law that prohibits having stand-alone American Centers outside those new embassies without a waiver signed by the SecState. I sympathize with the goal of retaining stand-alone American Centers, but the ACPD's arguments are badly in need of updating and fact-checking.

Which brings me to last Tuesday's post at Whirled View about American Diplomacy: What Went Wrong and What Can Be Done About It? Once again, it seems, those Fortress Embassies are What Went Wrong to public diplomacy programs.

The post 9/11 explosion of fortress embassies [phrasing?] on the outskirts of cities has just exacerbated US diplomats’ inability to function abroad effectively. Diplomacy is foremost about interacting with people - and when diplomats are sidelined to distant suburbs and the people they need to talk with work in the city center and are not welcome in Embassy offices chances are that those discussions and meetings will be far and few between, if they take place at all.

-- snip --

The report [of the Academy of American Diplomacy, American Diplomacy at Risk] ignores America’s fortress embassies but they too are a part of the equation.

What good does it do to have crusader castles and even the most qualified diplomats based in the equivalents of the outer reaches of the universe? True, such embassies provide a single hardened location supposedly easier to defend from terrorists but wouldn’t it be better - perhaps even safer - if certain functions were separated into smaller, less visible but more accessible units scattered throughout a city? Was it even all that bad to have a very few American Center libraries torched over the decades as happened in volatile places like Pakistan years ago but the rest of the larger mission - including the Embassy and Consulates - kept out of harm’s way?

The not-all-your-eggs-in-one basket argument has merit, I think, at least in the comparatively safe places where the host government is capable of providing the U.S. mission with a reasonable level of protection. Where it isn't capable or willing to do so, then all our eggs are better off collected into one big Fortress protected by our own resources.

As for the rhetorical question about torched American Center libraries, well, someone must be kidding. Was it all that bad? Yes, it was pretty damn bad when mobs attacked our libraries in Pakistan in 1979, with loss of lives in every case. And it didn't act as a safety value for the rest of the mission, either, since our Embassy and Consulates were also attacked. The only difference was that the Libraries in Lahore and Rawalpindi were more vulnerable than the rest of the mission facilities, and so they were more easily destroyed. Mobs also tried to burn the Libraries in Karachi and Peshawar, but those were collocated with our Consulate office buildings and the attackers were stopped by massive police interventions.

A survivor of the 1979 attack in Lahore described it to CNN in 2012:

A mob of perhaps 5,000 marched to the American Center, burned it and then marched to the consulate and attacked us. Battled by 300 Pakistani policemen, they burned our cars and tried, unsuccessfully, to burn down the consulate itself -- with us inside. There were enough police to keep the crowd at bay, but not enough to disperse them quickly. After several hours, the crowd left and the police took us out in an armed convoy.

The attack on the Lahore Library was described in detail by one of its local employees, Tanweer Ahmed Khan, in an article he wrote for a USIA commemorative history, Fire and Luck at the American Center, Lahore:

On November 21, 1979, in Lahore, Pakistan, the three American USIS officers — BPAO Douglas H. Smith, BCAO V.Miro Morville, and Program Officer Lester R. Velez — were out for lunch as was FSN Administrative Specialist Mohammad Ajmal Khan. Suddenly, a mob of 5,000 rioters attacked the American Center. At that time, there were no high protective walls, no steel fences on perimeter walls, no guard booths, and no security doors on the third floor where the staff worked.

When the mob first appeared, our security guard in the lobby pulled the steel shutter down to close off the entrance. In response, the crowd tore down the electrical poles and used them to break open the shutters and force their way into the building. Rais-uddin Zuberi, our budget analyst and second in command in the Administrative Section, called Ajmal Khan at his residence and informed him of the situation. Ajmal told him to have the staff move immediately onto the roof of the building, which was the designated safe haven.

What really impressed me at that time was that, within minutes, Ajmal, without caring for his own life, showed up at the American Center building — entering through a back service entrance — to help us out of the life-threatening situation. He masterfully took charge of defending the lives of the 50 staff members and the visiting library patrons, who were afraid to leave the building.

Ajmal led the group to the third floor and then onto the roof. He counted the staff members and asked if anyone was missing. Someone said that Umar Din, a library security guard, was missing. Everyone got panicky. Fortunately, a few of us who had returned from lunch just before the attack had seen Umar Din having lunch at a nearby restaurant. By this time, the crowd was swarming inside the American Center building. They set the lower floors of the building on fire.

The invaders then climbed to the library, destroying books and furniture. Huge black clouds of smoke traveled to our offices on the third floor and then circulated in the air-conditioning ducts. The smoke was so great, they started to jump out of the building. Some of them were injured. After a while, the leaders of the mob announced that all Pakistanis should come down and promised we would not be harmed. However, the Americans would not be spared. Since there were no Americans in the building, we evacuated without any trouble.

Twenty years have passed since this incident, but I still think about what would have happened if an American officer had been with us in the building. None of us would have wanted to leave an American in a life-threatening situation. I always thank God that no American was in the building at that time.

Was that really all that bad? Yes, it was, and it would have been much worse for the U.S. and local employees as well as the Library patrons if the Americans had not been out at lunch when the attack began.

The American employees were present when the American Center in Islamabad was attacked by a mob in 1989:

Five demonstrators were shot and killed Sunday and 80 people were seriously injured when Pakistani riot police opened fire on thousands of protesters attacking the U.S. cultural center here after a demonstration against the British novel "The Satanic Verses" turned into a rock-throwing anti-American melee.

None of the three Americans or 15 Pakistani employees inside the center at the time were hurt, but thousands of dollars in damage was done to the building, which houses an American library and sponsors cultural events designed to reinforce U.S.-Pakistani ties.

"It was a peaceful demonstration that went wrong," said Kent Obee, head of the U.S. Information Service in Pakistan. Obee was inside the building waiting to receive a petition from the protesters when the riot erupted.

A key factor in the survival of our employees in that attack was that the Center had been physically hardened up Fortress Embassy-style by USIA's in-house security element. Nevertheless, five protestors were shot to death literally on the door step of the American Center on that occasion.

Ten years later, the same American Center in Islamabad was fired on with incendiary and fragmentation rockets, injuring a local guard and nearly killing a Library employee. Not long after our invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Center was closed - given up on as an indefensible location and a magnet for attacks - and public diplomacy operations moved into the U.S. Embassy compound inside Islamabad's diplomatic enclave, where they basically withered away.

Of course, all that and more happened in Pakistan, and Pakistan is an especially difficult situation. I'd be curious to know how many physical attacks - drive-by shootings, mobs, bombs, arson, and so on - have occurred at all of our public diplomacy platforms around the world over time. I'd be even more curious to know whether those platforms have suffered attacks out of proportion to whatever percentage they are of all U.S. mission non-collocated facilities. If, just to make up numbers for the sake of illustration, they are ten percent of our non-collocated facilities but account for twenty percent of all attacks on those facilities, then that would tell us something about their comparative risk. Couldn't the ACPD collect those statistics? That might help them more than a White Paper full of old arguments when it comes to engaging the State Department on ways to preserve stand-alone American Centers.

To return to Whirled View's post, it concluded with this plea:

Wouldn’t it make more sense for economic and commercial functions to be located in financial and business districts? After all, one fifth of all American jobs now depend on international trade.

A cultural section in an American Center near major educational and arts institutions, information sections close to Fleet Streets and political officers as close to the Foreign Ministries, presidential offices and parliament as possible? Even with the Internet, the most important business takes places directly and confidentially between people - not transmitted to the world via wifi.

In short, “American Diplomacy at Risk” provides the opening for a foreign affairs discussion that needs to begin now. It is nearly 14 years since 9/11. Will anyone listen?

Now, 9/11 had nothing to do with the “explosion" of Fortress Embassies. The Capital Security Construction Program was mandated by a law that was passed in 1999, although it wasn’t until 2001 that new construction kicked into high gear. See this publicly available source of information, pages 11 and 12, for a concise summary of that program. And, even though security was the prime motive, that program also addresses a long-term problem of decrepit and unsafe diplomatic office buildings; ones that are too small, too old, too expensive to maintain, fire traps, and seismic risks. Haiti and Kathmandu are just two posts that have benefited from new offices and residences that didn’t fall down when earthquakes struck.

And by the way, can we please stop exaggerating the remoteness of all those new embassies and consulates? After browsing the nineteen press kits for completed new embassies that are available on OBO's website, I see that few of them describe new missions in distant suburbs or outer reaches of the universe. At least six of those new embassy locations sound like they are very accessible.

In Rabat, the new embassy is located three miles from the city center on a major thoroughfare. In Vientiane it is south of downtown, but with a stand-alone American Center in the downtown core. (How about that? Someone must have requested a waiver of the collocation requirement.) In Belgrade it is south of the city center. In Cotonou “the new Embassy will be located on an 8.8 acre site along one of the town’s main thoroughfares - Boulevard de la Marina. The site is in close proximity to other diplomatic facilities and ministerial buildings near the town center, and 2 kilometers away from the airport and seaport.” In Guangzhou it is in the central business district adjacent to the Pearl River.

Additionally, the new embassy that is now under construction in London is inside the city, although on the edge. In Pristina, OBO is breaking ground on a new embassy inside the central city.

In Mexico City, which is the biggest project OBO has going on after London, the new embassy location is just as centrally located as the current Embassy and American Center. The embassy's press release noted that "the Polanco site was chosen due to its location, with proximity to government offices, services, and major residential areas."

Google maps tells me the construction site is only 4.5 km from the current embassy. Would any prospective Public Diplomacy client in Mexico City find it any harder to get to the New Polanco site than to the current Ben Franklin Library in the Zona Rosa? I can't see how.

Thirty years after the first Fortress Embassies were built, it is high time to acknowledge that OBO has refined the process and greatly improved its product.

In fairness to OBO, it seems that it has listened. Now, it's time for our public diplomacy advocates to say something new.

Facing the Heavy Night After Taliban's Attack on Pakistan Army Public School

Coffins delivered to a Peshawar hospital

Perhaps the most profound word on today's atrocity in Peshawar was had by the Taliban's spokesman when he rationalized the massacre of children from the families of Pakistan's Army. "We are facing such heavy nights in routine," he said, referring to the thousands of casualties inflicted by the Army on extremists in Waziristan. "Today, you must face the heavy night."

It's just that simple. Inflicting suffering on the enemy is, by itself, a victory for the Pakistani Taliban.

The BBC's story was the best I saw, Peshawar school attack leaves 141 dead:

This brutal attack may well be a watershed for a country long accused by the world of treating terrorists as strategic assets.

Pakistan's policy-makers struggling to come to grips with various shades of militants have often cited a "lack of consensus" and "large pockets of sympathy" for religious militants as a major stumbling-block.

That is probably why, when army chief Gen Raheel Sharif launched what he called an indiscriminate operation earlier in the year against militant groups in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt, the political response was lukewarm at best.

We will get them, was his message, be they Pakistani Taliban, Punjabi Taliban, al-Qaeda and affiliates, or most importantly, the dreaded Haqqani network. But the country's political leadership chose to remain largely silent. This is very likely to change now.

-- snip --

Still, even by Pakistan and the Taliban's gruesome standards, Tuesday's attack may be the most abominable yet.

-- snip --

And for the past few months, the Pakistani military has been conducting a ground offensive aimed at clearing out militants. The campaign has displaced tens of thousands of people.

The military offensive in the region has spurred deadly retaliations.

Khurrassani, the Pakistan Taliban spokesman, told CNN that the latest attack was revenge for the killing of hundreds of innocent tribesmen during repeated army operations in provinces including South Waziristan, North Waziristan and the Khyber Agency.

The TTP spokesman challenged that ordinary citizens were targeted, saying that five army vehicles are routinely stationed at the school.

"We are facing such heavy nights in routine," Khurrassani said, rationalizing the siege shortly before it ended. "Today, you must face the heavy night."

According to news reports, the Pakistan Army has killed almost 2,000 militants in North Waziristan in a massive offensive that began in June. If the Pakistani political response to that anti-Taliban offensive had been lukewarm or ambivalent before, surely that will change after today's enormous provocation.

Today's attack could very well create a multi-generational war that will continue until the Pakistan Army has eradicated not just their enemy but his entire bloodline.

Mister Forgetful Goes To The Airport In Karachi

Book him Danish, Stupidity One

This just in from Pakistan's Geo-TV, local court grants bail to FBI agent:

KARACHI: The District and Sessions Judge Malir granted bail to a US citizen who was arrested from the Jinnah International Airport on Monday for trying to board an Islamabad bound PIA flight with ammunition, knives.

Police office Rao Anwaar said the court had directed the man to submit a surety bond of one million rupee ($9,800) for his bail.

The police had detained the American on May 5 at an airport in Karachi after ammunition and three knives were seized from him.

A US law enforcement official identified the man as an FBI agent and said he was there as part of an anti-corruption operation.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Foreign Office has confirmed that the US citizen was an FBI agent who did not have diplomatic immunity.

To recap this story, it seems that an FBI agent was sent to Pakistan for a short TDY assignment, reportedly arriving in Karachi on 1 May. On Monday, 5 May, he attempted to board a flight from Karachi to Islamabad but was arrested when airport security screening found a full magazine of pistol ammunition and a knife in his carry-on bag. He was now been charged with violation of Pakistan's anti-terrorism laws. Police were quoted yesterday saying the agent had a "normal travel visa," and today the Pakistan FO confirmed that the guy does not have diplomatic immunity.

The part about his passport is still unclear to me. I hope he had an official or a diplomatic passport, because, well, just damn, I hope we aren't sending anyone to Pakistan on official USG business without that. As a mere TDY visitor, he would not have had diplomatic immunity regardless of the color of his passport. But surely he was not sent to Pakistan on official business with a blue tourist passport, was he? I fear he could have been.

There is the matter of the agent's carelessness in having ammo and a knife on him when going through airport screening. What was he thinking? But, leave that aside.

There is the other matter of him losing control of his laptop, phone, and other electronic devices, all of them no doubt used for official USG business, and all of them now being ransacked by Pakistani intelligence agencies. That's pretty bad.

Add to that the diplomatic embarrassment factor, and the additional scrutiny other USG travelers will now face in Pakistan. If I were planning to go there on official business right now, I wouldn't be too happy. I mean, I would be even more unhappy than I would normally be about going to Pakistan.

Hey, Mister Special Agent Forgetful, thanks for making Pakistan an even harder place for your fellow government employees.

Art in Embassies Couldn't Bridge Pakistani-American Differences

I have all the regard in the world for the professional curators in the Art in Embassies (AIE) office. They make a serious contribution to public diplomacy by, among other things, placing permanent exhibits at each of our new Fortress Embassies - of which there are 111 and counting as of this month - and, God knows, those places can use some cultural uplift.

Frankly, though, I don't think a sculpture of an albino camel gazing at a gigantic needle is the artwork we need at U.S. Embassy Islamabad. I mean, a camel? Why put out that bait for cheap jokes?

Well, it turns out that AIE didn't want the camel at first, either.

Virginia Shore, Chief Curator of AIE, was interviewed about her job by LA Contemporary and she had this to say about the Islamabad embassy project:

[Question] In war torn or "hostile" countries, have there been instances where artists need to reflect on their right to create, to see, to think, to absorb, to interpret, and to translate?

[Answer] I believe the visual arts programming is relevant in every country but can be more critical in hot-bed countries where there is unrest, instability, or conflict exists between us. The art humanizes these buildings and becomes a common denominator. Sometimes these buildings look like bunkers. The objective of the art program is to highlight the similarities as well the differences between our countries. While the art may not ultimately change the outcome, it helps on a humanitarian and emotional level. Yes, at times it can be tricky for artists from the host countries at times to work with AIE.

Recently, I have been working with Shahzia Sikander, an internationally acclaimed artist from Pakistan who is a miniaturist and video artist. Sikander lives in the US. The initial concept was for her and a classmate of hers from the National College of Arts in Lahore to collaborate on a site-specific commission for the new Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. However, the local politics in Pakistan came into play. Heated debates on her role in the history of contemporary art emerged, and a critic questioned her contributions as a leader of Pakistani art, as well as her allegiance. Ultimately, we decided that any type of collaboration would be fraught with issues and might be interpreted as having messages of propaganda. So, we are working on site-specific commissions for both artists versus a collaboration.

Well, well, well. So the politics of Pakistan made it impossible for the State Department to commission a noted Pakistani-American artist to produce a representational artwork for our embassy there. Her "allegiance" - meaning, presumably, her allegiance to Pakistan - was questioned by Pakistani critics, and her collaboration with a local artist might have been seen as propagandistic. And so, we went with the camel instead.

Too bad. If the objective of the Art in Embassies program is to "highlight the similarities as well the differences between our countries," what better way to do that than with a Pakistani-American collaboration? The camel has nothing to contribute to that objective.

First Lady of the United States Visits Pakistan and Tours Peshawar, the Khyber Pass, and Lahore

This visit happened in March, 1962. Does anyone want to speculate when we might next send FLOTUS on a goodwill tour of Pakistan?

The film is interesting in a 'wow, how the world has changed!' sort of way. Jacqueline Kennedy's itinerary included places where the USG does not dare to have a presence today, or if it does, it does so only in the most minimal way and with the utmost security countermeasures.

At the Khyber Pass, where NATO convoys now fear to go

Riding a camel on Clifton beach in Karachi

Arriving in Peshawar

That last photo is rather stunning to me. An open car? When was the last time the USG let anyone travel down a street in Peshawar outside of a convoy of heavily armored vehicles? It's as if 1962 was not just a different century, but a whole different world.

The visit was the subject of a 15-minute film produced by the U.S. Information Service (Invitation to Pakistan, March 1962), something unremarkable at the time, but which itself now has the feeling of a vanished era.

Given that USIS was folded into the State Department back in 1999, I expect there are few active members of the U.S. Foreign Service today who have any memory of when there was an independent government agency that did public diplomacy and broadcasting. If you don't remember it, or would like to refresh your memory, see this swan song commemorative booklet USIS published before it closed up shop.

In its last year of operation, USIS had 190 posts in 142 countries, an annual budget of $1 billion and change, and employed - even after a staffing reduction in 1997 - 6,352 employees, of whom 904 were Foreign Service personnel, 2,521 were locally engaged staff overseas, and 2,927 were Civil Service employees in the United States. How does that compare to the resources of the R Bureau today? Badly, I know.

In the film, Jacqueline Kennedy, accompanied by her sister, Princess Lee Radziwill [I recall seeing the Princess in the news way back when I was a kid, although I never did understand exactly what Kingdom she was the Princess of] visits Pakistani President Mohammad Ayub Khan and United States Ambassador to Pakistan Walter P. McConaughy, attends a horse and cattle show in Lahore, delivers gifts to children's hospitals, does fun stuff in Karachi, drives to the Khyber Pass, delivers remarks, and even provides a little voice-over.

The film is narrated by the Canadian-American actor Raymond Massey (1896 – 1983), a distinguished sort of guy who was then at the peak of a long film career. That's another indicator of how high a bar USIS set. Do we get actors of similar stature to do the voice work on our PD products today?

Closed Diplomatic Posts To Reopen Sunday

The State Department Spokesperson - and that awkward gender-neutral word "spokesperson" is indeed her official job title, although I'll be damned if I can see why it's any better than "spokeswoman" - Jen Psaki issued an update on the status of Embassies and Consulates this afternoon:

On Sunday, August 11, the Department of State will re-open 18 of the 19 embassies and consulates that were closed recently. Our embassy in Sanaa, Yemen will remain closed because of ongoing concerns about a threat stream indicating the potential for terrorist attacks emanating from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Our consulate in Lahore, Pakistan, which closed yesterday due to a separate credible threat to that facility, will also remain closed.

We will continue to evaluate the threats to Sanaa and Lahore and make subsequent decisions about the re-opening of those facilities based on that information. We will also continue to evaluate information about these and all of our posts and to take appropriate steps to best protect the safety of our personnel, American citizens traveling overseas, and visitors to our facilities.

And so, with no more explanation of the threats - or the threat streams to use another bit of annoying jargon - than when they were closed a week ago, 18 of the 19 affected NEA and AF posts will reopen.

As for Sanaa and Lahore, well, sometimes a cooling off period or a safety shutdown is a good idea. In fact, we probably should close those posts for no reason at all from time to time, just to be unpredictable and make our people a moving target.    

In Memoriam: 18 Years Ago In Karachi, Pakistan

Post-attack photo from State Department publication

On March 8, 1995, an unarmored U.S. Consulate Karachi shuttle van transporting employees was blocked in rush hour traffic and then fired upon by two men armed with AK–47 rifles. Two American employees were killed - Jackie van Landingham, a secretary, and Gary C. Durell, a communications technician - and a third was wounded.

There was no claim of responsibility, but the attack may have been in retaliation for the arrest one month earlier in Islamabad of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the main perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Despite an FBI investigation and a $2 million reward for information, the attackers were never arrested. 

Peshawar - U.S. Consulate Employees Attacked By Suicide Bomber

Consumer Notice: This post is certified 100% free of Matters of Official Concern that are not referenced from publicly available sources of information.

Once again, U.S. government employees overseas have survived a terrorist attack thanks to the heavily-armored vehicle in which they were riding. Dollar for dollar, the State Department's armored car program may have prevented more deaths and injuries than any other physical countermeasure out there.

Note the vehicle frame is largely intact, although burned-out

Also note the distance between bomb crater and vehicle

The most complete news story on today's attack that I've seen so far is from the New York Times (here):

There were conflicting reports about the number and nationality of the casualties. Pakistani officials said that at least two people were killed and at least 13 were injured, including two police officers. The United States Embassy in Islamabad confirmed the attack and said in a statement that two Americans and two Pakistani employees of the consulate were injured. It denied early reports that an American had been killed.

A senior Pakistani government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that an American backup vehicle immediately retrieved the four who were wounded inside the S.U.V. and took them to the consulate. The official said two Pakistanis were killed outside the vehicle.

-- snip --

The American vehicle had left the heavily guarded and fortified consulate building and was passing a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees guest house on Abdara Road when it was rammed by a vehicle containing at least 200 pounds of explosives, according to police officials. A thick plume of smoke rose over the site after the explosion that could be seen a mile away. The blast left a five-foot-wide crater in the road.

The last time a U.S. consulate vehicle in Peshawar was bombed was May of 2011 (here), and all employees survived that one, too. In that incident, the bomb was planted along the side of the road and detonated remotely when the consulate vehicle passed by.

Today's attack used a suicide bomber to drive an improvised explosive device directly at our vehicle and detonate against it while both vehicles were moving. That escalation in tactics indicates that the Taliban - who are the most likely culprits, although no one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack - are capable of learning lessons and adapting to what they perceive of U.S. government countermeasures.

Various Pakistani reports have added interesting nuggets of information beyond what was in the NYT's story:

-- The attack took place at about 9 AM this morning
-- The consulate vehicle was being escorted by three police vehicles
-- The vehicle was en route from the consulate to the nearby American club, according to one of the escorting police drivers
-- An official of the police bomb disposal squad was quoted saying the vehicle bomb was assembled out of military munitions (mortar shells); if so, then it had much higher explosive force than a typical improvised device
-- The bomb was reported to be 100 kilos (220 pounds) in size; such estimates are highly speculative, however, I can believe it was that big by the distance that the U.S. vehicle appears to have been blown off the road
-- The Pakistani driver of the consulate vehicle told local news media that he was knocked unconscious by the blast, but recovered in a few minutes

The tactic of using a suicide bomber against a vehicle in motion is not new. It was used in Karachi in 2006 to attack a U.S. consulate vehicle, killing a U.S. citizen employee, David Foy, who was transiting from his home to the office, as well as a locally engaged employee who was driving, and a Pakistani Army Ranger who was manning a checkpoint outside the consulate. That was the last fatal attack on a U.S. government employee in Pakistan.

The same tactic was used in 2002, again in Karachi, to kill eleven French naval engineers who were in transit from their hotel to their workplace.

More details about today's attack will eventually be released, I'm sure. But for now this looks like a favorable outcome, and one that we can credit to the RSO's security programs, as well as to the Department's huge investment in armored vehicles.

Note: If you are looking for local news coverage of today's incident, this Pakistani Geo TV clip has the most comprehensive video coverage of the immediate aftermath of the bombing:

HRC To Pakistan: Please Accept My Apology $1.2 Billion

So the story goes that Hillary has finally apologized to Pakistan's Foreign Minister for our errant airstrike of last November that killed 24 Pakistani troops, and Pakistan's leadership, now sufficiently placated, has in return allowed our convoys to resume transiting their country to support our troops in Afghanistan.

The apology was delicately worded to avoid using the word "apology."

“We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military ... We are committed to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever happening again.”

That was all it took to get Pakistan to end its blockade of our convoys? Yes, that plus our resumption of annual payments to Pakistan of 1.2 billion.

Yesterday's The Cable broke down the back story of Hillary's apology, which is considerably more complex than a matter of polite manners:

Tuesday's announcement came after months of protracted and often excruciating negotiations between the two governments. On the U.S. side of the table, the process was led by Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides, who was in Pakistan Monday, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs Peter Lavoy, and Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman. ISAF Commander Gen. John Allen also traveled to Pakistan twice over the past two weeks, once at the invitation of Pakistani Army Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and again as part of larger discussions regarding the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

The internal U.S. process that led to today's remarks by Clinton was extensive -- and rocky at times. It has been well reported that the State Department, especially soon-to-be-former U.S. Ambassador Cameron Munter, urged the White House to apologize long ago but was overruled due to objections from the Defense Department, where officials were angered by the fact that the Pakstani military accused the U.S. military of killing the soldiers intentionally.

Three administration sources confirmed to The Cable that between December and early spring, the National Security Council convened at least 8 separate high-level meetings to debate the apology, and ultimately, the White House earlier this year decided to issue one.

The Pakistani government in early Spring asked the White House not to issue the apology because the Pakistani parliament was in the middle of its comprehensive review of the bilateral relationship. Then, following deadly attacks in Kabul on NATO forces in April, which were traced back to the Pakistan-based Haqqani network, the White House took the apology off the table.

That's why today's comments by Clinton came as a huge surprise to many Pakistan-watchers. But experts saw in her comments a careful dance that the administration thinks represents a compromise, because Clinton never actually said the word "apology" or "apologize."

"It allows the administration to say to Congress, we didn't ‘apologize,' we said we were ‘sorry,'" said Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council. He emphasized that discussions about several thorny issues in the relationship are still ongoing.

Asked directly at today's press briefing if the "sorry" comment constituted an "apology," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland wouldn't say that it did. In conjunction with Tuesday's announcement, the Obama administration has agreed to hand over about $1.2 billion to the Pakistanis in Coalition Support Funds (CSF) that were owed but delayed as part of the overall unhappiness between the two governments, two administration sources confirmed. Pakistan, which views the funds as reimbursements the United Sates agreed to pay in exchange for Pakistan's help in fighting the war on terror, argues that America owes it a larger sum.

-- snip --

Getting the CSF funding was always the real goal of the negotiations as far as the Pakistanis were concerned, according to [a former U.S. official who spoke to The Cable]. 

Pakistani Official Harassment of U.S. Mission Has "Reached New Levels Of Intensity"

U.S. Embassy employee at roadblock in Peshawar, Pakistani news photo

Late this afternoon the State Department released the report of the Office of Inspector General's Compliance Follow-Up Review for Embassy Islamabad and constituent posts in Pakistan. The big take-away is the unprecedented levels of Pakistani official harassment of our mission and its employees.

U.S. official entities operating in Pakistan have long been subjected to unusual, government-initiated obstructionism and harassment. That harassment has reached new levels of intensity, however, after the events of 2011. The embassy describes the harassment as deliberate, willful, and systematic. While other diplomatic missions have experienced similar treatment, the United States is clearly the principal target. The harassment takes many forms: delayed visa issuances; blocked shipments for both assistance programs and construction projects; denials of requests for in-country travel; and surveillance of and interference with mission employees and contractors.

Details of that harassment were redacted before the report was released.

That's a lot of black ink, and it continues for another page and a half. So many details to obscure!

But the OIG report is perfectly clear about another matter: 

Based on its visit, the OIG team would not dispute the characterization of Peshawar in the 2010 inspection report as the most dangerous post in the world.

They have that right.

U.S. Senate Punishes Pakistan With 1.48 % Cut In Aid

To be precise, it was 1.48141498 percent. How do you like that, Pakistan? Payback's a bitch.

Senate panel cuts Pakistan's aid in response to doctor's conviction:

Senate appropriators unanimously voted Thursday to cut Pakistani aid by $33 million, or $1 million for every year a Pakistani doctor will spend in prison for helping the CIA find Osama bin Laden.

While the cut represents a small fraction of U.S. aid to Pakistan, the 30-0 vote in favor of the amendment from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) highlights the tension between the two countries sparked by Wednesday's sentencing in Pakistan of Shakil Afridi on treason charges by a tribal court.

-- snip --

The cut represents about 4 percent of the $800 million set aside for Pakistan next fiscal year, including $250 million in foreign military aid and another $50 million for Pakistan's counterinsurgency efforts. The original $800 million was already far below the $2.3 billion the Obama administration is requesting for Pakistan.

The $800 million referred to in the article is evidently the Overseas Contingency Operations portion of the total foreign assistance request for Pakistan. Another $1.5 billion or so in annual nonmilitary aid regularly goes to Pakistan under the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009.

See this Congressional Research Service report for lots and lots of details.

So, how much assistance are we giving to Pakistan this year? According to ForeignAssistance.gov, the FY-13 request is $2,227,600,000 in total. Minus that big 33 mil, of course.

Divide the Senate's $33 million penalty by the total of 2 billion 227 million the administration is requesting, and you get 1.48 percent. Or, approximately, a senator's lunch money. If the Pakistani big-shots even notice that bite, I'd be surprised.

Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back, Lindsey.

Declassified Document Of The Week

H/T to Unredacted at the National Security Archive for a very timely find on this week's Document Friday.

It's a State Department INR memo to the SecState dated November 7, 2001, reporting that "urban Pakistanis" polled immediately after 9/11 supported the Taliban regime in Afghanistan at greater levels than before. In fact, almost half of respondents favored increasing support to the Taliban.

The survey was conducted amongst “urban Pakistanis,” beginning “shortly after September 11″ 2001 and “almost all interviews” were conducted before the United States started bombing Afghanistan. In other words, the window that a westerner would assume that Pakistanis would probably have had the absolute lowest amount of support for the Taliban.

Not the case. The survey asked: “As you may know, our [Pakistani] government has been generally supportive of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. In the future, would you like to see our government strengthen its support for the Taliban, reduce its support, or maintain support for the Taliban at about the same level as now?”

The vast majority –46 percent– favored “increasing support for Mullah Omar’s regime.” Only a paltry 14 percent favored reducing support. The INR concluded that the Pakistani public “saw the Taliban more favorably than it had before the September 11 attacks.” And that Pakistanis “believed by a sizable majority that the Taliban are not a threat to stability in the region and that Pakistan’s ties with the Taliban are good.”

In a week when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff accused the Pakistani government of supporting the Afghan Taliban, it is sobering to realize how deep and pervasive popular support for the Taliban runs in Pakistan.

Flags Made To Be Burned - A New Public Diplomacy Metric?

Protestors like to burn flags, and those flags have to come from somewhere. In Pakistan, that somewhere might be a specialty shop run by an entrepreneur named Syed Mohammed Hussain who has flags to burn. I mean, he makes combustible flags to order:

Syed Mohammed Hussain has seen his one-off experiment [producing Danish flags to be burned] turn into a profitable little sideline as he produces American and Israeli flags to order.

This week brought fresh demand for the Stars and Stripes with a wave of demonstrations against American allegations that Pakistan was using an Afghan insurgent group to wage a proxy war against US forces.

But it all started with protests at caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed printed in a Danish newspaper in 2006. Pakistan witnessed some of the fiercest demonstrations, with two people shot dead.

"I was also very angry about the Danish cartoons but I wouldn't have gone out on the streets myself. Instead I decided to get Danish flags printed," Mr Hussain, who sells his flags for 500 rupees or about £3.50, told The Express Tribune

Word spread fast and he couldn't keep up with the orders.

Today, bulk buyers – looking for more than 100 flags – are given a discount.

And there has been no shortage of business this year as relations with the US have fluctuated between poor and catastrophic.

The killing of Osama bin Laden in May ignited a spate of flag-burning protests. Many Pakistanis were angry that the US could launch a secret, unauthorised raid on Pakistani territory.

Today his storeroom has a selection of western flags, including the Union Flag and French Tricolour, ready to be stamped, trampled or burned.

So here's my idea for a metric of Public Diplomacy success in places like Pakistan: monitor fluctuations in the local demand for U.S. flags.

If Syed Mohammed Hussain's unsold inventory of Stars and Stripes grows, that would be quantifiable good news about the U.S. image in Pakistan. If he has to work overtime to make more product and raises his prices, that would be a leading indicator of a spike in public outrage.

You're welcome, United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy!

Is Uzbekistan The New Pakistan?

- Google Earth map marked with the Northern Distribution Network, from CSIS.

After breaking up with Pakistan, it looks like we are rushing into a new relationship with Uzbekistan on the rebound. Isn't that always the way?

Both Hillary and Obama chatted up their Uzbek counterparts this week, and Congress is considering increasing our military assistance to Uzbekistan provided that it can find a way to overlook the regime's egregious human rights abuses and corruption.

The UK Telegraph has a story today on this bad romance:

The past fortnight has seen relations between Islamabad and Washington sink to new lows over allegations that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency was working with the Haqqani network to direct attacks on American targets in Afghanistan.

The crisis, the latest in a turbulent year, has seen both countries scrambling to build up alternative regional alliances.

However, more than a third of supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan pass through Pakistan, giving Islamabad a strong bargaining position.

A White House official said President Obama had discussed sending more supplies through the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan during a phone call with the country's president, Islam Karimov.

At the same time, Hillary Clinton met her Uzbek counterpart on Thursday, and Congress is considering legislative changes that would allow more military aid to the Central Asian despite its poor human rights record.

"We value our relationship with Uzbekistan. They have been very helpful to us with respect to the Northern Distribution Network," said Mrs Clinton.

That route winds its way through Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia to Afghanistan and has already become more important in the past year as the US began switching supplies from Pakistan's roads.

But closer ties will anger human rights organisations which have protested proposed plans to send military aid to Uzbekistan for the first time since 2004, when funds were choked off as penalty for the country's poor human rights record.

Twenty groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and International Crisis Group, signed a letter of protest sent to Mrs Clinton before her meeting with Mr Ganiev.

"We call on you to stand behind your strong past statements regarding human rights abuses in Uzbekistan," the letter said.

"We strongly urge you to oppose passage of the law and not to invoke this waiver."

As bad as the Uzbekistan human rights situation may be, Congress seems to be at least as concerned about corruption. According to Eurasianet:

Capitol Hill wants the Pentagon to be more transparent in the way it manages the Northern Distribution Network ... The US Senate in particular has voiced alarm that a lack of oversight over the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) has turned it into a gravy train of graft for Uzbekistan’s ruling elite.

“The [U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations] is concerned with reports of pervasive corruption in Uzbekistan and therefore expects to be informed of public and private entities that receive support, directly or indirectly, from United States Government funds used to pay the costs of Northern Distribution Network supply routes through that country,” a Senate report on foreign aid bill S. 1601 states.

-- snip --

A well-placed source in Washington, DC, indicated to EurasiaNet.org that the use of subcontracted local firms on DoD contracts is an area of intense interest within some branches of the US government. Some officials worry that Uzbek political and security elites may be profiting from below-the-radar partnerships with international firms.

Another source familiar with Pentagon contracting practices in Central Asia alleges that Defense Department planners are aware that some US military contractors have cultivated relationships with companies that have been linked to friends and relatives of Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

“Pentagon logistics certainly knew some contractors were using companies controlled by the Karimov family to perform aspects of their contracts in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. But it's very clear they didn't view this as a negative, just the opposite," the source said.

Maybe we shouldn't rush into this. Do these rebound relationships ever work out?

That's An Excellent Point, LTC Peters

While channel-surfing TV news programs this morning, I caught a few seconds of the retired Army officer and writer/columnist Ralph Peters commenting on the Afghanistan situation and how it forces us into a highly troubled relationship with Pakistan.

Quoting him from memory, he said this:

“When I went to Command and General Staff College, I would have flunked out if I proposed to put 100,000 troops at the end of a single supply line that ran through a thousand miles of hostile territory.”

That is an excellent point. After ten years, we still haven't found an alternative to routing all our Afghan-bound truck convoys from the port of Karachi through the Khyber Pass, thereby putting ourselves at the mercy of Pakistan's ISI and its Taliban allies. Shouldn't the CGSC have revoked some diplomas by now?