Raymond Davis, a former Blackwater contractor, who was employed by the CIA in Pakistan, was arrested for the killing of two Pakistani citizens in Lahore on January 27, 2011. One of the men was shot in the back as he was running away. The US government first claimed that Davis was protected by diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Conventions. On Friday, US officials paid the two victims’ families a reported $2.3 million and Davis was released less than seven weeks after he went to jail.
Consider the case of Shane Bauer, a freelance journalist that worked to expose US funding of death squads in Iraq. On July 31, 2009, he was arrested by Iranian border guards while hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan. Almost 20 months later, he is still a prisoner in Iran, where the US government has barely lifted a finger to help him. The message that the Obama administration sent is loud and clear. If you work for the CIA, the US government will pay your way out of jail even if you are being held on murder charges. But if you are, like Shane Bauers, a US citizen wrongfully accused of being a spy but whose work has exposed the US government’s shame, your case will be no kind of priority.
Read more about the shooting HERE.
Title: ‘Blood Money’ Paid for Raymond Davis, Nothing Done for Shane Bauer
Author: Pratap Chatterjee
Source: Commondreams.org 3/17/11
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/17-2
Student Researcher: Chante Noel
Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips, Sonoma State University