Betray Whom? Petraeus Going the Route of Colby, Casey? (All-Out War Feared As Israel Moves Troops Toward Gaza)

[BREAKING NEWS:

All-Out War Feared As Israel Moves Troops Toward Gaza

Sheera Frenkel, McClatchy Newspapers

Frenkel reports: "Israeli tanks and troops moved toward the Gaza Strip on Thursday night in apparent preparation for a possible invasion."

READ MORE

Juan Cole: Counterinsurgency Was Real Petraeus Failure

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!

Juan Cole: "I was opposed to General Petraeus becoming head of the CIA in the first place, because one of the CIA's charges is to evaluate policy, and one of the big policies that needs to be evaluated is the troop escalation, what is called the 'surge,' in Afghanistan."

READ MORE]

So, the election being resolved and the upcoming dismantlement of the Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid safety nets being assured (but more slowly, friends, much more slowly they reassure us), this blog goes back to being nothing but trouble for those in charge (of the regular madness).

Whoever they may be.

A Petraeus Puzzle: Were Politics Involved?

By Jane Mayer

 

12 November 12

he director of the C.I.A. has resigned over an extra-marital affair two days after a Presidential election in which the Agency's role in Libya was of burning concern-what is really going on here?

There seem to be some potentially fascinating political aspects of this story that have yet to be explored. Why, for instance, did this news explode publicly when it did? Both the New York Times and the Washington Post report that the F.B.I. had found, after months of investigation, that neither retired General David Petraeus, now the former director of the C.I.A., nor the woman with whom he was evidently involved, his biographer Paula Broadwell, had broken any laws. Congressional intelligence officials reportedly want to know why they were not informed earlier that the F.B.I. was investigating Petraeus. But what I am wondering is why, if the F.B.I. had indeed concluded that they had no criminal case, this matter was brought to anyone's attention at all.

The investigation apparently began when another woman Petraeus knew - the A.P. identified her as Jill Kelley, a Florida woman with connections to the military - complained about harassing e-mails, which turned out to have been from Broadwell. It's not yet clear how directly the e-mails involved Petraeus. As an official told the Wall Street Journal, "This investigation wasn't about the C.I.A. director, it was about what looked like a cyber crime." In this case, like any other, the official went on, "There are strict rules, there is a wall, about sharing information on ongoing criminal investigations."

 

According to the Times, approximately two weeks ago, F.B.I. investigators confronted Petraeus personally about the matter. After talking to him, they were satisfied that there were no breaches of national security or other crimes involved. It was then, the Times reports, that Petraeus certainly became aware of the investigation, if he had not known of it before. Interestingly, he did not offer his resignation at once, raising the question of whether he would have resigned at all if he hadn't been asked to when the issue was about to become public. With the election two weeks away, and the C.I.A.'s potential intelligence failures in the fatal ambush of American's diplomats in Libya a campaign issue, Petraeus surely recognized that if he resigned, the scandal would shake the Obama Administration, perhaps giving more fodder to its Republican critics in what appeared to be an extremely close election.

 

The Times uses the word "murky" to describe what happened next, and there are many puzzling aspects. But according to the Times, at the end of October, a week or so after the F.B.I. investigators confronted Petraeus, an unidentified F.B.I. employee took the matter into his own hands. Evidently without authorization, he went to the Republicans in Congress. First he informed a Republican congressman, Dave Reichert of Washington state. According to the Times, Reichert advised this F.B.I. employee to go to the Republican leadership in the House.

The F.B.I. employee then told what he knew about the investigation to Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader. Cantor released a statement to the Times confirming that he had spoken to the F.B.I. informant, whom his staff described as a "whistleblower." Cantor said, "I was contacted by an F.B.I. employee who was concerned that sensitive, classified information might have been compromised." But what, exactly, was this F.B.I. employee trying to expose? Was he blowing the whistle on his bosses? If so, why? Was he dissatisfied with their apparent exoneration of Petraeus? Given that this drama was playing out in the final days of a very heated Presidential campaign, and he was taking a potentially scandalous story to the Republican leadership in Congress, was there a political motive?

 

According to the Times, Cantor said he took the information, and "made certain that director Mueller" - that is Robert Mueller III, the director of the F.B.I. - "was aware of these serious allegations, and the potential risk to our national security." This is a strange way to explain his contact with the F.B.I. on this matter, because it is almost inconceivable that director Mueller was not already aware that the bureau he runs had examined the e-mail account of the director of the C.I.A., and, further, confronted him in person. Such a meeting between the bureau and head of the C.I.A. would have been extraordinary, and it is fairly unthinkable that Mueller wouldn't have been consulted. So what information was Cantor conveying when he got in touch with Mueller?

 

One obvious point of the call would have been to inform the F.B.I. director that Republicans on the Hill knew about Petraeus's vulnerability, and also about the investigation. If the F.B.I. had ever entertained hopes of keeping it secret, the odds of doing so were fast diminishing. The same message would have become clear to Petraeus, who was due to testify in front of a House panel next week.

 

If Cantor spoke with Mueller on Halloween, as the Times chronology suggests, what happened between then and November 6th, which is when the F.B.I. reportedly informed James Clapper Jr., the Director of National Intelligence, about Petraeus's extra-marital affair? The internal pressure must have been enormous on Petraeus during this period. Perhaps he tried to outlast the election in order to shelter Obama from the fallout of his own personal foibles. Perhaps the F.B.I. director, Mueller, who has a reputation for integrity, tried to keep the scandal from political exploitation by keeping it under wraps until Election Day. Cantor, too, appears to have kept quiet, despite the political advantage his party might have gained from going public. Why? It is possible that, because the investigation had national-security implications, those in the know needed to tread carefully for legal reasons.

 

A final question, at least from my standpoint, is whether Petraeus had to resign at all. It appears that Clapper, who like Petraeus is a military man, saw it as a no-brainer. Within the military, there are rules about adultery. But within civilian life, should there be? The line of the day on the morning talk shows in Washington seemed to be that Petraeus did the "honorable" thing, or "he had to resign." The old saw that, if he wasn't squeaky clean, he could be subject to blackmail by his enemies, thus endangering national security, was mentioned again and again.

To me, the whole Victorian shame game seems seriously outdated. Something like half the marriages in the country now end in divorce, and you can bet a great many of those involved extra-marital affairs. Is it desirable to bar such a large number of public servants from top jobs? It certainly seems fair to question Petraeus's judgement, ethics, and moral fibre in this matter. But if infidelity wasn't treated as career-threatening, its value to black-mailers would be much reduced (the fear of a spouse is another matter). In this instance, evidently, there were no crimes. So why again did this blow up as it has? Fans of thrillers, like me, are waiting for more answers.

COMMENTS:

RMDC2012-11-12

Clearly, the affair is not the root of Patareus' abrupt departure from the CIA. Most likely, he was told by someone that he'd better get out right now or he'd get the same thing that Bill Casey got on the way to a congressional hearing. The sex scandal would be given to the media and that would keep them happy until it all blew over.

Clearly Patraeus pissed someone off and he fled his CIA office for his life. Bill Casey was in a CIA limo on his way to testify to the Iran Contra hearing. There was only a driver and two body guards. Next thing anyone knew his dead body was deposited at a Washington hospital. The autopsy showed a massive brain hemmorage. A lot of things can cause a brain hemmorage. One of those is a long needle inserted into the brain through the ear and wiggled around a little.

Dead men don't talk. Let's see how silent Patraeus can be. He could be found floating face down in the Potomac just like another ex CIA director, (William Colby).

When you work for an organized crime gang, you life isn't really worth much when you piss off the wrong people. We'll have to see what comes out.

 

readerz2012-11-13

 

I don't know about the CIA being complicit, but they might have found out the trail, and had to be silenced or discredited. When the Benghazi raid happened, and especially when the link was found to Al Quaida, I couldn't help but think of the interview Sept. 17, 2001 on Face the Nation by Tim Russert of Dick Cheney, complete with video of Cheney chatting with Osama in Afghanistan, probably years before. We know what happened to Russert.

I don't buy the 9/11 imploding towers theory, but I do buy the idea that to start a war against Iraq, there had to be a massive attack on the U.S. that would be ignored by the Bush administration. It just came off like something too close to both the Lusitania and Pearl Harbor; something to galvanize America to fight a war, any war.

Republicans will stop at nothing to get elected. It is possible that Cantor and others were told that it would backfire on them if they talked, and they would all go to jail. But Petraeus would have to leave, and I agree it wouldn't be because of an affair, but so that he wouldn't have to say anything of substance about Benghazi. I don't think he caused the Benghazi incident, but I would want to know about some Republican connections out there, including the FBI whistleblower's connections in the Middle East.

We might find out more if any other Iran-Contra-lik e incidents happen, but I hope that this is the end of it.

 

baghira2012-11-13

 

read the end of the article:

"But if infidelity wasn't treated as career-threaten ing, its value to black-mailers would be much reduced (the fear of a spouse is another matter). In this instance, evidently, there were no crimes. So why again did this blow up as it has?"

that's an ironic point - one of CIA's methods dealing with people who don't obey PNAC strategies (also in other countries) is blackmaiing people with the treat of disinformation campaigns on their affairs, their sexual preferences etc. CIA relies on emotionalized reactions that divert attention from a person's political or whatever positions or achievements to what should be respected and treated as privacy. so CIA gets what it deserves, and the (former) DCI gets it too....but the DDCI is still in office, so there's no reason for joy and reluctance.

 

reiverpacific2012-11-13

 

Quoting robcarter.vn:

Robby Burns said in "of mice":-
But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
Thus One of its couplets has passed into a proverb:- "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, gang aft agley."

Good quote;

Rabbie came down heavily on hypocrisy in several poems like "Holy Wullie's Prayer" and "Address To The Unco Guid, Or The Rigidly Righteous" and many others (he was no angel himself but made no attempt to hide it nor shirk his responsibilitie s to his many "illegitimate" children). He also was the author of another much-used saying, to this day;

"O' wad some power the giftie gei us
To see oorsel's as ithers see us,
It would frae mony a blunder free us and foolish notion:
What airs in dress and gait wad lea'e us,
And ev'n devotion!"

I'm reminded of the time when the Right was howling like wolves at Clinton's door and the subsequent revelations about their own infidelities.
As for political motivations I can't say much not being an insider but as a hint at the possibility, look at all the hysterical bayings from the right around "Benghazi-Bengh azi--Maxima Culpa Obama Benghazi!!!" as the last gasp of a desperate, racist and ignorant bunch of sore losers . . . .