Petraeus steps down from post

[jmm99]

gets more tangled.

Chi Trib, FBI probe into Petreaus sex scandal expands to top U.S. commander in Afghanistan:

Tribune wire reports
AP
1:33 p.m. CST, November 13, 2012

The sex scandal that led to CIA Director David Petraeus' downfall widened Tuesday with word the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan is under investigation for alleged "inappropriate communications" with another woman involved in the case. Some of the material was "flirtatious," an official said.

Even as the FBI prepared a timeline for Congress about the investigation that brought to light Petraeus' extramarital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta revealed that the Pentagon had begun an internal investigation into emails between Gen. John Allen and a Florida woman involved in the case.

Some of the 20,000-plus pages of documents and emails between Allen and Tampa socialite Jill Kelley were "flirtatious," according to a senior defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the case publicly. It wasn't immediately clear who wrote the flirtatious notes — Allen, Kelley or both. ... (more in story)

USA Today, Scandal that brought down Petraeus widens:

2:32PM EST November 13. 2012 -

WASHINGTON -- The tangled web of the David Petraeus sex scandal expanded Tuesday to include a top U.S. commander in Afghanistan who is under investigation for exchanging thousands of possibly "inappropriate" emails and other documents with a woman who received harassing e-mails from Petraeus' former lover.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he asked the Pentagon's Inspector General on Monday to look into 20,000 to 30,000 pages of e-mails and documents from Gen. John Allen to Jill Kelley. He said the FBI referred the matter to the Pentagon on Sunday.

A senior defense official told USA TODAY that Allen's communications were with Kelley, who has been described as an unpaid social liaison at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.,which is headquarters to the U.S. Central Command. She is not a U.S. government employee. ... (more in story).

A Canadian Caveat (to go with "two Massengales don't seem to make a Damon"):

There once was a man named MacKeever,
who had intercourse with a beaver:
The result of the f**k was a canvasback duck,
two canoes and a golden retriever.

Regards

Mike

[gute]

And this headline:

Petraeus-Broadwell Probe Spreads to Gen. Allen

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...ESRC=marine.nl

[Dayuhan]

I'm not particularly offended by people being flirtatious; if that was a crime we'd need a lot of prison space. It is a bit mind-boggling, though, that a General managed to send over 20,000 pages of e-mail to an "unpaid social liason". 20,000+ pages is a lot of e-mail, you wonder how the guy sending it had time to do anything else.

[Wyatt]

The fact that an unofficial "unpaid social liaison" even exists is almost as bad as the affair. Placement and access with no reason to be there in the first place.

[JarodParker]

20,000 pages doesn't necessarily translate into 20,000 emails. Depending on where and how the documents were obtained, a simple blackberry text message saying "what up!" could be buried under 10+ pages of header information by the internet/wireless service provider.

[Edited to add this] Better yet... Link

Allen and Kelley, who threw parties and other social events involving senior leaders at the Central Command, did exchange “a few hundred e-mails over a couple of years,” beginning when Allen was the deputy commander at the Central Command, this senior official said. But “most of them were about routine stuff.”
The senior official also emphasized that the volume of communications between the two “was nowhere near” 20,000 to 30,000 personal messages. The official said the high page count reported by the FBI may have been the result of printing numerous individual messages that contained lengthy threads of earlier exchanges.

[Madhu]

....when it's stuff like this, the media chases down every single lead and is insatiable in its curiosity but when it comes to the following:

Was there a foreign government behind the 9/11 attacks? A decade later, Americans still haven’t been given the whole story, while a key 28-page section of Congress’s Joint Inquiry report remains censored.

it is like cricket's chirping except for a few stalwarts?

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/f...11-2011-201108

I am not making a partisan point or falling into conspiracy-mongering or anything of the sort. The very nature of the national security apparatus (think tanks, appointees civilian and military, academics of PhD or whatever variety, journalists, hangers-on, bloggers, tweeters) fascinates and appalls, confuses and disappoints.

11 years and basic questions unanswered, stories about celebrity instead of hard intellectual work and question asking, and even those that saw through the celebrity generals are just as clueless about influence agents that aren't a part of the American scene.

None of which excuses the behavior which is reckless and harmful.


Ugh. What a colossal waste of my time all this reading milblogs etc. has been. I know it's not true entirely but it feels like it.

[jmm99]

ABC News: Petraeus Affair: Who Is Jill Kelley?

A 3-page start on the Khawam sisters, Jill and Natalie.

Regards

Mike

[davidbfpo]

A comment from Australia, so slightly tongue in cheek, but points out different standards over time and space.

The bonus is:

Illustrating a more enlightened approach to such matters, I leave you with this Churchill story..

Link:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...-Petraeus.aspx

[Fuchs]

This stuff is becoming entertaining.

I saw graphical presentations of the scandal, with all the social interactions known. The funny thing:

They are growing. A lot.

[bourbon]

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/a-cia-coup/

Fwiw, this is the Petraeus theory that I find most plausible. Factions within the CIA establishment wanted him gone. They see CIA as having lost its way, and Petraeus' directorship as the continued militarization of CIA.

[Fuchs]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article.../21/king_david

[JarodParker]

Originally Posted by Fuchs

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article.../21/king_david

Wow. That was complete garbage. She opens with this gem...

Allen's superhuman ability to write 20,000 to 30,000 pages of "potentially inappropriate" email

Then she goes on to call Petraeus a "warrior-general". Really!? I respect the guy's service, but c'mon. Mattis is a "warrior-general." And later on she starts talking about hairstyles, push-ups and pressing clothes, when she's not making grand canyon sized leaps. The whole thing read like a high school gossip column.

*For the record, I don't think generals should head the CIA

[Fuchs]

Ignore the entertainment, focus on the remarks about different organisational culture.

[ganulv]

Originally Posted by Fuchs

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article.../21/king_david

From the post:

The CIA's primary mission is to learn.

Is it? Or is it to predict?

[jcustis]

I'd say it's both. You can have all the knowledge in the world, but if you can't discern and understand what you are looking at, you're worthless as an intelligence agency.

[Fuchs]

Originally Posted by ganulv

From the post: Is it? Or is it to predict?

1st you need to learn about others and things before you can predict. Predictions are furthermore always questionable, so being able to present facts first and treat predictions at most as the icing on the cake appears to be reasonable to me.

[davidbfpo]

I'm not so sure about militarisation but culturally this wasn't a good match

A comment by Nigel Inkster, ex-SIS (MI6), on the cited FP article.

[parvati]

Petraeus' Image Takes Hit, Still More Positive Than Negative
Majority says it was necessary he resign

http://www.gallup.com/poll/158891/pe...ersion=Android