Smell the coffee
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Saturday or Sunday would be the most natural choice for inviting people to draw caricatures. The leisure to draw and post something on the internet is best afforded during a weekend. Instead, Thursday was chosen; a day before the Friday mosque gatherings would make Muslims go berserk with collective rage. The controversial page engineered the predictable blackout of the most used sources of networking and awareness in Pakistan, i.e., Facebook and YouTube. Even Blackberry service was affected. The Hamid Mir issue unleashed a strategic assault on the 'operational mechanism' of journalists in the country, with loud and clear warning to all to steer clear of insurgents and the insurgency both.
The Faisal Shahzad issue has 'expanded' the sphere of America's 'enemies' within Pakistan to include serving officers of the military. Are there, or will there be, purges within the Pakistan military? Too many senior level American military and intelligence officials have visited lately. Way too many incidents are converging on 'one purpose' to qualify as coincidental. Wake up and smell the coffee!
Zeenia Satti
Washington DC
When I first read this piece, I assumed my tin foil hat would be a good fit on this person. I could not understand the amount of venom she had for the US while living in Washington DC. I decided to dig deeper and came back with some background info that truly made me go
Here are some info pertaining to her
1) Zeenia Satti has taught International Relations at Harvard University, Massachusetts and Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. She is an energy consultant and free lance political columnist based in Washington DC. zeenia.satti@yahoo.com
2) Her family life (I assure this is relevant) : http://fletcher.tufts.edu/alumni/pdfdocs/FN_8-02.pdf (page 22)
Brant Marcus Simenson (F’90): died May 17, 2002 in a fall while on a birdwatching expedition in the Himalayan mountains. Brant, who was born in Finland during his parents’ first diplomatic assignment there, was an honors student at James Madison High School in Vienna, VA, and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. At the time of his death, he was working on his dissertation on energy privatization issues in developing countries for his Ph.D. at Fletcher. He was also running an energy consulting
company that he had founded in Islamabad, Pakistan. The company, Enerman, was just beginning to gain some speed after a lot of hard work, with Brant mastering Urdu and Pakistan’s complicated business environment. Previously, he had worked for Exxon/Esso in Dallas and Houston, TX.
In 1994, Brant married Zeenia Satti (F’89), with whom he had a son. Although he and Zeenia grew apart, Brant remained dedicated to the love and well-being of his only son, Alexander, now 5. Contributions can be made to an education fund for Alex, which can be sent to the Simenson family at 1107 Westbriar Ct., NE, Vienna, VA 22180.
3) A small anouncement of Brant's untimely passing by his sister : By Kristin E. Simenson Maxson
( - 149.63.50.200) on Tuesday, June 11, 2002 - 07:13 am:
It is with deep regret that we wish to inform you of the untimely passing of our son, brother and uncle, Brant Marcus Simenson, from a tragic fall while on a birding expedition in the Himalayan mountains. Brant attended grades 2th - 5th during '72 - '76. If anyone would like to contact his family, you can send a message to k_maxson@yahoo.com. Brants web page is posted at http://brantmemories.7h.com/brant.html Brant had one brother "Storm" and three sisters "Kristin, Randi and Marit".No mention of his wife by the sister in law
4) Links to Companies set up by Brant Simenson at TSPs Board of Investment site : Company 1 and
ENERMAN (PRIVATE) LIMITED Registered Office Address: H. No. 267 St.22 Sector E-7, ISLAMABAD === CEO NAME: Brant Simenson (ADDRESS: 267(A) St.22 Sector E-7, Islamabad) === INCORPORATE DATE: 1/6/1999
5) Zeenia has filed 2 cases in the Virginia Eastern District Court and it seems she lost both cases. She later appealed these decisions at the US Federal Appeals - 4th Circuit Court. The Fed 4th Circuit court upheld the lower courts decisions in both cases. One of the two cases pertains to some financial case against Bank of America. The second case is more interesting and will elaborate below.
6) Zeenia filed a cased against the US Dept of Defence and other parties pertaining to the death of her husband. According to this filing
Based on these findings here is what I observe. Brant was a well educated US citizen who studied at a good school and married his college mate. After a couple of years of marriage they decided to set up life in TSP. They both were working in the energy sector and decided to setup their business in TSP. Brant met an untimely death 3 years later in TSP. According to reports his death was accidental but Zeenia, his wife, filed a case against the US Dept of Defence alleging that he was employed by US special forces and working under cover in TSP. At the time they were drifting apart as seen on points 2 & 3 and she was suing for his death benefits. Her claims have been turned down by the district court. That may explain her bitterness towards the US but it raises an important questions.Satti alleges the following facts. She married Brant Marcus Simenson and they had a son, Alexander. Simenson died on May 17, 2002 in Islamabad, Pakistan while Satti and Simenson were still married. At the time of his death, Simenson worked for the U.S. Special Forces as an undercover spy at the rank of Major. Neither the DOD nor the DOS informed Satti that her husband had died. Instead, Satti learned of Simenson’s death “through local sources.” The DOD did not pay her or her son death gratuities under the Death Gratuity Statute1 as the survivors of a member of the military killed while on active duty.
Satti filed this action pro se3 on May 5, 2006 alleging DOD’s “neglect of its obligation to notify the plaintiff of decedent’s death and . . . to release the decedent’s death benefits to his true heirs at law[,]” and DOS’s threats and willful neglect toward her and her son. Defendants moved to dismiss claiming, among other things, that Satti has not established that her husband was engaged in military service and that she has not satisfied the administrative exhaustion requirement under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b), 2671-2680
1) Is there some truth to her allegations of what Brant did in TSP?
2) Was she the one who betrayed his mission if he was working undercover?
3) Do other alleged undercover US agents have to take the cover of some legitimate work in TSP to be able to better perform their real work?
4) Is this the reason Jalebi madam got so worked up about the US in that time frame (Brant died less than a year after 9-11 when US was in the middle of a war in Afghanistan)?
