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 FBI agent is ‘outed’. egads: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/us/frederick-humphries-fbi-agent-in-petraeus-case.xml
The F.B.I. agent who helped start the investigation that led to the resignation of David H. Petraeus as C.I.A. director is a “hard-charging” veteran counterterrorism investigator who used his command of French in investigating the foiled “millennium” terrorist plot in 1999, colleagues said on Wednesday.
The agent, Frederick W. Humphries II, 47, took the initial complaint from Jill Kelley, the Tampa, Fla., hostess who was socially active in military circles there, about e-mails she found disturbing that accused her of inappropriately flirtatious behavior toward Mr. Petraeus. The subsequent cyberstalking investigation uncovered an extramarital affair between Mr. Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, his biographer, who agents determined had sent the anonymous e-mails. It also ensnared Gen. John R. Allen, who now commands troops in Afghanistan, after the investigation discovered that he had sent “inappropriate communication” to Ms. Kelley.
Colleagues and news reports described the role of Mr. Humphries, in just his third year at the F.B.I., in building the case against Ahmed Ressam, who was detained as he tried to enter the United States from Canada in 1999 with a plan to set off a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport.
Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com has some interesting perspectives on this affair. He links Broadwell to the neocon crucible the Hudson Institute through, “her previous post [as] deputy director of the Jebsen Center for Counter-Terrorism Studies at Tufts University’s Fletcher School.”
Two articles worth reading there:
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/11/11/a-covert-affair-petraeus-caught-in-the-honeypot/
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/11/13/palace-revolution-2/
These twins are 8 million dollars in debt? How the hell did they get banks to loan them that kind of money? Maybe a book deal will bail them out, but if not, bankruptcy follows.
ap,
Yep … ‘nough said 😉
Blouise,
It was right there…. I had to do it. 😉
Regarding, “Now that the FBI has a real case on their hands, maybe they’ll stop inventing reasons to go after innocent citizens and dig in the dirt surrounding Petraeus and Allen.”
We can hope… Maybe all of the digging around P & A will lead us to a better place domestically, if you know what I mean. It’s not good…
ap,
You’re catching my pun-disease.
It usually only surfaces when I’m talking to lotta, but I welcome another sufferer.
Now that the FBI has a real case on their hands, maybe they’ll stop inventing reasons to go after innocent citizens and dig in the dirt surrounding Petraeus and Allen.
re Petraeus Hawkish stance on Iran……
Let’s remember, in all that has been rushing by, there is a journalist/analyst piece giving us how it went when Obama was considering for over 6 months what to do in Afghanistan. Remember all the flack he took from the Republicans and many others for his delay?
Well, in reality, he gave the job to the Pentagon, how that was done is of course of importance as I will explain another time. He kept going after them but no alternatives, according to the ones he was interested in, were forthcoming.
At the end they said: Mr President, we have 3 alternatives for you:
1) surge
2) surge
3) surge
So what could he do, fire the Generals or give in.
Was Petraeus behind that? Well here’s a question for you, who was the head of the Iraq and on the way to be the head of Afghanistan? Can it have been Petraeus?
So, HERE IS THE BIG POINT, DID OBAMA PUT THE SCARE INTO THE GENERALS NOW BY KICKING PETRAEUS?
Let’s hope he has shown that he is wise to them now, and is ready to offer them, one by one, or perhaps the whole upper layer of brass. Then we may have a palace coup or a Pentagon one.
If you are going to make a peace omelette you need to break some MIC eggs.
The President’s problem is the same, no matter who sits in the Oval. It is not he that butters the bread of the CIA, Dept of State, or the military. It is the MCI via Congress. And behind the MCI is the 148 entities of the Private Empire. It hangs together don’t you think?
“Follow the money because she and her husband certainly needed some to keep up all that lavish entertaining that gave them such ready access.” -Blouise
Right on the money. (I hope that someone’s digging.)
“Why isn’t anyone asking how she was tapped (no pun intended) for it? ” (ap)
Follow the money because she and her husband certainly needed some to keep up all that lavish entertaining that gave them such ready access.
“I’m just going to go ahead and say “I told you so”. Because I did.” (Gene)
Indeed you did.
the littlegreenfootballs link was very interesting … yet another clue the CIA/FBI/DIA missed or ignored or were steered away from by somebody(s) who may have had reason to want it ignored.
Security is controlled by two factors:
—clearance
—need to know
That she had the clearances can we be sure that someone arranged.
But each document accessed requires need to know clearance, or narrow or wide class.
Why and by whom gave her a need to know OK should be investigated. And the security aspect should have full-time effort.
November 13, 2012
Petraeus Resignation Reveals Divisions Over Iran
“Ray McGovern: It’s likely one reason there was no attempt to save Petraeus by White House was his Hawkish Stance on Iran”
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=9117
ap,
Excellent on the wiki edit. This shows how it works in the MIC area. And how obvious it is to his associates and subordinates and reporters–who all keep their mouths closed.
For example the man who had an apartment in the camp and listened to the romping for six monthe, readily admitted he knew audibly of Petraeus relationship with Pauls.
When you know the layers of physical security that she had to pass to get to his suite for each visit, then you know how rotten the system is.
Give her all the honorary dip o matic status she needs.
Paula Broadwell Computer Had ‘Substantial’ Classified Data: Reports
Reuters | Posted: 11/14/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/14/paula-broadwell-computer_n_2131358.html
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) – A computer used by Paula Broadwell, the woman whose affair with CIA director General David Petraeus led to his resignation, contained substantial classified information that should have been stored under more secure conditions, law enforcement and national security officials said on Wednesday.
The contents of the classified material and how Broadwell acquired it remain under investigation, said the officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to comment publicly.
But the quantity of classified material found on the computer was significant enough to warrant a continuing investigation, the officials told Reuters.
“Paula Broadwell’s Wikipedia Page May Have Contained Clue To Petraeus Affair — Way Back In January”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/14/paula-broadwell-wikipedia_n_2129998.html
“A fleeting anonymous entry on Paula Broadwell’s Wikipedia page back in January might have clued the country in to what was going on between her and then-CIA Director David Petraeus, but the post hardly lasted an hour before it was deleted.
While the Wiki entry on now-infamous biographer Broadwell currently includes a section on the “Petraeus affair,” a much shorter bio (apparently created after her January 25 appearance on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”) did not. Yet, as blogger Milo Wendt reported earlier this week, within an hour of the page’s creation, an anonymous Wiki editor wrote, “Petraeus is reportedly one of her many conquests.”
The comment was the user’s first and only Wikipedia edit. Less than an hour later, a more regular editor deleted the sentence and offered the following explanation: “Remove libel / vandalism.”
(Little Green Footballs has posted side-by-side screenshots of the page before and after the comment was removed.)
Wendt was unable to trace the IP address behind the curious addition, but Gawker connected the comment to Cisco, a major supplier of defense technology. Gawker quotes a tipster who said that all military communications in Afghanistan and other war zones go through Cisco Systems equipment.
“Since there seems to be trouble locating the IP address,” Gawker’s source writes, “perhaps it’s because the post was made from someone in the military, overseas, behind a firewall?””
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/41183_Wikipedia_Edit_in_January_Suggests_Broadwell_Affair_With_Petraeus_Was_No_Secret
Is it ME.. Or was this General surrounded by CRAZY women????
The cited excerpt is correct in that the spirit and intentions of a new D CIA will immediately become an adnotam for all employees, most of whom will have that as a guidepost for all decisions.
In his short time. Petraus could not ve able to effect changes to the CIA. He may have put his weight behind ones under contention, but hardly more.
I have previously men—itioned that routinely CIA would place contracts with the military, in this case JSOC which is most capable. This in nothing new and known since over 10 years.
The intelligence gathering activity at the CIA on its Operative side has not worked since the Cold War began, for reasons that many authors have clarified.
Primarily, by refusing to do what they, latest after 9/11, received billions dedicated to doing—-ie expanding the number of undercover officers.
NB An agent is someone recruited or run by a CIA officer. An agent in general is a foreign national in the target country.
Some authors have recommended a break up of the CIA where the operative side, in information collection, would be transferred to the military intelligence which is alleged to operate well.
Not mentioned are the vast number of personnel belonging to the analytical side.
Chasing after these red herrings in re Petraeus does not serve the truth nor help us. What his individual goal cnn be of interest solely as an indicator of what the military wishes and his hopes of becoming President.
“Petraeus, an instrumental player in this power struggle, leaves behind an agency that has strayed from intelligence to paramilitary-type activities.”
I’m just going to go ahead and say “I told you so”. Because I did.