Okay, seriously - do you think if a Pakistani agent shot some Americans in self defense during a spy meet in New York city we wouldn't brand that to be paramilitary action? Arguing that this was a random robbery turned shootout is just silly; and in any case, he went and put finishing shots into the robbers in plain sight. It's not a self defense case by any stretch.
But the main point is, self-defense or not doesn't determine your level of immunity; Pakistan has a legal right to put him to trial for this and let their courts determine if the shootings actually were self-defense.
The only cards on the table here are a trade/payment. The diplomatic cover story does not stand up to any legal scrutiny whatsoever; the only reason I can imagine it was floated was in the hope that it would give Pakistan the propaganda cover needed to release the guy. That didn't work, so now another route will have to be taken.
I hope the administration is willing to pay whatever price is necessary to get him home; he put his behind on the line for the US, the US needs to step up to bat here. The point of my comment is to illustrate that dismissing international conventions, and pretending that any armed non-uniformed fighter can be shot on sight, are extremely dangerous positions. If Pakistan had adopted the rules I see bandied about here with regard to spies and non-uniformed types, Mr Davis would have zero hope of getting home.
Wow, you just made a whole lot of unverified assumptions and comparisons to this event.
First off, using the comparison of a spy meeting, do you have any actual evidence to present that he was going to a spy meeting and that this is a valid comparison? I worked for the ONI and through them the NSA/CSS, that doesn't mean I was going to a uber-secret-squirrel meeting every time I walked to the bazaar in Bagram, Afghanistan.
Second, that it wasn't a robbery. Have you ever been to Pakistan, or even any of it's neighboring countries? To assume out of hand that a white westerner would never be targeted for something so pedestrian as a robbery in what I will kindly call a developing nation is idiocy.
Third, your claim that he delivered a coup-de-grace to each of his attackers which I have yet to read anywhere. In the quiet words of wikipedia, [citation needed].
Fourth, have you ever actually read the Geneva conventions? How about the Hague and Vienna conventions? Well, lucky for you I have. It was required reading considering that I actually carried a Geneva conventions identification card for 8 years, and speaking of which, guess what? Those types of ID cards (the ID cards I would like to point out that the unlawful, non-uniformed combatants captured in Afghanistan and Iraq did
not possess, those fellas in gitmo you keep comparing this American to) still count and extend the protections of those conventions to the holder, even if they are out of uniform, and this of course presumes that the embassy did not formally declare his diplomatic status under the Vienna convention. Which they did. Now, lets look at the actual encounter...
A U.S. source familiar with other official reporting from Pakistan said that according to Davis' account of the shooting incident, two men on a motorbike cornered him and pulled a gun on him as he was driving on a street in Lahore.
The source said Davis, believing his life was in danger, drew his weapon and shot the men through the window of his car. At some point, the source said, Davis got out of his car and used his mobile phone to take pictures of the assailants.
This style of attack is actually very familiar. Attacking someone while they are stuck in traffic from a motorbike is actually a fairly damned common method of operation. I can recall at least two instances of it occurring in Greece (a country I would consider far more secure than Pakistan any day of the bloody week) against US military and diplomatic persons that were also required reading. In one of them, the diplomat and his driver were murdered, in the other the military person, who was also driving, managed to notice them in time and swerved his vehicle wildly into oncoming traffic to evade them, he was still shot several times but managed to survive. Besides, now a days if you want someone dead, you just stick a limpet mine to their car (Iran) or mag-dump an Uzi into their chest while driving beside them (Greece, twice), you do not, however, force their car into an immobile position and then try to coerce them with pistols. That's the modus operandi of thieves. Now dead thieves.
