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A Thread For David Petraeus; Ideally His Service Record But Realistically His Penis
enlightenedbum
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Because it's the thing in the news and keeps driving various other threads off topic, let's have a topic devoted to everyone's favorite philandering failure of a flag officer!
So David Petraeus recently resigned from his job as head of the CIA because he had an affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell. They had some kind of bizarre joint e-mail account or something. One of the people e-mailed was another woman, who is kind of crazy. She told a friend at the FBI, who is also an idiot and under investigation for sexual misconduct of his own involving said other woman. Meanwhile, the other woman also was exchanging flirtatious e-mails with the current General in charge of the Afghan War, John Allen. The whole thing is stupid and full of sex.
Naturally the media loves it.
But they can't quite quit David Petraeus, who they fell in love with during the surges in Iraq and Afghanistan, which they seem to believe were successful, for some bizarre reason. I disagree. I think the man is a hack whose only real talent is for snowballing the media and convincing them he is some magic combination of Ike, Patton, and Grant.
So let's talk about David Petraeus, his wars, and his scandal. But preferably mostly the first two.
So David Petraeus recently resigned from his job as head of the CIA because he had an affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell. They had some kind of bizarre joint e-mail account or something. One of the people e-mailed was another woman, who is kind of crazy. She told a friend at the FBI, who is also an idiot and under investigation for sexual misconduct of his own involving said other woman. Meanwhile, the other woman also was exchanging flirtatious e-mails with the current General in charge of the Afghan War, John Allen. The whole thing is stupid and full of sex.
Naturally the media loves it.
But they can't quite quit David Petraeus, who they fell in love with during the surges in Iraq and Afghanistan, which they seem to believe were successful, for some bizarre reason. I disagree. I think the man is a hack whose only real talent is for snowballing the media and convincing them he is some magic combination of Ike, Patton, and Grant.
So let's talk about David Petraeus, his wars, and his scandal. But preferably mostly the first two.
The idea that your vote is a moral statement about you or who you vote for is some backwards ass libertarian nonsense. Your vote is about society. Vote to protect the vulnerable.
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Uh huh.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
http://www.salon.com/2012/11/15/david_simon_medias_sex_obsession_is_dangerous_destructive/"]
It's gone from being the graveyard of empires to being the graveyard of careers.
Okay, he really needs to call that dude Roger, otherwise, I thought he was talking about himself about halfway through the thing.
She had some level of clearance, I think the real question is whether or not she could "courier" the documents she was allowed to access.
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Yeah, it's not even about whether or not she had clearance; it's that she had blackmail-grade leverage over him.
It's a big issue since he's the head of the CIA and was in the military (I've heard from various people on tv shows reporting about this incident they don't like cheaters). Its meant to be unwise to do this for spies since it's blackmail material. It's worse for the boss of the department because he has far more influence and knowledge about the organization from the top down.
The reason that absolutely everybody superswears that the affair didn't start until after Petraeus left the military is because adultery is illegal according to the UCMJ, and a 4 star general committing a crime doesn't really look all that great.
One thing I do not hate about the coverage of the scandal is that Saturday Night Live has really kicked it up a notch.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/426525?playlist_id=1251
Didn't Patraeus need to be confirmed by congress for the CIA post? They have a point of needing to know about that before approving him.
Literally no one is suggesting that this is why Congress is upset or that the details of a Justice Department investigation were withheld from members of the United States Senate when they voted to confirm Petraeus a year and a half ago. He was confirmed by the Senate in June of 2011, and the FBI didn't open a file on this until May of this year.
People are just pissed that it didn't get turned into campaign fodder.
Well she doesn't any more, so why not give him his job back?
I don't know the details here. Was she carrying them by herself?
This is actually a big concern with clearances for two reasons.
One as mentioned is the potential for black mail.
The other is the very real concern that if you have no qualms lying to your spouse for personal gain, arguably the person whose trust and approval you value even more than your employer's, what's to keep you from doing the same with an organization you are quite possibly merely ambivalent about?
Not in the interest of the CIA to employ liars.
Counter intuitive to the job field I know but personal honesty and integrity are vital parts of working in it.
That doesn't make any sense to me. Could you elaborate a bit please?
I can't begin to imagine why deception isn't a big part of the CIA's work.
I would have to guess it involves the idea that you're helping the CIA against "bad" guys, so people with a strong moral compass are a must. Because when you've got access to almost any information in the world you want, you don't want someone who's conscience says "Man I'd really rather have a Masarati than a BMW" dealing with criminals with really large check books.
Wait I thought he came out and admitted it immediately? Did I miss something.
Deception of your target can be a big part of your job (but certainly not always or at all). But when you're deceiving those closest to you for personal gain it is a significantly different thing and definitely a concern. Would you trust someone who freely lies to their spouse with information valuable to your rivals?
I'm just saying.
That said, a GMail account, seriously? If he'd handled the affair with half the security one uses to handle a special access program he'd still be in office.
After being caught, right?
That's not really a hallmark of honesty.
It's by no means a guarantee that a person is unfit for access but the government has plenty of room to be picky in this area.
Also standards of decades past vs now etc.
Yeah basically. He's honest after the fact.
The great thing about this scandal is its the media who is tearing down their own creation. Sadly not for the extensive losses in afganistan using his ridiculous surge, but I'll take it.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Why would you expect anyone to admit it before there is any reason to? Surely someone who sends an e-mail around the day after the affair begins is far less suitable for the job?
Because he resigned. It's the type of thing that probably could've passed (although people are making an issue out of the potential for a security breach, it's not that strong of a case) but him giving in so early seems... questionable.
A former colonel and current professor at BU was on NPR and made the interesting point that our ten years of war have given generals a level of deference and power they normally wouldn't receive, and may have changed the culture of upper military leadership. We already heard about the corruption cases opened up this summer, where a bunch of senior leaders were receiving illegal gifts, abusing funding for personal vacations and sending service people to run personal errands for them.
And this right here is why. The government doesn't like risking valuable information with people who lie for personal gain. It can and has happened to their detriment.
pleasepaypreacher.net
That seems to be a function of his patriotism, not his honesty. I would not trust a person who lies repeatedly. Whether it was to their spouse, their employer, the electorate, or their current geopolitical enemies doesn't seem relevant.
It seems to me that in espionage work you want someone with a talent for lying combined with great patriotism so they'll use that talent in the service of your nation.
I'm not trying to judge that at all. Lying is a tremendously important skill. But I still can't see why you think general honesty is important in this work.
Strong moral compass and honesty about your sexy, sexy affairs aren't particularly tied I think. Nor do I think that you can tie lying in one set of circumstances to lying in another set of circumstances. Acting like someone who has an affair is probably a sociopath is kinda silly.
Personally, I'm far more interested in the ridiculous military socialite aspect and how widespread these scenes are, than what he did with the biographer. That Jill Kelly is getting special favors from an FBI officer bothers me more.
The modern news media's fascination with sex scandals is literally the only reason why this became a career-ending issue.
Like that article posted earlier said, if we start down the road of purging everyone who has an affair, you lose Clinton, Kennedy, and Roosevelt but get to keep Nixon and Coolidge. It's not that "an affair doesn't necessarily mean that the person is unfit" but rather that it doesn't even really imply it.
If you're buddies with the guy who answers phones at the local pizza joint, your orders get to the top of the queue, yes? Why anyone would think that the situation would be suddenly different with police officers is beyond me.