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Jill Kelley Claims “Honorary” Diplomatic Status In Latest Twist In Petraeus Scandal

Last night, while discussing the Petraeus scandal on CNN, the network played a 911 call from one of the four major figures in the scandal: Jill Kelley. The call is perfectly bizarre in which Kelley, a Florida socialite, claims “honorary diplomatic” status to get the police to stop people from walking across her lawn. The dispatcher listens patiently and appears to resist the temptation to tell her that he will be sending over some honorary police to protect their honorary diplomatic residence.

Kelley is the woman who went to a friend in the FBI to complain about threatening emails from an anonymous source — emails that led the FBI to Paula Broadwell and ultimately Gen. David Petraeus. She and the agent are a rather odd couple. He sent her shirtless pictures of himself and was eventually removed from involvement in the case. She is described as a “nice, bored, rich socialite” who volunteered with the military as a self-described “social liaison” and cultivated relationships with generals. This included a questionable relationship with Gen. John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, involving a remarkable number of emails described by some sources as a bit raunchy and “like phone sex.”

Just when you thought the scandal could not get more weird, it did. Last night, we heard this 911 call for “diplomatic protection:”

“Thank you and you know, um, I don’t know, but by any chance because I’m an honorary council general, so I have inviolability so I should… they should not be able to (cross) this property, I don’t know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well.

Kelley has been described as invoking her diplomatic status previously. She was given the unpaid title of “honorary ambassador” to CENTCOM, the Department of Defense Central Command. This gives her about the same diplomatic status as the hostess at an International House of Pancakes.

What is strange is that she is protected by the non-honorary title of a citizen of Tampa from trespass. She is allowed to demand the removal of people from her property so long as it is not a public space or a private space with a form of constructive easement.

She might want to stick with the Tampa title because “Honorary ambassador” does not fit neatly into the the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961). However, if she wishes to claim to be an honorary diplomat, it would allow Tampa to declare her persona non grata but it is not clear what country she would be expelled to since she is claiming diplomatic immunity in her own country. It might be just easier to get a “No Trespass” sign at Home Depot.

284 thoughts on “Jill Kelley Claims “Honorary” Diplomatic Status In Latest Twist In Petraeus Scandal”

  1. EXCLUSIVE – Petraeus: the Plot Thickens

    By Douglas Lucas and Russ Baker on Feb 5, 2013

    http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/02/05/petraeus-the-plot-thickens-1/

    Excerpt:

    Was the ambitious General David Petraeus targeted for take-down by competing interests in the US military/intelligence hierarchy—years before his abrupt downfall last year in an adultery scandal?

    Previously unreported documents analyzed by WhoWhatWhy suggest as much. They provide new insight into the scandalous extramarital romance that led to Petraeus’s resignation as CIA director in November after several years of rapid rise—going from a little-known general to a prospective presidential candidate in a stunningly brief time frame.

    …article continues…

  3. Petraeus gave Jill Kelley a medal? from Henry Blodgett:

    “you know you can get a medal from the U.S. military for schmoozing?
    Apparently you can.
    At General David Petraeus’s recommendation, the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave Tampa Bay socialite Jill Kelley the country’s second-highest honor a civilian can receive, reports Jeane MacIntosh of the New York Post.
    Kelley received the award from Petraeus himself in a ceremony in Washington DC last year.
    Jeane MacIntosh quotes from the citation, which lauds Kelley for many achievements:
    “outstanding public service to the United States Central Command, the MacDill Air Force Base community and the Department of Defense from October 31, 2008 to May 31, 2010.”
    Kelley’s work in “advancing various military endeavors” and her “willingness to host engagements with senior national representatives from more than 60 countries,” according to the Tampa Tribune.
    “On multiple occasions, Mrs. Kelley invited senior national representatives, their spouses and senior leaders to her home to demonstrate their gratitude and support. These events promoted camaraderie, understanding and a better appreciation for coalition and military customs, concerns and abilities.”
    “She [was] instrumental in introducing the commander, early in his tenure, to local and state officials, particularly the mayor of Tampa and the governor of Florida.”
    “The singularly distinctive accomplishments of Mrs. Jill Kelley are in keeping with the finest traditions of public service and reflect great credit upon herself, United States Central Command and the Department of Defense.”

    Amazing the things you learn from a sex scandal.

    Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/general-petraeus-gave-jill-kelley-a-medal-2012-11#ixzz2CzdWZ2yG

  4. General Petraeus Seduced Us, Too

    Wednesday, 21 November 2012
    By Nick Mottern, Truthout | Op-Ed

    http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12860-beneath-the-petraeus-illusion-tragic-realities

    Paragraph 1-136 of The US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, a doctrinal document whose creation was overseen by Gen. David H. Petraeus, says:

    At the strategic level, gaining and maintaining U.S. public support for a protracted deployment is critical. Only the most senior military officers are involved in this process at all. It is properly a political activity. However, military leaders typically take care to ensure that their actions and statements are forthright. They also ensure that the conduct of operations neither makes it harder for elected officials to maintain public support nor undermine public confidence.

    This curious instruction in this military field manual, which itself is a piece of public relations work, shows that General Petraeus knows the profound importance of creating illusion to support war.

    The Norman Rockwellian image he created for himself – serious, highly professional, righteous, observer of international law, disciplined master of humane war and nation-building and, especially, heroic – served not only his career, but the careers of politicians who advance themselves as militarists and the fortunes of corporate bosses who sell weapons and/or depend on the US military to secure them safe zones of exploitation around the world.

    General Petraeus, as well as anyone, is likely to know that his romance and its exposure stir emotions in the public that lead inevitably to uncertainty about the tragic military adventures he has championed – the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and, most recently, the burgeoning US global campaign of drone surveillance, assassination and terror.

    One might suggest that General Petraeus quit as head of the CIA two days after Barack Obama was selected for four more years in the White House because his romance with Paula Broadwell might “undermine public confidence” in a deliberately fabricated set of illusions about what our military is doing.

    Indeed, the Petraeus incident is providing a curious public with a glimpse into the reality of a US military world in which the very top military commanders are living lavish lives and partying, playing and hobnobbing with the wealthy while their troops are suffering and dying and engaged in killing, wounding and detaining thousands of Iraqis, Afghanis and Yemenis, with lesser numbers dying under drone fire in Somalia, Libya and even the Philippines.

    The lack of a sense of decency among US generals during our current wars extends, of course, to their failure to see any conflict of interest in going to work for arms makers once they retire while their wars continue on, fanned by the companies they work for.

    General Petraeus may fear that the search for the real David Petraeus will inevitably lead to, one, a reexamination of his conduct of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and, two, questions about whether these wars are intended to serve any national security interest or are being undertaken to advance corporate interests at tremendous costs to the public interest.

    First, with respect to the conduct of the wars, without the halo, General Petraeus can be charged with conducting a savage campaign of slaughter, relocation, detention and deprivation in Iraq which traumatized millions and has been a major factor in Iraq’s fragmentation and internal strife, which continues until now.

    In 2007, Consumers for Peace, of which I am director, published an analysis of the Petraeus counterinsurgency manual and the “surge” in Iraq. The studies document the degree to which General Petraeus was willing to ignore international law and engage military activities that can be defined as war crimes; this must be further investigated and exposed.

    The major US press organizations will not do this. They aggrandized General Petraeus through the surge and after, willfully ignoring the horrific consequences of the Iraq occupation and then abandoning coverage of Iraq when President Obama announced US troops were leaving Iraq at the end of 2010. (There is no press mention of the large US mercenary forces that remain in Iraq and the guerilla war there.)

    The deepest secret policy of General Petraeus may involve his work as a military enforcer for Western corporations that demand security for their investments and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Any further exposure of his communications with major corporations while he was conducting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan might reveal to the American public the degree to which our wars since 9/11 have been driven by corporate goals, particularly those of energy corporations.

    A hint of the Petraeus role as corporate protector came in a March 2008 news story by Ben Lando for United Press International, reporting that General Petraeus had made calls to ” large Western corporations” to encourage investment in oil, gas and power production in Iraq. The article quotes Army Col. Steven Boylan, a Petraeus spokesman: “‘Sometimes to get the ball rolling, it takes a senior leader to engage other senior leaders in the corporate world to have a discussion’ on the realities of security in Iraq, Boylan said.”

    Lando was unable to get any of the major corporations he tried to contact to comment on the Petraeus calls.

    The existence of working relationships between Petraeus and corporations seeking military security to extract wealth from Afghanistan is also hinted at in a “Meet the Press” interview distributed on YouTube in which the general talked about “trillions, with an ‘s’ on the end, trillions of dollars worth of minerals” in Afghanistan that can be exploited only if there is military security in place.

    Exposure of the realities of Petraeus’s corporate alliances would be a most important revelation for the American people. This might lay bare the degree to which we have been carried into war by Western corporate power and the ways in which our wars have everything to do with supporting the global .01% and absolutely nothing to do with terrorism, democracy, freedom or patriotism.

    http://youtu.be/DPijrJ9kXEs

  6. http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12869-petraeus-should-have-been-fired-years-ago

    “Petraeus was a vocal advocate of military “Spiritual Fitness.” Spiritual Fitness is little more than a disingenuous and transparent Trojan horse for Evangelical Christian Fundamentalism within the U.S. Armed Forces. Indeed, it is a sinister Star Chamber, an unlawful means by which nationalism and militarism are merged with sectarian Christian zeal. One of the core components of Spiritual Fitness is matrimonial loyalty, but since when were religious fundamentalism and outright hypocrisy mutually exclusive? But I digress…
    Spiritual Fitness programming has taken various forms. For years, servicemembers have been coerced into attending sappy, saccharine Christian rock concerts. One of these tours, whose headlining acts included performances of songs with repugnant and vacuously vapid titles like “United We Stand When Together We Kneel,” had even been openly promoted by General Petraeus as “enormously important to those who wear the uniform.” Needless to say, this Flag Officer endorsement struck MRFF as wholly loathsome and an act of anti-Constitutional treachery of the highest order.
    The next shock came in 2008 as I sat reading an issue of the Air Force Times. It was then that I stumbled on an ad for a book by Army chaplain Lt. Col. William McCoy entitled Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel. And who gave a shining, universal endorsement on this book’s back cover? None other than the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who stated, “Under Orders should be in every rucksack for those moments when Soldiers need spiritual energy.” Upon inspection, the book proved itself to be a disgusting parochial screed promoting Christian religious supremacy while also denigrating the integrity of the 21% of American servicemembers who define themselves as atheists or having no religious preference.
    American armed forces personnel have routinely been made to take part in official “Fitness Assessment” surveys that, believe it or not, actually gauge their Spiritual Fitness. In true Pavlovian fashion, Dominionist conceptions of “Spiritual Fitness” have been passionately drilled in by means of leading soldiers in prayer ceremonies that repeatedly invoke Jesus’ name or stealthily revolve around parochial Christian themes. Just recently, as a part of a national “stand-down” ostensibly meant to address the tragic wave of suicides that have reached tsunami proportions within the U.S. Army, 800 brand new soldiers at Fort Sam Houston in Texas were forced to attend a mandatory training session that ended up, incontrovertibly, as a sectarian, electronic candle lit, Christian prayer vigil . Thirty-eight of these soldiers (the vast majority of whom happen to be practicing Protestants or Roman Catholics), with the brave Staff Sergeant Victoria Gettman in the courageous forefront, swiftly contacted our civil rights foundation for immediate help. A federal complaint against the Army is now contemporaneously pending an ongoing official investigation.
    Spiritual Fitness is a markedly destructive and corrosive agent that has the practical consequence of rampant demoralization, disorientation, and disorder within the armed forces. By endorsing Spiritual Fitness repeatedly, Petraeus revealed a total disregard for both the “No Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment to the Constitution and the “No Religious Test” prohibition of Clause 3, Article VI of the same. It’s no exaggeration – it’s a bare-knuckled fact – that Petraeus was complicit in a de facto mutiny against America’s most cherished and beloved governing document.”

    After reading this I congratulate Broadwell for her discretions.

    1. The following is a fairly good timeline piece but the most interesting bit of info in this piece is reflected in the headline.

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/petraeus-told-biographer-to-stop-harassing-family-friend-officials-say/2012/11/12/6ccb325c-2d00-11e2-a99d-5c4203af7b7a_story.html

      “But some of his closest advisers who served with him during his last command in Iraq said Monday that Petraeus planned to stay in the job even after he acknowledged the affair to the FBI, hoping the episode would never become public. He resigned last week after being told to do so by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. on the day President Obama was reelected.”

      Petraeus’ hubris is off the charts.

  8. If you are asking if I believe the CIA’s assertions that Petraeus’ mistress’ information is baseless because a Democrat is in the White House, the answer would be no.

    The fact that she was Petraeus’ mistress gives legitimacy to her words … Republican or Democrat sitting in the Oval Office is irrelevant.

  10. she is having sex with D/CIA and makes a claim like that and then the CIA says it is baseless? Do tell.

    Yes, I guess they would say it was baseless.

    If this were a republican administration how many of you would believe that?

  12. Yes thanks for the guardian link….. Sometimes, something’s make sense….. Btw…. Happy Birthday…..

  14. raff,

    It’s difficult to keep on this matter with so many speculations etc. but the rumor about the secret U S prison came from Petraeus’ mistress.

  16. She’s got a point their, Bron. Look through history at how many people and countries have been undone by a scurrilous affair? Your private life ceases to be private when you hold a public trust like those in high office.

  17. “The CIA has dismissed as “baseless” and “uninformed” claims made by the former lover of ex-agency chief David Petraeus that Libyan militants were held in secret US prisons prior to the deadly Benghazi consulate attack.

    Paula Broadwell, the biographer whose affair with Petraeus led to his abrupt resignation Friday, alleged that the assault, in which US ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed, was an attempt to free men being detained in a covert CIA annex.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/12/paula-broadwell-benghazi-cia-petraeus

    That’s why “we are more worried about where Petraeus was dipping his wick.”

  18. my question is what happened in Benghazi? I am now hearing that there may have been a CIA holding cell at the consulate.

    4 Americans are dead and we are more worried about where Petraeus was dipping his wick.

  19. The Siren and the Spook
    By FRANK BRUNI
    Published: November 12, 2012
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/opinion/bruni-the-siren-and-the-spook.html?_r=0

    Excerpt:
    There were remarks galore about her unusually toned arms and the way she dressed to show them off. I even spotted a comment about how much of her armpits one of her outfits revealed, as if underarm exhibitionism were some sort of sexual sorcery, some aphrodisiac, the key to it all.

    What else could explain his transgression? Why else would a man of such outward discipline and outsize achievement risk so much? The temptress must have been devious. The temptation must have been epic.

    That was the tired tone of some of the initial coverage of, and reaction to, the affair between David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, which had many people claiming surprise where there wasn’t cause for any, reverting to clichés that should be retired and indulging in a sexism we like to think we’ve moved past.

    Broadwell has just 13 percent body fat, according to a recent measurement. Did you know that? Did you need to? It came up nonetheless. And like so much else about her — her long-ago coronation as homecoming queen, her six-minute mile — it was presented not merely as a matter of accomplishment, but as something a bit titillating, perhaps a part of the trap she laid.

    There are bigger issues here. There are questions of real consequence, such as why the F.B.I. got so thoroughly involved in what has been vaguely described as a case of e-mail harassment, whether the bureau waited too long to tell lawmakers and White House officials about the investigation, and how much classified information Broadwell, by dint of her relationship with Petraeus, was privy to. The answers matter.

    Her “expressive green eyes” (The Daily Beast) and “tight shirts” and “form-fitting clothes” (The Washington Post) don’t. And the anecdotes and chatter that implicitly or explicitly wonder at the spidery wiles she must have used to throw the mighty man off his path are laughably ignorant of history, which suggests that mighty men are all too ready to tumble, loins first. Wiles factor less into the equation than proximity.

    Sure, the spotlight these men have attracted and the altitude they’ve reached should, theoretically, give them greater pause. But they’ve either become accustomed to or outright sought a kind of adulation in the public arena that probably isn’t mirrored in their marriages. A spouse is unlikely to provide it. A spouse knows you too well for that, and gives you something deeper, truer and so much less electric.

    It has to be more than mere coincidence that Bill Clinton had an affair with a White House intern; Newt Gingrich with a Congressional aide (now his wife); John Edwards with a woman who followed him around with a camera, creating hagiographic mini-documentaries about his presidential campaign; and Petraeus with a woman who made him the subject of a biography so worshipful that its main riddle, joked Jon Stewart, was whether Petraeus was “awesome or incredibly awesome.”

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