I ALREADY MISS THE GOOD OLD DAYS

I already miss those good old days, not that long ago actually, when all we had to worry about was important things, people like Paula Broadwell, Jill Kelley, a couple of middle aged 4-star generals and a topless FBI agent (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2012/11/laffaire-petraeus-today.html).  Don't you?

Now it is ugly as an "over-the-hill" Senator, who once was a rational force in the Senate but now is after one last hurrah, pursues something known as Benghazi that everyone has lost interest in except for him and a few of his colleagues.  You know, that violent demonstration/terrorist attack in which an ambassador was killed along with three of his "troops" in some backwater consulate in Lybia where violent acts in the vicinity are almost an every day occurrence (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2012/09/you-can-rationalize-anything.html).  Senator Feinstein has commented, "My biggest concern is, there are literally hundreds of threat warnings in the material that has been accumulated," Feinstein said. "There were five attacks during the year, one prior attack on the consulate itself. The question I have is ... why wasn't something done about it?"  But this doesn't seem to be the serious question which our dear "over-the-hill" Senator says is why did our ambassador to the U./N. - Susan Rice - say, five days after the event, that the violence was a demonstration that got out of hand?

Personally, I never thought this issue could last until the late-elections, but some - including the news media - want to keep it going and are demanding a "Whitewater" type investigation.  And apparently Susan Rice was only parroting the declassified information on the topic.  This misinformation, if it matters, was seemingly done because the FBI or someone thought they were hot on the trail of the organizing perpetrators and didn't want them to know.  Instead what they did was what is known as "hanging Susan Rice out to dry."

So far as I am concerned, if the American Benghazi Consulate attack was the best Al Qaeda could do to "celebrate" 9/11, they are weak indeed, hardly even a shadow of the real 9/11.  It was even far away from the embassy in Tripoli.  Somehow, forgotten in all this is that an estimated 30,000 Libyans demonstrated against the attack and the militias involved in the attack (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2012/11/laffaire-petraeus-today.html).

The fuss being made over Benghazi is interesting when one considers that the diefied Ronald Reagan had BOTH a couple of embassy attacks, including the big one in Beirut, Lebanon, where 17 Americans died (among 63 total) on April 18, 1983 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_United_States_embassy_bombing) plus another in Kuwait where five people were killed on December 12, 1983 (which by-the-way Reagan refused to call an act of terror) (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/19/1147106/-Breaking-Ronald-Reagan-refuses-to-call-embassy-attack-an-act-of-terror) AND the marine barracks attack where 241 of our troops died on October 23, 1983.  For good measure there was the Korean airliner 007 shot down by the Soviets September 1, 1983 where 269 passengers were killed including a U.S. congressman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007).  Somehow Reagan's admirers forgave him for all of this.  Furthermore, Democrats did not make political hay out of any of this.  But today, everything seems to be on the table for political gain.

L'AFFAIRE PETRAEUS -- TODAY

The central character of this Greek Tragedy (or is it a comedy?), a voyeur's dream, is the 60 yr old, highly  regarded ret. 4 star General Petraeus, now-resigned director of the CIA.  He is arguably the most highly regarded General since Eisenhower, though consideration should also be given to ret. General Powell.  Then there is Gen. Petraeus's pretty  40 yr old married late(?)-mistress Paula Broadwell, mother of two, who did a  dissertation on Gen. Petraeus and became his biographer.  He met her in 2006 and began running with her in 2008.  Let's see, another principal character is the married, foreign-born, 37-yr-old Lebanese-American beauty Jill Kelley, mother of three, who hosts parties for the military in the Tampa.  Until today, the final character is an FBI agent who sent bare chested pictures of himself to Jill Kelley and will be referred to as just "topless."  An addition to this play on November 12th, is 59-yr-old 4 star Gen. John Allen who succeeded Gen Petraeus as commander in Afghanistan.  This morning, it was announced that an investigation of around 30,000 (!) pages of e-mails between Gen Allen and Mrs. Kelley over a two year period (more than 40 pages a DAY!).

OK, let's see what we seem to know now (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/petraeus-broadwell-diary-affair-article-1.1200840).  June 30, 2010 - The Senate confirms Petraeus as the new commander for war in Afghanistan. Over the next year, Broadwell expands her research of Petraeus into an authorized biography. She makes multiple trips to Afghanistan and is given unprecedented access to Petraeus and his commanders. 
...............................................................................

The article goes on to say that "Officially" the affair between Broadwell and Petraeus begins during November , 2011 (according to ret. Col. Steve Boylan), a couple months after he was appointed director of the CIA (another account says it was August).  Ah huh.  The affair is said to have been terminated about four months ago.

In May of 2012, Jill Kelley says she started receiving "threatening" e-mails and appeals to Topless to investigate, which he did.  (I wonder what he expected to get for doing all this for her?)  This morning On Morning Joe, it appears two of the "threatening" e-mails say something like "Does your husband know what you are doing" and "I saw you making inappropriate touching of (Petraeus) under the table."  So we have a little jealousy here but hardly threatening.  It appears that when Kelley found out how invasive of her privacy the investigation would be, she tried to stop it, but once this ball started rolling down hill, it couldn't be stopped.  Incidentally, Mrs. Kelley has license plates on her car that say "Honorary Council," which she feels should give her special privileges.  Me thinks there is a bit of a big head here.

Now there are pictures of boxes of materials being taken from Broadwell's home.  It seems that (presumably declassified) Top Secret materials are in Broadwell's possession so this drama has not yet played out.

Please remember that we are not dealing with impressionable young girls smitten by fancy uniforms of 20 something yr-old soldiers, but two mature married women and mothers in their mid to late 30s involved with two married Generals, perhaps suffering from male menopause, old enough to be their fathers.

I would like to add as a general comment that I believe that military life is very hard on marriages with one spouse (usually but not always men) being away from home for very long periods of time.  I suspect that affairs are actually very common though they are against the Code Of Military Justice.  In the 1970s, there was a study that concluded that 80% of  husbands have had an affair.  I recall at work five of us tired-looking researchers at a lunch table, and I said "Four of us at this table have had an affair, and I know it is not me."  Hard to believe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/scandal-disrupts-petraeus-mistress-birthday-getaway-article-1.1200956
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57548827/who-is-jill-kelley/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Allen



November 14-15, 2012:   Paula Broadwell has considerable classified information on her computer that is inadequately protected.  She is a reserve officer in intelligence.  Her security classification has been revoked. (https://www.cnbc.com/id/49833869) Jill Kelley's pass to the military base near Tampa has been revoked (http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/49830265/#49830265)  Topless's name is Frederick W. Humphries II (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/15/petraeus-affair-instigator-fbi-named)