Well, this is shocking, and sad, news:
CIA Director David Petraeus resigned Friday, citing an extramarital affair and “extremely poor judgement.”
In a letter released to the CIA work force on Friday afternoon, Petraeus disclosed the affair, and wrote: “Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours.”
President Obama “graciously accepted my resignation,” he wrote…
I’m bracing myself for an onslaught of bad jokes playing on the word “surge.”
This is a sad thing for all involved. Petraeus has done a great deal for his country, and it’s terrible for his career to end in such an ignominious manner.
I’ll even refrain from noting that this is the way an honorable man behaves when he has fallen, by contrast with such people as Bill Clinton and Mark Sanford, who stay in office and drag the world through the sordidness with them.
OK, maybe I won’t refrain. But I won’t go on about it…
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Not sure why an extramarital affair should disqualify him from supervising the CIA. I know there is a whole military honor thing, but this is a civilian post, dealing with covert operations even.
Assuming the other party was a willing, of age, participant.
At least Sanford quit, too.
The timing of this just looks bad. Think the Obama administration knew anything about this before Tuesday and held off on the resignation until today (a Friday, which is the standard operating procedure for releasing bad news)?
Or did he just figure he’d rather go out as a cad than have to address Bengazi and be held accountable for 4 deaths?
Sanford quit how?
On the timing, it’s a gift to Petraeus that he wasn’t caught up in the election hype.
I’m guessing the other person in the affair is a subordinate or the spouse of one.
By resigning instead of lying about it?
Doug, Sanford who? Governor Mark Sanford certainly did not quit—anything.
The affair is likely the excuse used today. Rumors are floating around that Clinton is looking to get out, as well as Holder. Now that the election is over, someone is going to hang over the Benghazi screw up. Hillary has already fallen on one sword, but it appears to have only been a flesh wound.
An affair can put one at risk for blackmail and become a security problem. Mrs. Clinton made it clear some months ago that she is tired; she is in her 60s and has had a grueling travel schedule. She indicated at the time she couldn’t keep that pace 4 more years. I read that she’s promised to give the president a few weeks or months to choose her replacement. Several changes are not unheard of for a 2nd term.
It’s a shame about the General, though.
We know all is well on the foreign policy front when something like the Benghazi attack remains the bone stuck in the craw of the rabid.
Generally speaking, every President’s core staff turns over post-reelection, btw.
Sounds like the Navy’s moral crusade is spreading. I am kind of tired of competent people being brought down professionally by infidelity. If the scandal isn’t in the cover-up or in inproper influence, why should we care? I’m not saying everyone cheats on a spouse, or in any way condoning such behavior, but really, it’s getting to be a lot more about glass houses I think. Short of domestic violence, these personal bedroom issues shouldn’t concern the broader public – friends, family and colleagues should absolutely weigh in with their disapproval of such actions though.
“The affair is likely the excuse used today.” – Steven Davis II
Not only is your speculation spot on, but I had predicted Petraeus’s voluntary exit on another blog several days ago (over Benghazi).
He is too honorable either to be an accomplice to the lies that have been submitted, or to dishonor the commander in chief.
Since Obama won and cover ups will continue, there were just no other plausible choices for Petraeus.
Want substantiating evidence that we are correct, SD II?
First, the good general has been battling prostate cancer, which makes such an affair unlikely. But, even more to the point, his wife Holly is in on his graceful exit and divorce is highly unlikely. Finally, the alleged paramour is a Harvard grad lawyer (but USMA – West Point graduate) likely to be incommunicado as well. Just a few sanity tests.
What this is about in real world terms is that he found that his private actions had compromised his public responsibilities.
In short, he was open to black mail — which the director of the CIA cannot permit in any subordinate.
Nothing to see here ….move along. Let this man have his privacy. No more questions about Benghazi, you wingnuts.
Doug,
He didn’t lie about it, that’s true. He went on and on and on about it, in fact. He told lots of truth.
But he also didn’t resign. You do know he didn’t resign, right?
Mark Sanford did not resign. Though he did move to Argentina after his term was up.
As a couple of you have noted, this was a security matter.
That of course is the first thing you think of with the head of a spy agency — an affair (particularly a “honey trap,” in Le Carre jargon) can make you a blackmail target. But in this case, I thought, “Well, if he’s telling everyone it happened, that negates the possibility of blackmail.”
But then, when we learned that he had NOT freely disclosed it, that in fact it only came to light as part of an investigation into whether his email were compromised — meaning people other than Petraeus were concerned whether security had been breached — the fact that he had not previously disclosed this created a situation that implied security vulnerability on his part.
Which is double foolishness on his part. And a double shame, because this man was valuable to his country.
Bryan,
I know one side would like Benghazi to simply go away, disappear into the annals of time, never to be heard from again.
I don’t agree with that at all. Not that it happened during Obama’s administration but that it happened at all and with all of the conflicting reports about who asked for assistance, when it was asked, and who was on the other “end of the line” when it was requested is a question that should be cleared up and cleared up as soon as possible.
What I found disturbing is the continued insistence that it was all about a poorly made video, produced months ago and even the Libyan govenment acknowledged it was not about the video but a planned, and a well planned one at that, attack on the consulate.
This is where I find the disconnect between the interests of political parties and the interests of the United States damaging and harmful to the nation.
We should have a full investigation and the truth be known, no matter who it hurts or implicates.
Calling anyone who wants answers wingnuts doesn’t help, it simply adds one more insult to the ever-growing negative discourse.
Benghazigate continues… I, for one believe it’s directly tied to Libya and if Americans hadn’t been killed and our embassies hadn’t been attacked, Petraeus would still be Director of CIA. The affair has been over with for at least a year… Timing is suspect.
The affair may have continued for a while without the public knowing about it. Apparently, the FBI uncovered the affair.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-11-09/cia-director-petraeus-resigns-citing-extramarital-affair
This good man is human, and has demonstrated human failure. I suspect that he will remain valuable to this country, although in a less spotlighted way; he is after all, a patriot. And can we please have a break from the “cover-up/conspiracy” theorists? Just because we don’t have all the answers, we are not justified in making up a “plot” out of imagination and pre-conceived notions of what the other side is up to. Let’s find out some facts first.
I feel a little better now that I’ve learned that Petraeus and his girlfriend were using gmail accounts to communicate, and not a CIA acount…
Amen, Karen!
Re Karen’s mentioning of “the other side,” which so absorbs the politicos…
The great thing about a man like Petraeus, and what makes his fall so sad, is that he is on no one’s “side” in the perpetual foolishness between Democrats and Republicans. He’s just on his country’s side. He did his duty and did it well, no matter who the commander in chief was. And now, this terrible personal failure…
Apparently, I was wrong to worry about plays on the word, “Surge.” Watching SNL over the weekend, I was reminded of something I’d forgotten: Comedy today has gone beyond clever wordplay, and descended to a more direct sort of crudity.
My comments on Sanford resigning were a mistake. Not sure what I was thinking.
Did someone turn the ringer off so he wouldn’t be interrupted at 3:00 a.m.?
@Karen & Kathryn – Yep, he was just walking along and tripped and his you know what just happened to land in her you know what.
Brad – One would think that if you work for the CIA, let alone run the CIA, that you’d have sense enough to know that there are people out there within your own organization watching you and know more about you than you do yourself.
Slate has a piece that poses the question: Why would Petraeus have risked it all for this affair?
It proposes the intriguing thesis that, ignoring her physical attractiveness, she was the sort of person he tended to pick as a protege.
Yeah, OK. I learned something about both of them from reading that.
But it’s not a question that occurred to me. He’s a guy. While he’s a brilliant and powerful guy, he’s a little guy (even I look sort of big and broad-shouldered next to him) who — correct me if I’m wrong, ladies — is not devastatingly handsome. She looks like this.
What happened was that he gave in. He was weak, in an area where men tend to be weak, and have to be constantly in command of themselves because of that — IF they find themselves in a position in which a woman who looks like that is drawn to them.
Fortunately for most of us, few of us are in a position like that.
Did I just say that it’s “fortunate” that hot women don’t routinely fall all over most of us? Yes, I did. I imagine it could get to be a problem.
By the way, a former spokesman for the general says the following regarding MRS. Petraeus’ reaction: “Furious would be an understatement.”
Hey, I’m with you, ma’am.
Shorter Brad Warthen: Honorable men resign when they do wrong . . . after they get busted.
You think Petreus was influenced by the macho-military culture? 60 year old guy hanging out with all those rah-rah-hoo-ahh types all day maybe felt he needed a virility injection.
Isn’t it the least bit troublesome that the head of the CIA was able to break under such a run-of-the-mill conditions?
What secrets might he have given up after a couple beers at Hooters?
Timing of this whole business does not pass the Smell Test.
Well, Brad, I think we can definitely conclude that Petraeus is a phony, right?
And some people do seem to have a different take on it than you do; they think Petraeus was abusing his position and engaging in self-promotion:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/11/12/not-a-private-affair/
I’m sure, though, that you’ve done plenty of research on the subject; it’ll be helpful if you can give us a timeline of events. You probably know the chronology right off the top of your head.
And now we have a second general under investigation based on inappropriate emails he exchanged with the woman who received threatening emails from Petreaus’ paramour.
Our military leaders appear to be focusing too much on the second half of gung-ho.
Tomato, tomauto; Petreaus, Betray Us. Probably the most over rated military man in American history. Not sure why Obama became so enthralled with him. I for one am not sad to see him go.
Did I just say that it’s “fortunate” that hot women don’t routinely fall all over most of us.
-Brad
You and I are probably safe from that problem.
Regarding your not being sorry to see him go: You should be.
This was one guy who knew what he was doing in the war we’ve been involved in for the past 11 years. Personally, I was sorry to see him leave the Army, because he needed to be bringing up a generation of officers behind him who understood counterinsurgency the way he did.
Of course, our next conflict is likely to be very different (it seems that they always are), and may require another set of skills. Which means we’ll need someone else with his ability to adapt to the situation.
It would be foolish in the extreme to extrapolate from this gross personal failure that he was a military failure, when he so demonstrably was not (despite Bud’s insistence on believing otherwise).
Petraeus was successful at achieving an objective of debatable value. He met the goals required by an interventionist foreign policy hellbent on keeping our excessive military industrial complex profitable while ensuring our deficits continued to grow. We traded thousands of lives for a short term fix.
He followed orders.
No, actually, he was the guy who came up with the orders, and either gave them or persuaded his superiors to give them. He was the guy who said, “Let’s do something different,” and finally the Bush administration, which had botched Iraq up to that point, listened and gave his way a chance.
And then, President Obama had the wisdom to pull him down from a higher position (head of Central Command) to send him to do in Afghanistan what he’d done in Iraq. The president understood that Petraeus wasn’t some cog in a machine, but a guy who could made a difference. The president must have been impressed with the job he did there, as he put him in charge of Central Intelligence.
At what point during the past decade did you feel threatened by the people of Iraq or Afghanistan enough to justify killing thousands of their civilians?
If we are safer now (due to Petreaus’ success), why wouldn’t we be cutting back our military spending? When does it stop?
Gee, I forgot that we were carpet-bombing cities over there.
What you just presented was a reason never to go to war — or perhaps I should say, never to take military action — not an argument against these actions. Because civilian deaths are never defensible. But they will happen, in any conflict.
If your position is to be a pacifist, fine. But I disagree.
If your standard is to fight only when an enemy comes ashore, guns blazing, on the Grand Strand, then again, fine. But I disagree.
If you think that the military is about more than fighting existential Gotterdammerung battles, that it is an essential instrument in dealing with all kinds of situations all over the world, just as surely as diplomacy and trade policy and humanitarian aid are, then I agree.
And I doubt that there will ever be a time, in my lifetime or yours, when it would be wise for the U.S. military to be significantly smaller. We live in a world that is less stable, not more so, than during the Cold War.
Unless, God forbid, we get into a shooting war with China, there is unlikely to be a war ever again like WWII. The challenges we face tend to be lower-intensity, diverse, and spread out around the globe, including such things as having marines guard embassies, and warships protecting shipping from pirates off the coast of Somalia, and continuing (which we do) to be present in the Balkans to keep them from erupting again. And drone strikes against terrorists, and air support for an insurrection against a tyrant in Libya, and occasionally a raid like the one in Abbottabad last year.
It’s a great big, complex world, and this great big, complex country plays a great big, complex role in it. And the military is a piece of that, in various ways. An essential piece. It’s not just about defending our shores the way libertarians would have it; we ceased to be that isolated long before any of us was born.
“It’s a great big, complex world, and this great big, complex country plays a great big, complex role in it. ”
And the more we play, the more we have to defend. It’s a vicious cycle. And we do it with borrowed dollars which ironically weaken our country more than al Queda could ever hope to do.
I doubt that there will ever be a time, in my lifetime or yours, when it would be wise for the U.S. military to be significantly smaller.
-Brad
I guess that depends on your definition of “wise”.
There is certainly no credible argument to be made that the current level of spending is necessary for defending the United States homeland. We currently spend as much as the next 10+ nations on the military so in terms of dollars devoted to that function it is self-evident that we can easily fend off any invasion. Either that or we are using our military expenditures very poorly.
As an aside, there is always the sneak attack (Pearl Harbor, 9-11) but in both cases 10 times the military strength would have been insufficient. Both were lapses in intelligence.
So what does the difference in what we require to defend our shores and the current level of expenditures buy us? Could it be that this extremely large military is useful for overseas incursions? Or do we spend this much to keep military contractors busy and make large profits? How about to keep unemployment low?
All of these are plausible explainations as to why we spend far, far more than is necessary for purely defensive purposes. Frankly we’d probably be safer if our military was smaller and less likely to be used for counter-productive overseas misadventures, thus reducing the likelyhood of a sneak attack.
As for the economic stuff. Let’s just build more roads and bridges and accomplish the same thing. At the end of the day it is astonishing to think that anyone could still claim it unwise to reduce the size of the US military budget. Seems like some sort of article of faith based on cold war thinking.
Brad, I’m not sure that you mean to equate “less stable” with “more dangerous,” but if so, I’m not sure I would agree that this is a more dangerous time than those days. Certainly messier, and of course everybody who thinks we should devote more and more of our resources to the military-industrial complex will continue to build up the picture of all the “threats” out there. But in terms of real existential threat to the USA or the risks of global nuclear conflict, or the chances of a true WWIII breaking out, there is no comparison between 1990-2012 with 1950-1990.
I’m just disappointed the CIA director is so bad at carrying on a clandestine affair. Come on, man! You’re the head of the CIA. Try being a little more secretive than opening up a G-Mail account.
Actually, opening a Gmail account seems consistent with traditional sound tradecraft.
Seems to me that it’s the email equivalent of making sure you meet in a crowded place, or making yourself as inconspicuous as possible. A good way to lose yourself in a crowd.
Of course, then you have to go out and buy yourself a laptop, with cash. And then maybe take it back and exchange it for another one. And then only use it from a free wi-fi hotspot in a crowded public place in another part of the large city in which you live — nothing that would be consistent with your usual patterns of movement.
And then, of course, you have to have a cover story ready for when you are inevitably recognized in that public place, to explain why you are there without arousing suspicion.
Basically, as I think about what you’d have to do to cover your tracks, I pause, take another look at Paula Broadwell, and think… yeah, she’s hot, but not THAT hot… Just too much work.
Phillip, if you don’t mind, I’ll zero in on one small aspect of what you said… “real existential threat to the USA.”
Aside from the Cold War, when did that EVER happen, since, say, 1860-65? And even then, the threat was political — the sundering of the union — rather than a threat of everyone being wiped out or anything.
Let’s take the one war nobody wants to argue with (with the exception of a few people who are REALLY out there, like Joseph Sobran), what Lenny Bruce called “the Good War,” WWII.
That was not, for the United States, an existential conflict. There was no point at which the actual United States (as opposed to distant territories) was even seriously threatened, the way, say, Britain was. At least, not immediately.
Had Hitler won in Europe (something he could have done before we even got into it, had a couple of things gone differently — such as not invading Russia), we would most likely have experienced something along the spectrum between Cold War and detente going forward.
As for the Japanese, if we had just backed off and left them alone, no oil embargo or anything like that, and accepted Japanese hegemony in the Pacific, there could have been an accommodation.
I find it very difficult to imagine a scenario in which either of the main Axis powers, or both of them acting together, would even have tried to conquer the 48 states, much less threaten our existence the way they did their neighbors on their respective continents.
My point is that I think we all agree we needed to be involved in that one, and go all out to win. Which means that “existential threat” is a poor standard for committing military forces.
Professor Fenner teaches network security, and one of the most basic rules is that email is inherently insecure.
He felt like he had failed when a USC tech who was taking the class was helping a fellow student who had an unencrypted file named something like AnswerstoNetworkFinal.
A good spy would not use email. Man, watch The Wire: get a burner!
According to what I read, the way Petreus handled the gmail account was to not ever actually send messages from it. He and Broadwell shared the account. They would write messages and save them to the draft folder and then just login to see if the other person had saved one there. Sneaky, huh? I guess he thought the draft messages wouldn’t be traceable.
Interesting. But bottom line, Kathryn’s right. There’s nothing secure about electronic communications.
I learned in the early 80s, long before I’d heard of the Internet, back when we published the newspaper on a mainframe and had a sort of internal instant-message system in the newsroom, to NEVER put anything into the system unless you wanted to see it in the newspaper — or at the very least, passed around by your colleagues.
There was this one instance at that paper, that happened after I left, and my friends told me about. There was this really cute and flirtatious young woman in the Features department who it turns out was having an affair with someone else in the newsroom (him I don’t remember; her I do). We know that because they wrote hot messages to each other constantly on the mainframe system.
I think they thought these things just disappeared into the ether, because THEY couldn’t see them again after they cleared each message off their screens. What they didn’t know was that — since the whole mainframe had probably less than a 10th of the storage space I have in my iPhone — one of our IT guys went in personally every night and deleted each and every message sent through the system that day, one by one, to keep the system from crashing.
He read their messages with interest. I forget what happened to these lovebirds (she was married; like I say, I forget about him), but I remember the security moral of the story.
Actually, I learned two rules in those days that have served me well: Don’t write it into a computer if you wouldn’t publish it, and ALWAYS double and triple check who you’re sending the message to. Because, you know, you might be sending it to the person that the message is ABOUT, which I did once or twice. Really had to think fast when that person came over and said, “What did you mean by THAT?”…
Not that I’ve always perfectly followed rule No. 1. But I try to remember to do so…
If I find myself starting to write something confidential to someone, I stop, and go find the person, and tell him or her face to face… inside a Cone of Silence if possible…
“Professor Fenner”… I wonder if other spouses call their SO, “Welder Johnson”, “Nurse Jones”, “Insurance Salesman Peterson”, “Unemployed Lazy Bastard Anderson”…
As usual, Andrew Sullivan provides the words that I cannot:
“I have to say I never bought the Petraeus hype, for a couple of reasons. The first was that he seemed to me to be a bullshitter for his country. His job was to somehow rescue the Iraq catastrophe. He entered the scene just as the Anbar tribes decided they’d had enough of al Qaeda, and as the mass killings were declining due to exhaustion. Yes, Petraeus deserves great credit for noticing this and capitalizing on it – but all the b.s. about counter-insurgency strategy and the intellectual generals’ general … the whole savior-mythology always struck me simply as a way to save face from military defeat. The myth of Petraeus was necessary to restore some semblance of credibility to the US military in the wreckage of the doomed Bush-Cheney wars. And funny how in Afghanistan, all that hug-a-civilian strategy in Iraq was swiftly abandoned by Petraeus himself, as he droned the crap out of al Qaeda and the Taliban. “
Anyone who thinks that the world will never see another world-impacting war might want to brush up on human history. There is no perfect answer to the question of military preparedness; but we can either control our national destiny or let others make that decision for us.
Well said, Mark.
But to defend my remarks… if there WERE a total war like WWII, involving all the most sophisticated nations on the Earth, well, that would pretty much be it for civilization, if not human life itself. Of course, you’re right that we might get crazy enough to do it anyway. I just really, really hope not.
In the very long term, I worry a good deal about China, and to a lesser extent about Russia. I’m not saying China’s getting ready to do something (aside from the muscle-flexing it’s already been doing in the western Pacific). I’m saying that its trajectory and ambitions are steering it toward a course that, 20 or 30 years from now, could lead to an uneasy balance of power that could easily be ignited into something horrific.
Of course, some of my friends who advocate a “humbler” America would say, let’s pull back in the world and let China have hegemony in this century — because, you know, one country is just like another.
I do not believe that would be a good world for my grandchildren, and the grandchildren of other people around the world, to try to raise their children in. And there is not likely to arise another liberal democracy that will act as an effective deterrent to that trend.
The best thing I can see for us to do in this situation is what the Obama administration is doing… making sure there is no vacuum for China to fill.
And as with everything else, we’re not just talking military power. We’re talking about maintaining economic strength so that we can exert ourselves diplomatically, in trade, and in humanitarian terms. China’s been doing that, making alliances across the globe, including in the Americas. They’ve been very forward-looking in extending influence — something we’re not that always that great at doing on a strategic level. We’re more crisis-oriented. Of course, that comes with being a representative democracy.
The greatest worry in the short term is an economic collapse in Europe that pulls us down with it.
That could lead to a nasty global situation rather quickly, and it is almost impossible at this point to determine where it would erupt, and what shape it would take.
But Mark, I still like to think it won’t happen…
I wasn’t actually referring to WWII: I was referring to the Cold War, during most of which two superpowers had huge nuclear arsenals aimed at each other, with a couple of all-too-close-calls of their being used. The point about “existential” is that we lived for about 40 years with that hanging over our heads (as did the Russians). Had the USSR decided for whatever reason to launch nukes, the US likely would have suffered losses on an unimaginable scale (even if we could inflict the same in return). There is no current threat, certainly not from Al-Qaeda, nor even Iran nor North Korea, that is equivalent to that level of threat.
While there are challenges out there, and complex situations, the idea that the world is more dangerous than ever (I think Sen. Graham likes to say that one) is certainly arguable. Furthermore, I would argue that deployment in so many corners of the world in such significant numbers does carry within itself the seeds of a certain world instability, as any power that extends its reach so far globally is a natural target.
To put it another way: if as you say the world is “less stable” since the Cold War despite our being the sole military superduperpower for the last 20 years, then either A) we had better ask ourselves why a “unipolar” world with the US as the “pole” is less stable than the multipolar world was, and B) we must also therefore ask where our global military reach is part of the solution, or rather part of the problem, if we’re talking global instability. Surely the path to greater world peace cannot ultimately rest in the hands of one single country as the primary arbiter, the military enforcer of last resort. It’s whatever that “other” answer is, that is the one we should be devoting much more energy to attaining.
What vacuum could China fill? Would they become the defenders of the world? Do they want that role?
I think many of just believe we have spent far too much money building up a military at the expense of more pressing needs in the U.S. And when you have the world’s most powerful military, they need SOMETHING to do so we tend to find places to exert our power. A steroid abusing weightlifter doesn’t sit in his basement bending metal into deck chairs…
We could cut military spending by 1/4 and see little impact on our ability to respond to any threat.
So one reason we don’t like the CIA director to have affairs is because they become susceptible to blackmail. Which appears to be exactly what occurred in this case:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/11/13/krauthammer-white-house-held-affair-over-petraeuss-head-favorable-tes#ixzz2CCRIbBuC
Brad, you worry about all the wrong things. We should be worried about energy, global warming, over population in the third world, clean air, clean water, infrastructure needs, education, health issues, etc. Instead you and the neocons go on and on about some fantasy threat from China that is almost certainly never to occur. And if it did it’s still 20 years into the future.
Why would they even want to be a threat? They want to sell us their cheap crap made by 12 year olds and as long as we’re willing to buy it there is an economic equilibrium that pushes back against any military ambitions that would cross their minds. What possible motivation do they have for killing the cash cow that’s making them a somewhat more modern nation?
And even if they did have political ambitions in the far east, so what? Why shouldn’t they have a bit more influence over the affairs of Eastern Asia? This is just a bunch of dangerous provocation that can only lead to trouble down the road. Let’s work on the real problems and leave the imaginary ones to good fiction writers.
Here’s an interesting twist on the Petreaus scandal. Apparently Majority Leader Cantor was apprised of the incident by the shirtless FBI agent and he, Cantor, attempted to bring this into the public arena BEFORE the election. To his credit FBI director Mueller was not bullied by Cantor into going public prematurely. Here’s the entire article from Buzzflash:
http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17640-eric-cantor-s-petraeus-october-surprise-failed-as-fbi-stood-firm
There’s something interesting on NPR right now — on “On Point,” with Tom Ashbrook.
A couple of days ago, I found myself wondering what Thomas Ricks, who wrote the new book, The Generals, would have to say about the Petraeus mess.
The premise of his book — and here’s a review — is that we won WWII in part because George C. Marshall fired a lot of generals, until he got men who could get the job done. Ricks maintains that we have struggled in Iraq and Afghanistan — and before that in Vietnam and elsewhere — because incompetent or mediocre generals NEVER get fired anymore.
Anyway, Ricks is Ashbrook’s guest this morning, and they’re taking calls. And from the few minutes I heard while in my car right now, Ricks thinks it’s outrageous that we would lose the services of Petraeus and Allen — highly competent generals (or, in Petraeus’ case, former general) — over something like this, that has nothing to do with whether they get the job done. Meanwhile, according to him, incompetents who happen to keep their pants zipped keep their jobs and get promoted.
He seemed to think it particularly absurd that Allen, accused of sending some flirtatious emails, should have his career grind to a halt over something so, in his mind apparently, silly.
Callers were disagreeing with him, and I think I would, too. Of course, if we were involved in something like WWII, and we dismissed successful generals for such a thing, I might think it a bad thing. I don’t know.
Thoughts?
I’m annoyed with all of them for making me sit through an episode of Jersey Shore while I’m trying to watch the news.
Incompetent or ineffective managers don’t usually make general. I’m not saying that it never happens, but I’ve been very impressed by the general’s I’ve worked with or for. A lot of O-6’s that I thought were great leaders never made general. I think the military does pretty well at meritocracy and at being effective, or at least weeding out ineffective leaders.
And another general caught in scandal… is this any worse than the private sector? Yes – in the private sector, you get fired, not demoted down to “only” a $200K / year pension.
http://news.yahoo.com/general-demoted-lavish-travel-spending-035724315.html
“A report by the Defense Department inspector general found that Ward used military vehicles to shuttle his wife on shopping trips and to a spa and billed the government for a refueling stop overnight in Bermuda, where the couple stayed in a $750 suite. The report detailed lengthy stays at lavish hotels for Ward, his wife and his staff members, and the use of five-vehicle motorcades when he traveled to Washington.
The report also said Ward and his wife, Joyce, accepted dinner and Broadway show tickets from a government contractor during a trip during which he went backstage to meet actor Denzel Washington. The couple and several staff members also spent two nights at the Waldorf Astoria hotel.”
Doug, his career just ended in disgrace. That might not mean anything to you, or to an awful lot of people in the civilian world (who, it seems to me, think everything is about money), but that is a big deal to a military officer.
And no, I don’t think he should lose his pension. He earned that before he screwed up like this. Which provides a good segue (in my twisty mind, anyway) to Silence’s point: “Incompetent or ineffective managers don’t usually make general.”
I agree. But competent, effective managers are not necessarily the best leaders in a war, to Ricks’ point. Sometimes, a general who is a managerial (or at least PR) disaster is the best man in a fight. Patton comes to mind. He might have been a lunatic, but he was a handy lunatic to have around when you needed to slice through an entire German army to relieve Bastogne (not that the 101st needed to be relieved, as they’ll tell you to this day).
Management and leadership, particularly under combat conditions, are different things. Someone who’s good at making sure all the proper paperwork is done isn’t necessarily the best fighter, or leader of fighters. Someone who keeps trains running on time doesn’t necessarily have the flexibility of mind to deal with changing conditions on a battlefield.
By the way, back up to the Andrew Sullivan quote: “And funny how in Afghanistan, all that hug-a-civilian strategy in Iraq was swiftly abandoned by Petraeus himself, as he droned the crap out of al Qaeda and the Taliban.” Yes. That’s what you want in a wartime commander. You don’t want a guy who stubbornly believes that what worked last year in one place will work this year in a new place, under different conditions. Yes, everyone praises Petraeus for having “written the book on counterinsurgency,” and that’s valuable. What’s even more valuable, in the real world, is someone who knows when the book should be tossed aside, or what parts of it to keep and what parts to chuck.
… because, you know, nowadays, Tip O’Neill’s dictum has been turned on its head: All politics is national. Tragically.
@Brad
His career ended in disgrace because he took specific actions over an extended period of times that were unethical. There is a difference between a mistake and a pattern of behavior. Are we supposed to assume that this general just started to abuse the expense account one day late in his career? or did he just reach the threshold of abuse that could no longer be ignored?
Unfortunately, what we find is that the image of the military having higher standards of morality and honor is a myth. They are just like the rest of us civilians.
They are just like civilians in that they are human, if that’s what you mean.
But it is most certainly not a myth that they live by a different code. I’ve been adjusting my entire adult life to the difference between the world I grew up in, and the civilian world. I still have trouble sometimes wrapping my head around the fact that in the civilian world, everyone is actually EXPECTED to be out for themselves, rather than devoting themselves first and foremost to service.
I was sort of insulated from it in the newspaper world, because there were similarities — relatively low pay, a devotion to a mission for the larger community. I never really saw myself as working for a business, but rather for readers — and, in my job as EPE at The State — for all the people of South Carolina, whether they were readers or not.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get the wonderful pensions the military gets after only 26 years or even fewer. But then, the level of sacrifice and service expected of us in the newspaper trade wasn’t the same, either.
Am I saying all newspaper people had my attitude? No, and in my case it was in part a function of the environment in which I grew up. Although I think if you ask Burl or someone else with experience in the trade, you’ll find my attitude was not uncommon.
I never thought, “How do I go out and make a living for myself in the world?” It was more, “What is my proper function in society, and what is the best way to go about fulfilling it?”
Yep, I sought promotion, and one reason was to make more money for my family. But it was also because I was well suited to making the kinds of decisions that fell to editors. I’m a decent writer, but in the end what I was probably best at was making editorial decisions. Everybody’s good at something, right?
I’m not trying to sound noble, and I’m a little bit embarrassed talking about it. But that’s how I thought. You’ve expressed in the past puzzlement at why I didn’t abandon the newspaper ship on my own. Well, I never thought I had the right to do so. I couldn’t abandon my post. And yes, I really do think like that.
Brad, you are forgetting one thing – most of the generals AREN’T operators. Most command other military functions that support the combatant commands. Personnel administration, intelligence, logistics, plans, signal, engineering, finance, etc. They need to be effective leaders, but their roles are mostly as top level managers. We think of the operators, the combatant commanders in the field, but that’s really only about 1/9 of ’em.
Brad, what you just said explains alot. It’s why it is so easy for you to push for intrusive policies like Blue Laws that the rest of us simply find abhorent. It’s just so much easier for you to cavilerly support a policy that infringes on personal freedom like anti pot laws than it is for folks like Doug and me.
I know what you are saying, Brad. I discovered when I started to do volunteer work that unlike me,not only didn’t everyone want to be in charge, almost no one did. I realized there are differing attitudes and skill sets,
“But it is most certainly not a myth that they live by a different code.”
Some do, some don’t. This general didn’t. You think he was thinking about the “code” when he was living the high life? Who was HE serving?
Above a certain level, these men are no different than CEO’s, Senior VP’s, etc. The focus is on promotion and power accumulation.
Isn’t the unofficial motto of the military “up or out”? How does that reflect the code of service? Seems like a self-interested objective just like the private sector.
Well, yeah. But I think the “self” being served with that rule is the military. It doesn’t want officers who aren’t good enough to progress to the next level.
And if you don’t want to find yourself out in the civilian world starting a new career, you get your ass in gear — to use a technical military expression.
Of COURSE self interest is an element in running the military, starting with the rawest recruit — you get in line if you don’t want to find yourself making an extra run to the top of Mt. Curahee, to cite the punishment used in the 506th PIR in 1942.
But one of the things that is instilled in you through that training experience, and beyond, is the very powerful motivation of not letting your comrades down.
It’s a well-documented fact that the thing that motivates a soldier in combat, more than anything else — the thing that keeps him from running in the face of enemy fire, that actually helps him overcome the powerful human inhibition against killing, the thing that makes him do things very counter to an individual’s nature — is the powerful fear of letting his buddies down. At that point, it’s not about flags or Mom’s apple pie or ideology or a belief that God’s on your side. It’s that you can’t let the other guys down, or be SEEN as letting the others down.
Eric Bana’s character in “Black Hawk Down” (a true story, but he was a fictional composite) put it well: “When I go home people’ll ask me, “Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? What, you some kinda war junkie?” You know what I’ll say? I won’t say a goddamn word. Why? They won’t understand. They won’t understand why we do it. They won’t understand that it’s about the men next to you, and that’s it. That’s all it is.”
Every history or study of combat I’ve ever read indicates that is exactly what makes a soldier do his duty.
What does “good enough” mean? Doesn’t the military know that we’re all just a product of the luck we’ve experienced and any officer is just as likely to have an unlucky streak as the next? Give everyone a chance!!
I guarantee you that the duty I feel toward my family drives me to do what I do every day just as much as any Marine feels toward his men. What’s the difference?
We find ourselves at this impasse lot on this blog. A principle is set out, and then someone says “Yes, but…” Which doesn’t actually disprove the principle.
Of COURSE there is some self-interest in the behavior of pretty much all humans. And of COURSE you can find plenty of team spirit and self-sacrifice in the civilian world, and not just in the “caring” professions such as medicine or teaching.
And you find both elements in the same people. An officer might be utterly devoted to seeing that his subordinates are cared for first, not eating until they’ve eaten, working through the night while they rest (I’m talking combat conditions), while at the same time looting his way across Europe and sending every valuable he can lay his hands on home to his wife. (I’ve got a particular officer from the “Band of Brothers” unit in mind there.)
People. Are. Complicated. But is there a culture in the military that is more oriented toward service and self-denial, when all is weighed in the balance? Yes, there is.
Of course, at this point we can get into the whole thing about whether altruism actually exists. A man who devotes himself totally to his unit and his comrades gets something in return, something that is highly valuable to him. He gets the pride and yes, SELF-esteem that comes from being a valued part of such a group.
(By the way, I keep saying “man,” because most of my knowledge about this has to do with how men relate to the military. Maybe it works the same with women in the military; I just don’t know enough to say.)
But bottom line, there is a difference, and it’s not a myth.
And Bud, your conclusion you draw isn’t exactly, directly on the money, but I see what you’re saying, and there is a relationship there.
I used to chafe under some of the rules and regulations on military bases when I was a kid, but that’s because I was a kid, and kids do that.
I don’t have any particular desire to impose rules and regulations on the civilian world, but they don’t horrify me the way they do libertarians. I’m neutral on it.
But the Blue Laws thing is something you and others continue to misunderstand. To me, a COMMUNITY should be free to decide whether it wants such or not. And where we differ is that you think there is an overriding principle in the Constitution that takes away that freedom to decide from the community, and I do not.
You certainly have nothing to fear. It’s been a long times since I’ve lived in a community that would decide to institute Blue Laws. I think that’s a shame, and you don’t.
Me thinks you’re getting way too philosophical here. Perhaps you’re trying to rationalize the utter failure of recent American conflicts with some belief that because it creates a quality brand of “male bonding” then it is somehow worth it. But why use such contortions to continue to justify useless American conflict in far away places? Doesn’t seem rational to me.
To me, it’s unfortunate, but incidental, that the notion of a communal day of rest was introduced into our culture through religion.
You don’t have to have ANY religious belief to see the benefits of such a day off. It’s written in our bodies, in our muscles and nervous systems.
Yesterday in the WSJ, I was reading a story about a movie stuntman who works intensely in the weeks before a shoot, not only at mastering the stunts, but at shaping his body to match that of the star (Daniel Craig, Christian Bale, Jake Gyllenhaal). This requires a relentless devotion. Or perhaps I should say, ALMOST relentless: “He works out twice a day for five or six days a week, with at least one day of complete rest each week.”
Right. Because a healthy body needs that.
Of course, for me, it’s about more than physical exertion. I’d like to see everything that demands our attention and taxes our minds as well as bodies, to just stop for a day. It would be a wonderful benefit to everyone.
But people aren’t able to see this thing that is so obvious to me, so it’s not going to happen. So relax. To the extent that you CAN in a world that never stops going at full tilt…
No, Bud. I wasn’t saying the male bonding was the goal. It’s a means to an end, which is having an effective fighting force. It’s one of the dynamics that make it work.
Speaking of guy stuff…
You know, the way this scandal is unfolding, I’m starting to worry. First there was Petraeus, whose actions pretty much show us that you can’t trust ANY man (I mean, really, if you can’t rely on a straight arrow like that…). Then there’s Gen. Allen. Then there’s the fact that it was all being investigated by an FBI agent who was sending shirtless photos of himself to the original complainant….
Then I put all that together with the fact that there are now more women in the U.S. Senate than ever… Really! 20 of them! Which is like a majority, right? (I’m not sure. When I was learning that in school, there was a girl in my class in a leather miniskirt and spike heels, and I just don’t know what was said that day…)
I’m worried that one day, when all the male senators are out chasing skirts, they will push through a provision to deal with the problem for once and for all. They’ll pass a bill redefining marriage, in this way: If a woman wants to adopt a man, she has to have him “fixed” first, just like getting a dog.
You don’t think it can happen? Well, I hope not. But just in case, come on, guys — take a cold shower or something.