by John Young
By now, everyone has heard of the affair between CIA Director Petraeus and his married biographer, a West Point Graduate trained in Army SpecOps (and currently an officer in the reserves), Paula Broadwell. According to published stories, the affair came to light due to an FBI investigation into threatening email that Ms. Broadwell was sending a friend of the Petraeus family, Jill Kelley. Jill Kelley was an uncompensated social organizer who was instrumental in arranging social events for military families in Florida, and according to reports, Ms. Broadwell mistakenly thought the CIA Director who had ended their affair had turned his attentions to Ms. Kelley. Therefore, she targeted Ms. Kelley with harassing and threatening email from a variety of accounts.
Ms. Kelley has a friend in the FBI, and this friend, having heard of the harassing email, had an investigation opened on her behalf, but was subsequently removed from the investigation after it came to light he was sending shirtless photos of himself to Ms. Kelley. Ms. Kelley, also married, seems to have been awfully popular with men in government service, as the investigation into Ms. Broadwell’s harassing email turned up 30,000 pages of “inappropriate communications” between Ms. Kelley and General John Allen, the top U.S. General in Afghanistan.
I took the liberty of looking up pictures of these two ladies, and can confirm that at least the gentlemen involved have a taste for sexy women in excellent physical condition. Unfortunately, the physical condition of the woman doesn’t change the fact that affairs or “inappropriate communications” undertaken by persons with such a broad scope of authority and knowledge of our nations’ strategy and tactics present risks of both direct espionage as well as vulnerability to blackmail.
Now, try to act surprised, but the New York times now reports that there was classified information on Ms. Broadwell’s laptop computer. The usual suspects are saying that’s no big deal because as an officer in the reserves she had certain security clearances. But only an idiot would think those clearances equivalent to that of the Director of the CIA. In addition, almost any clearance is limited to only data one “needs to know.” Investigators are still sifting through the 30,000 pages of email between Ms. Kelley and General Allen to see if any classified information was leaked. A rational person might realize that with the lead general in Afghanistan sharing that much email with one person in just two years, a lot of Americans might be dead who would otherwise be alive due to his inattention.
But this doesn’t just affect these two men. ABC News acknowledges that “affairs are common in Washington.” Have we already forgotten the scandal of untold numbers of Secret Service and military operatives charged with the security of our President on foreign soil being enmeshed in a massive prostitution scandal? You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that married Secret Service agents with security clearances seeing prostitutes is a recipe for compromise and our President’s life at unnecessary risk.
Okay, fine — I’ll admit I am not a huge fan of President Obama’s policies. But, then again, I wasn’t a fan of his predecessor’s policies either. Even so, President Obama is the PRESIDENT. He’s the man who can launch or avert a nuclear war. He is the President of the United States and he needs to be protected. We had our chance to replace him the right way back on November 6th and failed. That means he is still President and absolutely needs solid, competent, Secret Service protection because without that, the entire future of humanity on this planet could be at risk.
And a bunch of Secret Service agents with a “wheels up, rings off” attitude so pervasive it had become a running joke within the agency is anything but competent. It is a disaster waiting to happen. Representative Issa asked plainly: “The question is—is the whole organization in need of some soul searching, some changes, before the president, the vice president, members of the cabinet are in danger?”
This mode of operation, where those working for government see themselves as beyond all social constraint and beyond all law is also present in military contractors. Not only do they participate in rape of young boys, but they routinely kill innocent civilians and participate in smuggling drugs and guns with impunity.
What Joe and Jane Six Pack do may or may not be my concern, but our government is showing its illegitimacy and incompetence from the bottom of military contractors raping boys and Secret Service personnel engaging prostitutes then refusing to pay all the way up to the very top where the generals who run our wars and the very Director of the CIA compromise our security by failing to keep their pants zipped.
If we can’t get a handle on this problem maybe there should be a special branch of the FBI that employs hot babes and hunks who are security-cleared whose purpose is to satisfy the lusts of government workers?