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.
The Petraeus Legacy: A Paramilitary CIA?
Jeremy Scahill November 14, 2012
http://www.thenation.com/article/171247/petraeus-legacy-paramilitary-cia
Excerpt:
While much of the media focus on l’affaire Petraeus has centered on the CIA director’s sexual relationship with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, the scandal opens a window onto a different and more consequential relationship—that between the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command. In a behind-the-scenes turf war that has raged since 9/11, the two government bodies have fought for control of the expanding global wars waged by the United States—a turf war that JSOC has largely won. Petraeus, an instrumental player in this power struggle, leaves behind an agency that has strayed from intelligence to paramilitary-type activities. Though his legacy will be defined largely by the scandal that ended his career, to many within military and intelligence circles, Petraeus’s career trajectory, from commander of US military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to the helm of the CIA, is a symbol of this evolution.
“I would not say that CIA has been taken over by the military, but I would say that the CIA has become more militarized,” Philip Giraldi, a retired career CIA case officer, told The Nation. “A considerable part of the CIA budget is now no longer spying; it’s supporting paramilitaries who work closely with JSOC to kill terrorists, and to run the drone program.” The CIA, he added, “is a killing machine now.”
As head of US Central Command in 2009, Petraeus issued execute orders that significantly broadened the ability of US forces to operate in a variety of countries, including Yemen, where US forces began conducting missile strikes later that year. During Petraeus’s short tenure at the CIA, drone strikes conducted by the agency, sometimes in conjunction with JSOC, escalated dramatically in Yemen; in his first month in office, he oversaw a series of strikes that killed three US citizens, including 16-year-old Abdulrahman Awlaki. In some cases, such as the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, commandos from the elite JSOC operated under the auspices of the CIA, so that the mission could be kept secret if it went wrong.
Let’s look back:
McCarthur challenged Truman and got fired.
Allen Dulles challenged JFK and got fired.
McChrystal challenged, in the press, Obama and got fired.
Now Petraeus challenges Obama and is fired, for impropriety and possibly breach of security.
He can not lead from the gutter.
Now Generals have always challenged their civilina leadership. And they have learned how to play the different elements of our society off against each other for their own gain. Whether it is Congress, think tanks giving orders in Afghanistan, or tarts running aroond doing official liasson in their name.
And women love power, it is a biological necessity for survival of their young. Including personal aggrandizement for themselves.
Until we skip the sex, scndal, etc and instead concentrate on the now institutionalized conflict between the MIC and its Generals and the civilian leadership of the country, we will be wasting an important opportunity.
The Washington Post confirms it: “honorary consul.” Why isn’t anyone asking how she was tapped (no pun intended) for it? Who was behind it? How many other “honorary consuls” are there? Is there a master list somewhere?
““The appointment of Kelley as honorary consul followed normal procedures,” said Kim Hee-beom, South Korea’s consul general in Atlanta. He emphasized that there was no irregularity in tapping her for the largely symbolic post.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/11/14/jill-kelley-is-also-an-honorary-consul-for-south-korea/
“”But now South Korean diplomatic officials have added a new piece to this puzzle. According to a Korean (non-honorary) diplomatic official in Atlanta who spoke to the Yonhap News Agency, Kelley for some reason had an “honorary consul” title from the South Korean government:
ATLANTA/WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 (Yonhap) — Jill Kelley, a Tampa socialite who helped expose CIA Director David Petraeus’s career-ending affair, serves as an honorary consul of South Korea, diplomats here confirmed Wednesday.
“The appointment of Kelley as honorary consul followed normal procedures,” said Kim Hee-beom, South Korea’s consul general in Atlanta. He emphasized that there was no irregularity in tapping her for the largely symbolic post.
No irregularity at all! An anonymous diplomatic official told Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin that Kelley “helped to get support for [the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement] and she arranged meetings between the ROK Ambassador to Washington and local businessmen when the ROK Ambassador visited the Tampa area.”””
“…Kelley “helped to get support for [the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement]” …”
Sweet Jesus.
I’m sure that our soldiers in Afgan. would have been home by now, hadn’t them Generals spending their time composing ‘intelligent’ e-mail messages to all kinds of Mata Hari!
These are touted as the bravest and the smartest, fit to head awesome institutions like the CIA, FBI, and even the NSA.
Is this a manifestation of intellectual prowess nourished by prolonged service to our Nation???
“SQUIRREL!!!”
The best one of the bunch but I also like “A” for agency(?)
thanks, Elaine
Gene,
The movie trailer is ready…already!
ElaineM,
You raised an issue with me at 3AM, my time, and I replied the next morning, today. You have not answered my reply.
Why?
Raising an issue and then walking away is hardly becoming. Here is a copy.
======================================
“idealist707
1, November 14, 2012 at 9:08 am
“Elaine M.
1, November 13, 2012 at 9:13 pm
idealist,
I don’t have a clue as to why you keep trying to poke me with a stick.”
=========================
ElaineM,
Can you:
1) explain what poking with a stick is? I am not familiar with that American term?
2) give a recent example of my doing so?
Not understanding, I can not offer to stop, nor apologize for what I don’t understand is the fault involved.
==========================
Hope you have time to address the issue which YOU raised with me, and since you complain, I must presume that your words imply misbehavior of some kind on my part. Hardly a pleasant position for me to be left in. I am sure that you understand.
Elaine,
“SQUIRREL!!!” – lol – I do love a good cartoon. Thanks.
David Petraeus Scandal Cartoons
http://www.usnews.com/cartoons/david-petraeus-scandal-cartoons
Blouise,
I say this not joking a bit: there are probably three treatments in the works already and at least one with a good twenty page head start. This kind of story is what the “true crime” element in Hollywood live for. It’s got the triple play: Power, sex and money. All it needs is a murder (and one may turn up yet the way this sideshow is unfolding) to score the home run.
That Roger Simon piece is a hoot.
And, if as some of the posters above hope, “there is more to the story,” wouldn’t it be grand if this saucy debutante turned out to be “The spy who loved me.”
Swarthmore mom
nick, Broadwell is much more intelligent and accomplished than your average “gym bimbo”….. your words. She and Petreaus seem to have a lot in common.
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Soulmates?
Perhaps she’ll leave her physician husband and kids so that she may share with the General his shamed retirement.
Odds, anybody?
Gene,
There’s money to be made!
nick,
I am “REASSURE”d by the “TRANQUILITY” of your recall.
I meant to spell “in France” This whole scandal is a joke. Some lady news caster is on tv saying that this scandal will not distract the military. BS. They want some of these good looking sex partners too.
Somewhere in the Hollywood hills, a screenwriter is typing away furiously as casting directors scurry about.
If this guy Petraeus was back in his home coutnry of origin, Holland, and he was national security head, and this stuff with the good looking woman came out they would give him a medal of honor. Inf Rance they would elect him Prime Minister. Now the other guy who is porking the hooker whom they refer to as a “socialite” would be told to keep his dumb rear admiral status in the red light district.
It “DEPENDS” if you mean the one who drove nonstop?
nick,
chuckle 😉
But what has me concerned is Patreus’ ability to skate into the Directorship without the rigorous vetting that such a position demands. It’s sloppy and sloppy work by the CIA in house is just plain unacceptable … and a danger to the entire country as we well know after having gone through 9/11.
As to the Kelly woman (and husband who appears to be a most willing participant) … where did the seed money for their Cancer Charity come from? That’s just one of many questions that needs to be answered. These people are massively in debt without the apparent financial means to support the lifestyle they are living. Where’s the money coming from to throw the never ending parties and keep the electricity turned on?
Maybe Allen knows?
As to Broadwell … remember Capt. Lisa Marie Nowak, the astronaut?
nick, Yep. Broadwell does the same military workout as Paul Ryan does.