Thinking About Petraeus
I don’t know him personally, and there have always been elements of his personality and his performance that did not enthuse me. In the early days of Iraq, I believe that he overstated the success of his mission to train local police forces in Mosul. And as Angleton mentions in our recent conversation, General Petraeus always paid a great deal of attention to his public image. I was always told that he went around with several public affairs officers who could explain to inquiring journalists what was “really” going on.
In this, as in so many other ways, I’m hopelessly oldmannish. I want my generals to spend their time defeating our enemies and protecting our guys, not polishing their images, and decidedly not spending many hours on email.
I take a dim view of adultery, too, in case you were wondering. Yes, I know it’s very popular, I know it’s in our DNA. I’ve read the Old Testament. And yes, I know “man is more inclined to do evil than to do good,” Machiavelli’s terse summary of the human condition. But I also know that virtue is possible, and I want my leaders to be virtuous. I think that winning is the most important thing, and if you win you don’t need to brainwash the observers. The victory speaks for itself.
Which brings us to the whole discussion of the “surge.” I have always said that the surge was not a strategic breakthrough, but rather the application of tried-and-true principles regarding “revolutionary wars.” According to those principles, the outcome of such wars is determined by the people, that is to say, the local population. They provide both the information and the critical mass to one side or the other, thereby determining who wins and who loses. Their dilemma is that they do not wish to be involved in the conflict at all. Preferring to remain neutral, they abstain as long as possible and only throw their weight at the very last possible moment to what they believe to be the winning side. In Iraq, that moment came first in Anbar Province, where the locals became convinced that the Marines could not be defeated and that the Marines were not going away.
And no, contrary to what some are saying, Anbar was not won by bribes. It was bullets. The money came afterwards.
Notice, by the way, that just a year before the Marines won in Anbar, the head of Marine Intelligence in the province glumly assessed that they had lost, and that they could not win. Which reinforces another of my core beliefs: you never know, life is full of surprises, and the only thing to do is keep fighting.
Petraeus fought, and he fought well enough to win. It was a very big deal. Under his command, we smashed the jihadis in Iraq, dealt a devastating blow to al Qaida and its Iranian terror masters, and gave Iraq a window of opportunity. By Lee Smith’s account — which matches my own — Petraeus was one of the few national leaders to recognize the big role Iran played in the regional war, and he actually took steps to challenge them. He was in a very tiny group of leaders — we’re talking about the Bush administration, remember — who recognized Iran’s role, and he saw further evidence when he went to CENTCOM, and thence to Afghanistan, where he replaced General McChrystal, who was also pretty clear-eyed about the Iranian threat.
He was certainly very ambitious (duh!) and that, combined with a generous assessment of his own leadership abilities, explains the real mystery about his career: why did he accept the job at CIA? With the exception of George Herbert Walker Bush (aka Bush the Elder), no director of the agency has ever gone on to greater power or glory, and Bush the Elder tagged along behind Ronald Reagan. There was precious little chance that Obama would offer his coat tails — if there are such — to the general. Obama probably worried at least a little bit about Petraeus entering politics on the GOP side as a presidential candidate, and figured it was smart to lock him up in Langley. But why did Petraeus go for it?
As I said, Petraeus may actually have believed he could turn the place around, and he certainly knew that we need a fabulous intelligence agency if we’re going to prevail in a world at war. That gives us two components of his decision: ego and patriotism. QED?
Which leaves the Broadwell affair, and maybe more. That such a man would fall for such a woman is not surprising. If it is true that he desperately pursued her after the tryst ended, that suggests he was well and truly besotted with her. And if it turns out, as Angleton inevitably suspects, that foreign intelligence agencies were at work inside the network of pretty women, we’ve got a textbook espionage file. However that turns out, he was a perfect target, and the FBI seems to me quite justified in looking long and hard at the activities of the pretty women and their many friends in Tampa and Washington.
Add in Benghazi, an administration that has little respect for truth and seems altogether too willing to toss generals, ambassadors, and soldiers under its bus, and you’ve got the makings of a hell of a story, whose outlines are only just beginning to be visible.
Which leaves me to believe, in my cynical sense, that the media will keep trying very hard to sweep this under the rug for their Sun King. And with help from politicians who call those trying to get to the bottom of this, “Racist and misogynists”, they will will succeed. Just like “Fast and Furious.” No one talkin’ ’bout those bananas anymore.
This blogger knows when sh-t is being shoveled; she too has her ‘sources’, both in the U.S. and in Israel.
And her birdies are chirping pretty loudly, not in relation to the direct question,why did he accept the job, but in direction of the femme fateles.
The main chippie is not being referenced, as much as the Tampa babe. And each person is pointing to her familial Lebanese direction, and all that it entails!
Now, the PC among us dare not go there, while the non-informed are pointing to her Christian background. Phooey and hooey.
And the same people whispering re Benghazigate, are those who have made sure to keep yours truly in the loop, re the infiltration/penetration of the Muslim Brotherhood Mafia, of which Hizbullah is its Shiite partner!
So, if you think of the Tampa connection in the above light, you may want to read this – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/09/14/hezbollah-burrowed-within-u-s-cities-latin-america-forward-bases-readying-to-pounce-addendum-to-northeast-intelligence-director-digs-deeper-and-do-you-know-who-your-neighbors-are-comm/
Floria (among many other states) is a HOTBED of jihadi terror cells, and most infamously, the home base of Sami Al-Arian, the computer prof who was really the head operative of PIJ from his perch in Tampa, and elsewhere. Know this, PIJ is a proxy arm of Iran, as is Hizbullah!
So, if this blogger was a betting woman, she would concentrate on the foreign intelligence angle, like a dog with a bone.
Dig…dig….
You are all correct on the pervasive Arab/Muslim influence in our institutions, academic, political and military. Like the communist incursions since 1923, these shall probably never leave, and God knows, Americans will never purge their ranks — they’re a self-destructive democaracy, don’t you know.
Now to the gritty: it isn’t just Lebanese “socialites” in Tampa, it’s the ubiquitous “public relations” officers in the military, who are just about always female. General staff officers are entitled under the sysem to screw their PR babes, their choffeurs and their underage local hired “cleaning girls”. Females other than nurses do not belong in combat zones.
The US military since Viet Nam has progressively demonstrated the incompetence of its officer corp from field grade up. You can bet their are thousands of female (and gay?) fifth columnists throughout their ranks, as well as at Langely, Foggy Bottom and elsewhere. Fox News, along with the pack has demonstrated its cowardice to persue a story that Emile Zola would have blown apart years ago.
Look to Chicago
Rezko Update: Mystery man’s true identity revealed
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2012/11/18/rezko-update-mystery-mans-true-identity-revealed/
The United States is a constitutional republic NOT a democracy.
Who cares? he was a good soldier. He has a lover so wha? She is married too.
Security breach. He can have his affair used to blackmail him and from what it sounds she had access and possession of restricted files. Was she authorized for all is yet to be confirmed.
Incompetence and poor judgement is the foundation of this adminstration, so it shouldn’t be surprising.
I agree.
Broadwell is nobody’s idea of a Mata Hari. She has/had a legitimate military career, is married-with-children and her husband was definitely NOT in on the game. She has way too much to lose here to have been playing the seductress for someone else. Until otherwise indicated, I am assuming she’s as much of a dupe as Petraeus. This does not mean, however, that she was not later blackmailed herself into playing a role.
Yes, that would be the French reply.
You are absolutely correct, sir. When the Head of the CIA is found to have engaged in an affair, especially one that he recognizes as illicit, the FBI has no choice but to treat it with the utmost seriousness. The FBI has to pursue the possibility that the seducer is a foreign agent. The FBI has to assume that Petraeus’ transgression could involve more than an affair.
Amen on the virtue issue. I remember the Lewinsky thing. I had been forgiving to Clinton up to that point. I just couldn’t tell whether he was being set up or not. But with Monica there was no doubt or question. And I said to myself: you have *got* to be kidding me. You are the president. You are the leader of the Free World. And you cannot get a handle on your libido? Plus the fact that “love” had nothing to do with Clinton’s affair(s). It was pure horn-dog. What a weakling. And of course that was when the whole “fellatio is not sex” defense came up to inspire a new generation of adolescents.
America is now in the throes of a bitterly divided polity, but it is also facing a moral decay of “Roman Empire” proportions. Self dependence, self responsibility, self control (the flip-side of individual liberty) are crumbling away. We need an awakening of the human spirit. But when you have the political, educational, entertainment, and media elites working against you (as freedom-loving/responsibilty-accepting INDIVIDUALS) what can one do except await the motivational pain, want, fear, and despair that ALWAYS follows upon mass social decadence — but nearly always too late.
Sorry, my moment came early on in Our Bill’s administration…when it began to come out that the Royal Couple sicced the FBI on the travel office staff and WHY they did it.
The travel office staff serves at the pleasure of the president. Clinton could have fired them, replaced them with his twice-removed cousin and owed nobody any explanation. He and Hillary set out to ruin their lives and reputations with fabricated charges simply to make it LOOK like they were being fired for cause.
That act of cold-blooded callousness made MY mind up about them then and there.
Even here, in this anti-Clinton thread, no one mentions Juanita Broaddrick. She has dropped from sight while Clinton is treated as some sort of respectable elder statesman. Face it, people, chances are very good that two-term president Clinton is a rapist.
I believe Juanita Broaddrick.
Petraeus accepted a position at obama’s feet and by doing so he joined the team. Either he is a damned fool, or he knew exactly that he was diving into the cesspool with the other crocodiles. If it comes out later that he was working overtime to preserve the CIA so that the agency might be useful under some potential administation that isn’t trying to destroy the country, that would have been a mitigating factor.
But when he did the Criminals’ bidding to protect the re-election, it proved absolutely that he was in the cesspool with the mob.
He is getting what he deserves…and earned.
As I’ve said before, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Mr. Putin had something to do with that.
He certainly now has the flexibility to do so. Obama’s his voluntary bitch, and he has a free hand to manipulate ANY opportunity that he cares to. Thanks, MSM!
Unless Anna Chapman and the sleeper gang were all an impossibly-elaborate ruse to allay our fears about the current competence of Russian espionage, I’d say ‘ol Vladimir Vladimirovich never actually learned much spycraft during his Cold War KGB years.
If I read you correctly, Michael, you are suggesting that the man didn’t measure up to his credentials. Big CV, little man. Seem to be a lot of that type around these days. Beginning with the Commander in Chief.
Our leadership has never been shallower or less dependable.
david, never say “never.” tocqueville was appalled at american political leadership, and rightly so…and the current commander of CENTCOM, James Mattis, is pretty impressive. don’t you think?
the Cabinet is mediocre, as usual.
the best Americans rarely go into politics. they do business, religion, law, and sometimes the military.
Hard to argue against that. At least since Reagan. And before him (in the presidency, at least), Lincoln. Both Republicans, BTW.
Yes — including our Commander in Chief getting that phoney Nobel Peace prize — how many of us can claim such an honor for doing nothing. I was appalled at the time he was awarded this, but at this point I see that it is the perfect symbol for what he represents — a prize for pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes.
Douglas Macgregor (retired Army colonel and author of “Breaking the Phalanx): “Petraeus is a remarkable piece of fiction created and promoted by neocons in government, the media and academia, How does an officer with no personal experience of direct fire combat in Panama or Desert Storm become a division CDR in 2003, a man who for 35 years shamelessly reinforced whatever dumb idea his superiors advanced regardless of its impact on soldiers, let alone the nation, a man who served repeatedly as a sycophantic aide-de-camp, military assistant and executive officer to four stars get so far?
How does the same man who balked at closing with and destroying the enemy in 2003 in front of Baghdad agree to sacrifice more than a thousand American lives and destroy thousands of others installing Iranian national power in Baghdad with a surge that many in and out of uniform warned against? Then, how does this same man repeat the self-defeating tactics one more time in Afghanistan? The answer is simple: Petraeus was always a useful fool in the Leninist sense for his political superiors — Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and Gates. And that is precisely how history will judge him.”
“How does an officer with no personal experience of direct fire combat in Panama or Desert Storm become a division CDR in 2003, a man who for 35 years shamelessly reinforced whatever dumb idea his superiors advanced regardless of its impact on soldiers, let alone the nation, a man who served repeatedly as a sycophantic aide-de-camp, military assistant and executive officer to four stars get so far?”
Very good questions.
Don’t forget, he married the boss’s daughter. (Holly Petraeus is the daughter of the late Gen. William A. Knowlton, a four-star general, NATO commander, and superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in the early 1970s when David Petraeus was a cadet).
kjh: ““How does an officer …. who served repeatedly as a sycophantic aide-de-camp, military assistant and executive officer to four stars get so far?”
Because that’s the template for a “successful” officer.
I’m not joking. It’s particularly true in the Air Force, where very few officers get experience under fire in the first place. Work your way to a general’s exec job, and your next promotion is guaranteed because that general signs your performance report, and general officer endorsements on performance reports are hard to get. Thus, you can get a general’s endorsement by gaming the assignment system, not by doing anything particularly notable. Sad, but that’s how the system works.
Per his website Douglas Macgregor doesn’t give much credit to anyone but himself for the Battle of 73 Easting and related operations in the First Gulf War (FGW). He was the S3 (operations officer) and of one of the U.S. CAV squadrons engaged, not a commander. I thought his self promotion was a bit over the top, especially in contrast to a retired Army officer of my acquaintance. That gentleman, with whom I worked closely on a COIN/counter-IED mission in OIF, commanded one of the US CAV squadrons in that battle, is prominently mentioned in the histories but never mentioned that he had served in FGW, much less was a distinguished combat leader. Macgregor should dial it down a bit before he trashes the reputations of other men.
In any case, what claim does Macgregor have to expertise about a COIN fight? I’m not a fan of Petraeus’ post-Iraq career, but the victory of the US in the Iraq Surge of 2007 to 08 was a great operational achievement and Petraeus deserves the credit for that.
Huh! Huh!
He said “neocon” Beavis!
Any man who uses that term with a straight face is not someone I’m inclined to take seriously.
Yeah, yeah, Butthead! “Neocon!”
Heh, heh! Heh, Heh!
As a former S-3 I know, S-3s do the planning and 95% of the work and the commander gets the credit. I also wonder about our golden pheasant. Look at Allen’s record also. I think both of them are political generals
I knew a genuine war hero from Peleliu and Okinawa when I was growing up. He was just a regular guy in the neighborhood who’d served in WW II like all the other dads I knew as a kid in the 1960s.
It was only after he died a few years ago that we found out any details of his service.
I’m not sure how much of the admirable modesty is generational and how much is related to genuine heroism and maybe I’m being ridiculously naive here – but my personal heroes don’t write books or brag about their exploits.
The S3s I knew in OIF and OEF (BCT and BN level) were frequently almost falling over for lack of sleep and the incredible burdens they carried. All honor to them and to you.
My point was not to diss S3s but to note that, 1. Macgregor’s own blog account seems to focus on and promote himself. That would be appropriate in a CV, but is questionable in a blog post offering history; and, 2. He doesn’t seem to have any experience in COIN operations but is very free with his “expert” criticisms.
Also, I didn’t mention it in my post, but who cares if Petraeus supposedly didn’t have any direct combat experience (although I’d be surprised if, as CO of the 101st at Mosul, he wasn’t involved in a few TICs)? The fact that Macgregor makes this argument doesn’t reflect well on him, IMHO. I don’t believe that Eisenhower, Marshall or Halsey had any direct combat experience either and they had pretty good war records.
I only wish the good general had adhered to the philosophy and values of the men you mentioned. Had he done so he would not be in the mess he is now. Also he would have resigned before going along with the lies emanating from the administration knowing that they were false. His folly was to not follow the example set by those men
Petraeus lied for Obama, and for himself, and now that he’s been cornered, he’s doing a limited ‘hang out’ while all the while claiming he had told the truth when he said before the House Intelligence Committee that it was the video. Of course, anyone who had been paying attention already knew that Petraeus is a VERY Clintonesque man, in fact maybe even more Clintonesque than Clinton.
Andrew C. McCarthy: “Boot’s attack on West is an effort to defend a surpassingly foolish statement in which Gen. David Petraeus cast Israel as the source of all America’s woes in the Middle East. To his great discredit, the general — in a Clintonesque fashion which, as we shall see, is probably not a coincidence — simultaneously denied making the statement, grudgingly admitted making it while minimizing its significance, and accused West and others of misrepresenting his views. In fact, the general’s critics quoted his words at length, placed them in unmistakable context, and drew from them the same commonsense conclusion drawn by Israel’s gleeful critics — for whom Petraeus is the hero of the moment.”
Was David Petraeus as great a general as the write-ups of his downfall routinely claim? This is a provocative question that I will begin to answer with another question: Did America prevail in the Iraq War? I suspect few would say “yes” and believe it, which is no reflection on the valor and sacrifice of the American and allied troops who fought there. On the contrary, it was the vaunted strategy of the two-step Petraeus “surge” that was the blueprint of failure.
While U.S. troops carried out Part One successfully by fighting to establish basic security, the “trust” and “political reconciliation” that such security was supposed to trigger within Iraqi society never materialized in Part Two. Meanwhile, the “Sunni awakening” lasted only as long as the U.S. payroll for Sunni fighters did.
Today, Iraq is more an ally of Iran than the United States (while dollars keep flowing to Baghdad). This failure is one of imagination as much as strategy. But having blocked rational analysis of Islam from entering into military plans for the Islamic world, the Bush administration effectively blinded itself and undermined its own war-making capacity. In this knowledge vacuum, David Petraeus’ see-no-Islam counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine would fill but not satisfy the void.
The basis of COIN is “population protection” — Iraqi populations, Afghan populations — over “force protection.” Or, as lead author David Petraeus wrote in the 2007 Counterinsurgency Field Manual: “Ultimate success in COIN is gained by protecting the populace, not the COIN force.” (“COIN force” families must have loved that.) Further, the Petraeus COIN manual tells us: “The more successful the counterinsurgency is, the less force can be used and the more risk can be accepted.” “Less force” and “more risk” translate into highly restrictive rules of engagement.
More risk accepted by whom? By U.S. forces. Thus we see how, at least in the eyes of senior commanders, we get the few, the proud, the sacrificial lambs. And sacrificed to what? A theory.
The Petraeus COIN manual continues: “Soldiers and Marines may also have to accept more risk to maintain involvement with the people.” As Petraeus wrote in a COIN “guidance” to troops in 2010 upon assuming command in Afghanistan: “The people are the center of gravity. Only by providing them security and earning their trust and confidence can the Afghan government and ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) prevail.” That was a theory, too. Now, after two long COIN wars, we know it was wrong.
COIN doctrine approaches war from an ivory tower, a place where such theories thrive untested and without hurting anyone. On the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, however, the results have been catastrophic. Tens of thousands of young Americans answered their country’s call and were told to accept more “risk” and less “protection.” Many lost lives, limbs and pieces of their brains as a result of serving under a military command structure and government in thrall to a leftist ideology that argues, in defiance of human history, that cultures, beliefs and peoples are all the same, or want to be.
Attributing such losses to Petraeus’ see-no-Islam COIN is no exaggeration. In his 2010 COIN guidance, Petraeus told troops: “Walk. Stop by, don’t drive by. Patrol on foot whenever possible and engage the population.” As the Los Angeles Times reported last year, “The counterinsurgency tactic that is sending U.S. soldiers out on foot patrols among the Afghan people, rather than riding in armored vehicles, has contributed to a dramatic increase in arm and leg amputations, genital injuries and the loss of multiple limbs following blast injuries.”
Indeed, the military has had to devise a new category of injury — “dismounted complex blast injury” — while military medicine has had to pioneer, for example, new modes of “aggressive pain management at the POI (point of injury)” and “phallic reconstruction surgery.”
But not even such COIN sacrifices have won the “trust” of the Islamic world. On the contrary, we have seen spiraling rates of murder by our Muslim “partners” — camouflaged by the phrase “green on blue” killings. COIN commanders, ever mindful of winning (appeasing) “hearts and minds,” blame not the Islamic imperatives of jihad but rather summer heat, Ramadan fasting and the “cultural insensitivity” of the murder victims themselves. Such is the shameful paralysis induced by COIN, whose manual teaches: “Arguably, the decisive battle is for the people’s minds. … While security is essential to setting the stage for overall progress, lasting victory comes from a vibrant economy, political participation and restored hope.”
Notice the assumption that something called “overall progress” will just naturally follow “security.” Another theory. It didn’t happen in Iraq. It hasn’t happened in Afghanistan. Since nothing succeeds like failure, the doctrine’s leading general was rewarded with the directorship of the CIA.
There is more at work here than a foundationally flawed strategy. In its drive to win Islamic hearts and minds, COIN doctrine has become an engine of Islamization inside the U.S. military. To win a Muslim population’s “trust,” U.S. troops are taught deference to Islam — to revere the Quran; not to spit toward Mecca (thousands of miles away); and to condone such un- or anti-Western practices as religious supremacism, misogyny, polygamy, pederasty and cruelty to dogs. Our military has even permitted Islamic law to trump the First Amendment to further COIN goals, as when ISAF commander Petraeus publicly condemned an American citizen for exercising his lawful right to freedom of speech to burn a Quran.
This explains why the reports that CIA director David Petraeus went before the House Intelligence Committee in September and blamed a YouTube Muhammad video for the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, sounded so familiar. Whatever his motivation, it was all too easy for Petraeus to make free speech the scapegoat for Islamic violence. But so it goes in COIN-world, where jihad and Shariah (Islamic law) are off the table and the First Amendment is always to blame.
If there is a lesson here, it is simple: A leader who will betray the First Amendment will betray anything.
The surrender of the US military to political correctness puts national security behind gay rights, deference to Islam, feminism, secularism, multiculturalism, and willful ignorance of evil deeds. The defense contractors are following the military into the abyss with alacrity and enforcing compliance in the ranks initially by re-education, more lately by intimidation and the damning scarlet letter called “Resistance to Change.”
I can now easily put a face to all of the above in the person of General Petraeus.
Firtst Amendment … Hmmm … Is not McCain-Feingold against it too?
What then to make of McCain the War Hero?
Very sad and exactly correct.
McCain the Corrupt, you mean. How many people remember he’s one of the “Keating 5.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five
hullo diana, help yourself to my bandwith, heh.
i don’t know how long you’ve been around here, but i am one of those who said that we won in iraq, and then added, “but if we don’t deal with Iran–the main enemy–it will be undone.”
alas, it turned out to be true.
as for your tirade against COIN, please read what i wrote in the blog post. there’s a good literature on counterinsurgency, the best of which was written in the sixties by David Galula, which i think does the job very well. the way to win the support of the population, of whatever culture, is to defeat the enemy. all the rest is make-believe. which i think you agree with.
“Tirade” against COIN? COIN when applied to Muslims is the biggest hoax in the history of all mankind with the possible exception of Global warming, and it is a crime against America, especially our troops, as well as a high crime against all reason. It is a form of Human Sacrifice on an Alter of Insanity – A Trillion Dollar Bridge To Nowhere paved with the lives and limbs of our own troops. It is a Sociology Experiment From Hell with American troops used as Lab Rats by their Mad Hatter Generals.
How can not wanting American troops dead or missing limbs for nothing positive, only negative, be a tirade? A tirade is a diatribe. That was nothing of the kind. For shame. It was reason and patriotism.
You will probably think this is a “tirade” too.
Human sacrifice twenty first century American style:
It would seem the Aztec High Priests of the 15th century have been reincarnated and are now in full reign at the Mega Mosque some still nostalgically call the Pentagon. Their Spiritual Leader has been the High Priest of The Most Holy Doctrine of COIN, Imam David “Holy Qur’an” Petraeus.
America’s Generals are now very much like the Aztec High Priests of many centuries ago. The main difference, and it’s a relatively small one, is that instead of continually sacrificing what they regarded as their excess and disposable human property to the Sun God to try to gain benevolence and avoid wrath, America’s Generals keep trying to sacrifice America’s Constitution, and do sacrifice more and more of the lives and limbs of America’s troops, whom they regard as their excess and disposable human property, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars of America’s rapidly shrinking treasure, which although itself is of much lesser importance is still no small matter, to the gods they reverently call “The Prophet Mohammad”, “The Holy Qur’an” and “The Noble People Of Afghanistan and their Noble Muslim Culture” to try to gain benevolence and avoid wrath, and maybe even get an extra star and another few assorted colorful baubles for which to adorn themselves.
Is our military fighting for anything most Americans would regard as at all decent in Afghanistan? Certainly not our Army, nor our Marines. America’s Generals have repeatedly ordered them to respect the gods they call “The Prophet Mohammad”, “The Holy Qur’an” and “The Noble People Of Afghanistan and their Noble Muslim Culture” and if American troops get shot to death by what their Generals call their Partners in Peace, then the Generals conclude that America’s derelict and sacrilegious troops must not have respected the gods they call “The Prophet Mohammad”, “The Holy Qur’an” and “The Noble People Of Afghanistan and their Noble Muslim Culture” nearly enough and order them to take still more religious and cultural “sensitivity” training so they can better respect the Noble Muslim Culture of the Noble People of Afghanistan, maybe even enough where they can start joining in the practicing of that Noble Muslim Culture themselves, which would no doubt delight the Generals to no end.
There of course is never any “sensitivity” training ever even recommended for what America’s Generals call “The Noble People Of Afghanistan” so they might better understand and appreciate Western and American culture. But then as America’s Generals clearly must regard the Noble Muslim Culture of the Noble People of Afghanistan as being far superior to Western and American culture, they would surely regard any such thing as, well, absolutely unthinkable, and blasphemous, and upon hearing any such suggestion would no doubt order even more “sensitivity” training.
* Mainstream Noble People of Afghanistan Muslim Culture includes child rape of both young girls and young boys, torturing dogs including puppies, total enslavement of women, stoning women to death for being raped, and death to apostates, which itself covers a whole lot, just to very briefly mention a few of the highlights.
” the way to win the support of the population, of whatever culture, is to defeat the enemy”
“Win support”, “of whatever culture”? This is incredibly naive. All cultures are not close enough to the same for this to even make sense even as a rational theory. How is an infidel nation ever going to win the support of the followers of Mohammad? Convert to Islam? That might do it, maybe. The real enemy is Islam itself and there was never any attempt even made in Iraq or Afcrapistan to defeat Islam. In fact David “Mister COIN” Lietraeus promoted Islam and the Koran, or “The Holy Qur’an” as he calls it, and denounced any and all “Insults to the Prophet”.
COIN when applied to a Muslim nation, especially one like Afcrapistan, is the F-ingest stupidest thing on the planet.
I’m a big fan of the real Diana West, who has her own blog and doesn’t need to clutter the comment section here or elsewhere with her own posts, which are, as I said, available at her site.
Next time you want to point out out something, instead of cutting and pasting an entire essay and pretending to be the author just give us the link, like this
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx
Yeah … we should have concentrated our soldiers on giant FOBs, each with a five mile free-fire zone all around, only left the FOB in convoys of 30 vehicles including M1 tanks, hose down any shadow, flattened any mildly suspicious qal’at, etc. That would have been a winning strategy … it worked so well for the USSR.
We achieved a victory and set the conditions for a moderate pro-US government in Iraq in 2007/08. We then allowed the BHO administration to throw it away. Our victory could have been complete and long-term if we had used our position to remove the source of terror in the region, the current government of Iran. This was likely possible even in 2009 due to numerous brave and idealistic Iranians who took to the streets of Tehran. Too bad we hung them out to dry, as we hung out the Iraqis who risked all to side with us and as we are hanging out our Afghan allies.
Four more years of this? It’s like watching a bad movie on TV and not being able to change the channel. We owe it to the four dead Americans in Benghazi to find out what really happened.
As everybody around here certainly knows by now I’m no fan of Obama. Far from it. But, to tell you the truth, something way, WAY, more important is at stake here than Obama’s presidency. There are a huge number of Americans overseas right now fighting for us with different government agencies. Whether it’s for the Department of Defense (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force), the CIA, the State Department, the FBI, etc, they all work under one vital understanding. They really believe that if they get into trouble, their government will move heaven and earth to rescue them. And if they can’t help them out, it will at the very least destroy the people who attacked them.
That is all going out the window with Benghazi. A LOT of people in the armed forces and in the intelligence services now really believe that they will be tossed to the wolves if the President thinks the situation makes him look bad. And this is a terrible place to be in right now. If this idea is allowed to take hold, fewer and fewer people are going to be willing to stick their necks out for this country. And who could blame them? Why should they risk their lives if their own government won’t lift a finger to help them when it really counts?
The people responsible for the fiasco in Benghazi need to be held accountable and the terrorists who attacked the consulate need to be killed. That is the only thing that’s going to fix this with the people who risk their lives for us on a daily basis. If we just ignore this or, worse, sweep it under the rug, you will get fewer people willing to do the heavy lifting in battle or in dangerous parts of the world, and that could be fatal for this country.
” … something way, WAY, more important is at stake here than Obama’s presidency.”
You’re absolutely right but, in the end, it all comes down to Obama’s presidency, doesn’t it? If it weren’t for his hell-bent-for-leather ambition to be re-elected, leading to his fabrication of the explanation for the terrorist attack in Benghazi so that the American people wouldn’t know that his boast about putting Al-Qaeda on the run was bogus, I’m pretty sure four Americans wouldn’t be dead. Or, if they were, the White House, the State Department, and the military would have at least done everything in their power to save them, which didn’t happen under Obama’s end-of-term presidency.
This president has put in danger all of the American personnel working and fighting overseas and it’s a scandal of epic proportions what he’s been willing to do in order to hang onto power. There’s a novel and a film here — except that it’s not fiction. This is really happening. It’s a nightmare.
” … you’ve got the makings of a hell of a story, whose outlines are only just beginning to be visible.”
That’s for sure. I’m wondering just exactly who Paula (well-named) Broadwell is, and who exactly the terrible twins, Natalie Khawam and Jill Kelley, are. Petraeus may be a smart soldier but he seems to be a particularly dumb guy when it comes to the company he keeps.
Was he set up? Did he allow himself to be set up?
This story is getting curioser and curioser. All three women were at the White House, in various capacities in the past year (http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/11/17/petraeus-kelley-broadwell.html); and I’m sure there are lots of people in the Beltway who don’t want us to know the half of it.
Keep digging, Mr. Ledeen. It’s a deep, dark hole.
The particulars are informative and turning more so by the day; that said, I believe they ought to be handed off to historians while we, the people turn to a larger, markedly more urgent topic.
None of what we’ve seen since September 11, 2001, I say, is any way to defend our nation.
Realistically speaking, the Islamic jihad against the United States dates at least to the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran during the time Carter occupied the White House. Given neither he nor succeeding presidents did anything effective to thwart jihad, which merely encouraged the jihadis to enlarge both the scope and severity of their predation, I believe it makes sense to regard the oft-cited “War on Terror” as sui generis, a thing unto itself, from September, 2001.
After eleven years of war, thousands of American lives lost and many thousands more ruined, and untold trillions of dollars spent to no visible result, our political and military “leaders” continue to cling to a pair of beliefs wholly contradicted by both facts and logic:
1.) The enemy is al Qaida, this or that bunch of “insurgents,” radical Islamists, et alia. Simple fact: the enemy is actually Islam, an imperialist ideology masquerading as a religion, whose adherents have broadly embraced and undertaken global jihad against the United States, Israel, and western civilization in general. If you don’t know or can’t acknowledge who your enemy is, you probably won’t defeat him.
2.) The United States can fight and win land wars in Asia with conventional weapons. Simple fact: we’ve won exactly one Asian war, and that by first naval and air, then unconventional means; all those fought on land were defeats, stalemates, or declared victories masking defeats or stalemates. If you’re unable to win wars, you shouldn’t fight them.
The “War on Terror” has in no way defeated global Islamic jihad, nor even hindered terrorist Iran’s development of nuclear weapons that could deliver crushing blows to us. The lives and money we’ve squandered to date have not only failed to make us safer, but left us still weaker. We, the people have lost patience with the apparently endlessly prolonged “War on Terror,” which works to the enemy’s psychological advantage and our disadvantage. The economic costs have left us heavily burdened with debt, wallowing in economic and psychological depression, and susceptible to the promises of leftist extremist politicians, their lackeys in uniform, and the former main stream “news” media. Concurrently, our continuing, deepening dependence on oil imported from Islamic terrorist states and refusal to take more than token steps toward energy independence have left us economically as well as militarily more vulnerable than ever.
Did I write this is no way to win a war? I believe I ought to have written it’s a monstrous, harrowingly effective way to defeat the United States.
I will not name him for I suspect he’s suffered enough for saying this, but a fine American writer said the Islamic war on the West began with the assassination of Robert Kennedy by a Palestinian fanatic. And he said that for President Bush to declare a War on Terrorism was as weak as if President Franklin Roosevelt, on December 8 1941, had declared a War on Aviation.
The jihad is funded by middle-east oil money, both indirectly by spreading the ideology and directly by supporting groups young men in idleness as they plan their next terrorist attack. Cut off the funds and those men need to get real work. Until we stop the flow of oil money by destroying middle-east oil wells — something that would be child’s play for our military — the jihad will continue. The middle-east produces something like 20% of the world’s oil. Doing without would be hard but not catastrophic by any means.
Sad.
I can remember during the Iraq War when the *Left* attacked Petraeus. (Moveon.org called him “General Betray-us.”) And most conservatives rushed to defend Petraeus.
Now the wheel has come full circle. It looks like “General Betray-us” was the right label after all–but for the wrong reasons.
I am opposed to adultery. However, I know many in the military are guilty of it and General Petraeus just happened to get caught. I dislike the fact that so many generals and admirals are politically inclined “perfumed princes” They have to be politically inclined to reach that level. Many try to become those ranks but few succeed.
I really think Petraeus’a resignation is too great a punishment. His outstanding record is besmirched. It is almost as if some force deliberately took the opportunity to ruin him completely. This cannot be compared with the sexcapades of Bill Clinton, LBJ, or Franklin Roosevelt and nothing happened to them..
He should be broken in the ranks and dishonorably discharged without pension. It ain’t rocket science.
Wretchard suggests that Petraeus was not in synch with the administrations future plans/mollification of Iran and so had to be let go.
I don’t like adultery either, but I think Patraeus is a patriot and we should focus our distain on those who are not.
Yea; I “disdain adultery” too. But, it is SOOOO DELICIOUS.
You oughta try it! Without nookie, What is man? Woman? Gerbil? Or amoebae?
I read years ago that in reality most affairs consist of a little bad (ie clumsy) sex and lots of intimate, illicit phone calls. The psychiatrist’s observation had the smack of unmistakeable truth.
Now a days it seems that emails often replace the phone calls.
Mr. Ledeen; You are THIS close.
Petraeus is an intellectual, as is Obama.
They each think they are above and beyond any other intellects capability, and that they will be protected by their minions deflection and confusion of events pertaining to the subject being discussed.
Put the two together, and you have a vault of impenetrable substance.
When they each emit such a bulletproof aura, anything they utter is intended to be misconstrued. Their contracted firewall will keep any and all queries in a state of dubiety for enough time that they can further confuse their negotiations.
The presented challenge is to deconstruct the obtuse dialogue into dialect that the “low information” constituent can decipher, and consider a valid argument.
I visualize that ability in you, sir.
Petraeus and Stevens were gay lovers, everyone knows it. Stevens cast his wandering eye on Qaddafi, Petraeus had him killed. Sounds reasonable? No. Nor does any of this other nonsense being spouted. Fast and Furious was all about Holder trying to gin up a controversy to limit American’s gun rights. No it wasn’t, and Fast and Furious went nowhere. This conspiracy nonsense does nothing to advance the discussion, only serves as a self-pleasuring fantasy the denies the reality that Obama was re-elected.
And elections have consequences.
Impeach the SOB.
The bottom line question right now is whether or not Petreaus will be a help or a hindrance in getting rid of Obama.
Is he a patriot who did brave and wonderful things in Iraq, if not in Afghanistan, who was being primed for a Presidential run by the Republicans, and who was set up by Obama and the puppeteers pulling his strings?
Or is the General a politically correct progressive member of the intelligentsia capable of self-deluding himself that whatever idiocy he chooses to engage in will benefit the country and everyone around him? And as such, was he set up by masters of sexual intrigue such as the KGB and its past heads.
I’m still sort of hoping that he’s a good guy who got caught by a bad girl, who was having Chicago Way threats being made to him to shut up and play by that mob-based rule book, and who called Obama’s bluff/threat, and will now be able to work openly to … impeach the SOB.
The problem is not Obama, but all those people voting for him. Until they turn against him, and the MSM also, there is no point impeaching him.
Lots of attacks on Gen. Petreaus here. He’s no Tommy Franks. But he did save W (and every American patriot who believed in backing the troops and providing them with everything they needed to achieve their objective) from blowing Iraq, after a brilliant toppling of Saddam. And he did, a couple days ago, expound the truth, before Congress (even if the MSM is too terrified to cover it), that the Benghazi assault was a CIA-understood AQ terrorist operation from the get-go. So I thank him, twenty times over, for that. He could have chickened out on that. But that said, Petraeus did betray his marriage vows. He did publicly dishonor himself. I mean, a bit less than half of the country does still believe in personal, moral, accountability.
P4 may have told some truth at the closed door hearing last week, but he also lied outright about his private briefing to Congress on September 14th. At that meeting, Petraeus told his intelligence audience that it was a “flash mob”, but then at the closed door hearing last week he denied – to the same people! – ever having said it!!
Good grief. THAT’S truly shameless arrogance without limit.
The Petraeus affair and the women involved are, for the present US Admin a red herring to cover 2 scandals: Benghazi (we hear the President knew!) and the colossal voter fraud.
Meantime, the present Admin is working against the US interests in the Middle East.
Unfortunately for the US citizen, the majority of the US Admin have conducted Foreign Policy with a Hammer & Sickle, due to the lack of historic and cultural understanding, inability of policy refinement and devastating impatience. If it were not so, Churchill would certainly not have said “America is always doing the right thing, after trying everything else”!
“The Petraeus affair and the women involved are, for the present US Admin a red herring …”
Am I not reading fast enough? There’s more than one mistress? Where’s the red herring here? From what I understand, Petreaus took the Obama administrations “red herring” and crammed it down their throat before Congress (MSM avoidance of the fact notwithstanding).
In short, to all you weak men out there (in or out of the public eye — but most particularly among the Democrat Left: Clinton, Gore, Edwards, etc.): FIRST you tell the truth to your wife and separate from her. THEN you make a fool of yourself with the younger woman of your need. Nothing else is honorable.
He’s been “General Betray Us” since the day he condemned a pastor’s plan to burn a copy of the koran. (Instead of defending Americans’ freedom of expression and telling the Afghans it was something they needed to understand, he made a mockery of the First Amendment.) Strike two was when he blamed a six-month-old video for what happened in Libya. Now a jealous lover has called strike three….he’s out!
Petraeus is such a liar that henceforth I will call him Lietraeus. Or maybe Lietraitorous.
Mr. Ledeen, the buzz is that DP was the terminating party.
The hot-to-trotter was Allen.
As for the gals, they’re hustlers, straight up.
BTW, Old Testament adultery is when a woman cheats on her marriage — not when a man cheats on his wife.
There’s another Commandment to cover that sin, the two were not conflated by Moses.
Since the woman in question is another man’s wife, your point is not relevant.
“It was a very big deal. Under his command, we smashed the jihadis in Iraq, dealt a devastating blow to al Qaida and its Iranian terror masters, and gave Iraq a window of opportunity. By Lee Smith’s account — which matches my own — Petraeus was one of the few national leaders to recognize the big role Iran played in the regional war, and he actually took steps to challenge them.”
While I agree that what Petraeus did was indeed a big deal, I think the above gives the impression that al Qaeda in Iraq in Anbar province was primarily Iranian sponsored. It was Suni al Qaeda in Iraq abusing the Suni Iraqis in Saddam’s home province that opened up the opportunity to form a alliance with the indigenous Suni population. Milaki and Petraeus even got in shouting matches over it including one where Dubya had to tell Milaki to calm down. I think that Petraeus deserves full credit for understanding the Iranian threat, but the defeat the Marines and the Army dealt to Suni al Qaeda in Iraq in Fallujah and Ramadi, their capital, was the centerpiece of the COIN strategy that paved the way for a reasonable end to the Iraqi war. I think one of the great points that the MSM has corruptly ignored but that that al Quaeda know full well is that they threw everything that had at the US in Anbar and were comprehensively defeated and then run out of Anbar with the temporary and well paid for help of the locals. Although Milaki did manage to disarm the Shia militias, I believe he never was able to extirpate the influence of the Iranian Quds Force and I agree the influence of Iran’s revolutionary guards in Iraq is still a problem. As is the natural alliance between Milaki and Iran, as a Shiite opposition leader, who had been supported by Iran against Saddam all his political life. On the other hand even if the Iranian regime fell Iraq would remain a major part of the Shia Crescent. Still, Petraeus was unable to repeat his success in Afghanistan and whatever he took the CIA job to do has been destroyed by the General’s own behavior.
Maybe it’s not all that complicated. He’d done everything he could with his military career, especially after he didn’t get the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs gig, which I’ve read elsewhere is the job he wanted, so that left some kind of civilian job, serving on boards, writing books, some kind of think tank/academic type position OR some other job with the government. It’s not like he was going to go out and start a business or something. CIA director probably seemed like a good fit to him, especially since it’s main job these days seems to be conducting Obama’s drone war.
Or maybe he just did it for the money. It’s mostly why the rest of us work.
Blert
“BTW, Old Testament adultery is when a woman cheats on her marriage — not when a man cheats on his wife.
There’s another Commandment to cover that sin, the two were not conflated by Moses.”
What’s the difference with you and a Muslim?
NONE
Such venom Lovey! So unbecoming of a matron of your station…
No, this isn’t Blert. Just an ardent admirer of your particularly entertaining incontinent jibberish.
“recognized Iran’s role,”
Unhappily I think it is less that US leaders fail to recognize Iran’s role than that they don’t know what to do with the realization. Clearly the US feels itself constrained to play like the international community does. That is, obtain proof suitable for presentation in a court of law, and having got such proof, try to discern how to retaliate without actually hurting any Iranians. Fool’s errand if you ask me. All they do is advertise their poverty of imagination.
I’m more of a military historian than anything else, and I can speak from experience reading a bunch of stuff on generals from various wars: there is always debate as to a General’s competence, regardless of how many battles or wars the guy won. There are books out there, well-researched and argued (if argumentative, too), asserting that everyone from Robert E. Lee to Alexander the Great was a terrible, or at least not as competent as thought, general. People tend to spend a lot of time trying to analyze tactics, logistics, and every decision a general made, with the intent of either building up or breaking down their reputation. As far as I’m concerned, there are only a few criteria that matter:
1) Did they win the primary battle(s) or campaign(s) that they fought?
2) If they replaced someone else in said campaign(s)/battle(s) was victory in sight before they took over?
3) Does it appear they had an influence on the campaign(s)/battle(s)?
In Petraeus’s case, the answer to the first is yes (Iraq) and maybe (Afghanistan); the answer to the second is no (we weren’t doing very well when he took over); and the answer to the third is yes (the surge).
As to Michael’s point that the Surge just involved implementing COIN principles that have been known for a good long while, so what? Just because something is commonly known doesn’t mean it gets implemented. If the two things did go hand in hand, then we’d have been implementing the practices used in the surge years before. What people forget is that there was a lot of argument about this: there was a large, vocal community in the army which felt that all campaigns ought to be fought along the same lines, whether your opponent wears uniforms and drives tanks, or wears civilian clothes and wields an AK-47. It doesn’t matter how many times these guys learn their lesson, within a decade or so they’ve unlearned it, and want to go back to the old ways. If Petraeus’ plan hadn’t worked as quickly as it did, it very well could have been his career on the line, and that was a gamble; there are no guarantees in warfare, so everything can fail.
Michael seems troubled that Petraeus was something of an attention-hog. The problem with this assertion is that the commanding general who’s a modest man is as likely to turn out to be Ambrose Burnside (who always told people he *wasn’t* fit to command the Army of the Potomac) as he is to instead be U.S. Grant. Frankly, someone like Grant (a shy, retiring, modest man) is pretty rare. Among World War 2 generals, Omar Bradley comes to mind; beyond him, the Pattons and MacArthurs outnumber the modest individuals. Ego, self-assurance, whatever you wish to call it, is pretty much a prerequisite to commanding a large number of troops: crises of confidence in your ability to get things done with the fewest casualties will soon result in nervous breakdowns.
As to the infidelity issue, one spot where Colin Powell was smarter was in the choice of his coauthor for his autobiography. Look up Joseph Persico on the web: he’s an old guy with a mustache. Alma Powell didn’t need to be worried; Petraeus stepped into a situation (probably unwittingly) where he was going to be seeing a lot of this woman, and she’s pretty good-looking, younger than he, and admires him. What could go wrong?
yes, virtue is very rare. agreed. and yes, if the surge had failed, Petraeus’ career would have failed with it. he did well, as I said. he’s got many good qualities. but the “surge” was modeled on the Marines’ victory in Anbar, which swayed not only the US military leaders, but also Iraqi political leaders. remember when Maliki surprised us with an attack in the south?
I might have been inclined to agree with Ben Stein’s observation that, “Love is strange and a man with the credentials of David Petraeus should not be prosecuted for anything short of murder,” were I in agreement with the application of those credentials to COIN, and a surge that was only effective temporarily, both at a catastrophic cost in American lives.
Dear Lady,
The surge worked, and we defeated al Qaida and Iran in Iraq. The catastrophe, then and now, is that we have yet to deal with the main enemy–Iran–and we retreated from Iraq without supporting revolution in Iran. Now we are retreating from Afghanistan, still without a proper Iran strategy.
All victories are temporary, and some are more temporary than others. But Petraeus is not the architect of the catastrophes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those were the results of the short sightedness of Bush and Obama. I suspect that Petraeus would have supported a more aggressive strategy, as I suspect would Mattis today.
Thank you so much for taking the time to engage, Dr. Ledeen.
I defer utterly to your superior knowledge and scholarship.
I was thinking in smaller terms, geographically as well as chronologically.
In light of those, may I ask, with respect: what is your take on COIN (DP did, after all, co-author the manual, presumably not with a gun to his head); and what I see as a straight line from it, the ROE which are proving so deadly at our fighting forces?
thanks for asking, Mayberry Lady. I don’t think the Rules of Engagement were driven by COIN. Our older son was fighting in Iraq long before anyone ever heard of COIN, and the maddening ROE were already in place. i think the notion of counterinsurgency “doctrine” is somewhat inflated. IT’s all about winning and losing, in my view…as Lyndon Johnson once said “if you’ve got them by the balls, the hearts and minds generally follow.”
D.P. was a stoic in his stoic great wisdom which reaches the tipping point and enters madness as we see with King David in God’s word the Bible and Bathsheba . Her husband Uriah was a stoic and how he resisted the passion for his beauty wife was by the slaughter of human beings in war the very reason God ban King David from building the holy temple because of the blood on his hands and this made it impossible for him to resist the great beauty of Baathsheba
So the great beauty of the Queen of Sheba came to me in a dream last night and there she show me the marriage bed with all her great power she receive from the thrones of hell and how can I resist this Dream come true ? But as she she got near and see what make me tick : Chaste Divine Love how my cup can become filled metamorphis from stoic to creative orgy of Divine Love which unites all the army of angels she so there is something far greater the the thrones of hell and that is CHASTE DIVINE love to create thus there was no dream marriage and when I awake from the dream she was weeping ready to cough up all the powers of hell to be given at the feet of the worthy one who has the only hand that deserves the ring of great power in the greater Solomon the wise sanctuary
Amen Amen Amen
Therefore, perhaps the stoic can temporary resist the great beauty of the Real pagan queen by distraction from some big Big Big idea but no way from dream she invade which become her wet dream so this wisdom absorb then you can become more than just “erudite” big boy or big girl and appear crazy if you ready just like me
A lot of folks, even on the right, are now starting to blame the womanizing general for what happened in Benghazi.
IIRC, the people who are responsible – and accountable – for our embassies are Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton.
If you truly distrust The White House and the MSM, why are you following their lede?
I believe that officers may resign their commission after five years of active service. When the attack on Fort Hood occurred, and this Administration put it down to “workplace violence”, it was the responsibility of the commanding officer to decide if his career was more important than the soldiers who were murdered. When military leadership will not support the troops they lead, they forfeit the respect that should go with their rank. A proper Army Chief of Staff would have also resigned rather than acquiesce to the lie that those deaths were “workplace violence”.
Finally, Benghazi (and Ft. Hood) was not terrorism. Rather they were successful combat operations against our soldiers by our adversary. We are at war.
May be Iam naive but the CIA veteran`s jump to the defence ministry and the leading US general`s jump to CIA looks like a pretty game by the patriot Obama
I’ll try the tried and true route for why he went for DCI: career advancement.
What are the chances that he would have had a direct path to the sub-cabinet level via the military, which is the JCS? Would such a man want to be a part of the JCS? Does he like to shine on his own?
If he does like to shine on his own, then the place to go is to another bureaucracy related to the military where he can shine credentials after a successful tour (aka ‘punch his ticket’) and that is DCI. Why? Congress created a lovely, sole person head of a totally useless, high level bureaucracy above DCI: DNI.
Note that the man to tell him the day before this got out is DNI, not military side. He changed bureaucracies for advancement. To the one place where he could get lots of face time with the media, the President and the Cabinet and have a vast bureaucracy under him. No sharing the limelight with anyone else, either, which he would have to do in the JCS.
He got caught with his pants down.
That sounds far more plausible than any conspiracy theory and puts the driver of careerism and ego at the center, not plots and such. I put it to you that careerism and ego are their own problem in the bureaucracy, especially one that should be holding up competence and capability to do a job well. But that is ticket-punching careerism amongst the executive level of the federal bureaucracy. It is a major problem and weak spot in its own right as it is made to punch-tickets, not get capable people in charge.
It is being reported repeatedly that Gen. Allen sent 20,000 – 30,000 e-mails to his “babe” … Where in the hell did he find the time to do THAT!!! Let’s figure something Like 10 e-mails a day; that would only be 3,650 e-mails a year, would it not? WTF?!!!!!
You probably didn’t hear, Generals had their work hours cut from 40 to 28 because of Obamacare. They have a lot of free time now to send e-mails to those hot babes.
In making decisions about leaders, it is vital to consider both rules and conduct. Gen. Petraeus admitted sexual conduct is the basis of court martial in the military and dismissal in the CIA. The CIA considered it a threat to security, not a moral issue. They do not tolerate internal threats. It is simply beyond credibility that if this situation existed for months that the Commander-in-Chief was not informed. His job is to fire people, or prosecute them, for breaking security rules. And run for office among an informed population. This did not happen; he won by a tiny majority by lying by omission about the Benghazi event (and several others).
Everyone who knows Petraeus considers him a very bright, talented man. But I hold an axiom of behavior paraphrased from Steven Ambrose, the late insightful student of military history. He said that God gave men two organs, for different functions, but only enough blood to run one at a time. This is the reason that organizations can high level leaders for this conduct, their brain is not focused on their job.
There is another relationship, more vital, less titillating, in promoting generals to run the CIA. It is the natural conflict of interest, and function. The military code of conduct, much discussed, are the hard rules of killing and destroying the enemies of the state. Those who serve disdain the CIA because, for generations, they operated under different rules; they are the dirty tricks agency. To avoid becoming savages, they have evolved a different set of rules. The first one is that they are not military. Petraeus’ reassignment meant that “those guys” are now in charge of us secret warriors. It astounds me that no debate among their civilian masters, or the MSM, on this topic ever occurred in a decade of the war on terrorism, misguided teenagers, or whatever is the current politically correct term for killing them.
Americans security is in mortal danger, both from external parties, and flawed internal leaders. Our enemies kill us as we stand down, and die.
there has long been a military branch within CIA, so your imagined distinction isn’t quite right. military “disdain” for CIA at least in recent years has come from the agency’s failure to identify targets the military wants to know about. finally, there is considerable cross-pollination; plenty of ex-CIA guys in the military, and plenty of ex-military in the agency. “security personnel” such as the two who died so heroically at Benghazi document that point. they seem to have been employed by CIA, and had military backgrounds.
one additional point: everybody talks about the “CIA Annex” in Benghazi, but there were several agencies who had people in there, including Special Forces and NSA. As you should expect…
Israel is in real danger
Iron dome couldn’t intercept all the launched toward Israel. Iron dome isn’t completely safe and trustful. Those leakages are vital; Iranians will use these punctures, misuse and bad use, for their future nuke warhead launch toward Tel Aviv. Suppose that one of those rockets escaped of interceptors, had a nuke warhead! It’s not a joke, seriously consider it. It will happen, I feel it terribly, Iranians are walking toward this aim, and they’ll approach and climb and achieve it at last, whether you get it serious or not.
the blog below goes a long way to explain who Petraeus really is, and why obama likes him
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/11/petraeus_and_allen_non-combatant_general_disgraces.html
Michael, look!
A little mini war has started. But it’s not a full open range spectacular impressive attack, which you were waiting for it.
I’m sure you’ve got a good celebration with a lot of drinking champagne and dance and a lot of noise! Like cowboys when they grab and thieve a whole bunch of buffalo cattle and bring them to their farm!
I know what you are expecting and waiting for. A good and full range maximum heavily nuke strike on the Tehran city! That will give you a really ecstasy. I know you want its unique orgasmic pleasure. Light a Woodbine with a big icy beer, wow. Michael, you know what? Run a loud hard rock music, give me some Budweiser or whiskey of Scottish kind of it please, how much you have, half of it is mine, OK? Right. Just kidding.
“I want my generals to spend their time defeating our enemies and protecting our guys, not polishing their images, and decidedly not spending many hours on email…But I also know that virtue is possible, and I want my leaders to be virtuous. I think that winning is the most important thing, and if you win you don’t need to brainwash the observers. The victory speaks for itself.”
Dear Michael, your great words remind me in the great speech of the fervent exponent of American expansion overseas, the U.S. Senator Albert Jeremiah Beveridge -1898…following is an excerpt from his great speeches:
“…the men we send to administer civilized government in the Philippines must be themselves the highest examples of our civilization. I use the word “examples,” for examples they must be in that word’s most absolute sense. They must be men of the world and of affairs, students of their fellowmen, not theorists nor dreamers. They must be brave men, physically as well as morally. They must be as incorruptible as honor, as stainless as purity, men whom no force can frighten, no influence coerce, no money buy. Such men come high, even here in America. But they must be had.”
The terrible and disgusting thing in the USA is, the writers of scandals sellers, lies and trumped-up charges they always trying to divert the attention from the sensitive and high-risk issues to silly issues, where they become preoccupied with useless love scandals or the like of lies. They love to besmirch the record of those who fighting aggressively for the values and principles of the Great America.
However, the true enemy of the US are “Iran and Al-Qaeda” did not defeat comprehensively in the region. Your real enemies are still moving freely in Tehran and Damascus. But this was not Gen. Petraeus fault in person. US foreign policies are responsible for that strategical failure especially during Mr. Obama admin and here is the catastrophe!
Yes, Gen. Petraeus consider to be one of American heroes who served their country with a great distinction and honor. but he did not following more military aggressive strategies against the enemy.
I think to be a true American General, you should deal with the enemy furiously. For instance, the true American hero is who helped in the raping of half a dozen central American republics for the benefit of Greatness of America, a Gen. who operated on three Continents as Gangster for America’s imperialism and capitalism, he was the late Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler.
I do not know whether if the little boy @ “42. WOOZY” heard about that true American hero? I suspect!?