It was a huge mistake putting General Petraeus in charge of the CIA...

[kentuck]

It would have been a mistake to put any military officer in charge of the CIA. It is even a bigger mistake to put a Republican General in charge.

The CIA has always had questionable practices since its inception. They have proved that they need to be watched constantly. If they must exist, then we need a wise and intelligent civilian to head the organization.

Nixon thought of the CIA as his own little private army. As did Reagan and the two Bushes. Think of Ollie North and the war in Central America and the arms to Iran scandal. The CIA HQ's is named after George HW Bush, a one-time head of the CIA.

But how does the CIA think of itself?

It tolerates Democratic Administrations and keeps them in the dark as much as possible. They remain loyal to the Nixon branch of the Republican Party, even today. They have their own chain of command separate from the Executive Branch. With many of their agents, it is about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. They are exempt from the laws of other nations and they take advantage of that whenever possible or to their advantage.

They have a network which they have built up even before the days of William Casey. They work for themselves as much as they work for the US government. This doesn't include the menial analysts that sit behind their desks in Washington. They just keep the bureaucracy alive.

But, as far as General Petraeus and his mistress and the network that was operating out of Tampa, it was like the Kardashians on crack. Everybody looking to get rich quick off some scheme or connection to the powerful people in the CIA. The President did not know about it. Need we know more than that?

[GeorgeGist]

1. The President didn't know what?

That it was a huge mistake putting General Petraeus in charge of the CIA?

[kentuck]

2. That is obvious.

I think the President put Petraeus in the position so he would not be around as the Republican candidate in 2012. I think it was mostly political on his part. Just my opinion.

However, I do not think the President had any idea of the Kardashian-type shenanigans going on in Tampa and other parts of the CIA.

[demhottie]

20. I don't buy the theory that Obama didn't want him as a 2012 candidate

I just don't have the impression that Obama operates that way, and I don't think that Petraeus was ever the formidable Republican candidate that the RW likes to think he was.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

27. Maybe that explains why he appointed and re-appointed so many Republicans to top level positions.

[Auntie Bush]

3. Good post...think you're right.

[sofa king]

4. I dissent!

1) When the President nominated Petraeus in late April 2011, the Republicans were running amok in Congress. Republicans in the Senate still managed to delay the confirmation of their Republican fucking war hero for sixty days, which is a national security issue all in itself. No career spy would have passed the nomination process, because the Republicans know that the smart spies are largely Democrats. Someone had to be nominated and as it turns out, Petraeus was perfect, because...;

2) You might not have noticed, but General David Petraeus was also quite likely going to be either Jeb Bush's running mate, or his future Secretary of Defense. Now, the guy who knows where all the bodies are buried inside DOD and CIA isn't going to be invited to Jeb's little tea party at all. Four years from now, he'll be irrelevant, out of practice, and unwanted. He didn't do much damage where he was and, sure enough, he burnt out like all unprincipled Republican schmucks eventually do.

3) Democratic Presidents often heavily rely on the CIA's career insiders to do the job. The personal politics of the CIA tends to lean heavily liberal, so running the department from within is probably smoother than running it with a GOP shill, anyway. At this point the President can probably risk replacing Petraeus with a recess appointment in mid-January and skip the nomination process altogether for the next two years.

4) It is only working in our favor that the closest thing to a personal and professional scandal within the Obama Administration has been laid at the feet of a Republican general. The general takes most of the political fallout personally, and the GOP propaganda machine isn't capable of walking back the war hero resume they so carefully built for Petraeus.

5) Now that he's gone, the criminals within the Bush wing of the GOP have no more eyes at the top of the CIA. President Obama has two years to do some serious housekeeping there and there is nothing that the Republicans can do to stop it.

So yeah, I'm glad the President had the foresight to wreck the political career of one of the Democratic Party's most dangerous opponents by giving him a real job and letting him fuck it up, as Republicans always do. He's ruined, the President is not, and the Republicans will look like assholes whether they pursue this issue, run away from it, or pretend it no longer exists.

[kentuck]

5. I've been following the CIA since Vietnam 1968

and I think much of your opinion is naive.

[sofa king]

14. Well, it is!

Of course it's a naive opinion. I'm not an insider, and I'll never know what really goes on in that shadowy world.

But I know legislative politics, I know the nomination process, and I know how scandals work. And, I know this President is among the smartest I have ever seen.

I don't have to know what is going on on the inside when I can see that from the outside, the President placed one of his potential opponents in a position where he could either do the right thing, or fuck up--and guess what that guy did?

Now the GOP propaganda machine can't attack the President on this issue without trashing one of their own carefully built authority figures, a very important one whom they probably cannot afford to lose.

No spycraft or geopolitical expertise is necessary to see that the President set that guy up. Petraeus could either do his job well, or serve as a meat-shield. Now he's a meat-shield because, exactly as I am sure we all suspected, Petraeus was ultimately a chump more concerned with himself than his job or his country.

[WI_DEM]

16. Yes, but Kentuck's is not naive--he's been following the CIA since 1968!

so anybody who disagrees with him has to be naive.

[sofa king]

18. Oh, kentuck is a thoughtful person.

If he (I think he's a he. Is he a he?) calls me naive, it's because something I said up there squarely falls afoul of his own knowledge or personal experience. He'll get around to telling me what it is, eventually.

[kentuck]

24. I do apologize. I did not mean to say that you were naive.

But I think history is very instructive. You make excellent points but we just disagree.

[sofa king]

34. Do you mind spelling that out in more detail?

No offense taken and no apology necessary. I'm just curious to know exactly how you disagree, that I may better inform myself. I can already tell that you clearly see something that I do not.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

31. Some say that Obama has been following the CIA (or "Business International Corporation") since 1983.

[RobertEarl]

7. Beautifully said, King

Obama no longer has that thorn in his side. He's free to get the CIA in line now. Cheney is being relegated to the dust-bin one acolyte at a time and Obama has clean hands. Brilliant!

[kentuck]

10. "He's free to get the CIA in line now"?

Are you for real?

[RobertEarl]

12. You are right

he's just the president.

I've been following the CIA since 1967. It never looked better.

[billh58]

19. Well, I've been following the CIA since

1966, and I think that it's time that we all stop following them as they are getting paranoid.

[RobertEarl]

22. yes, well

We saw you following.

Now that that nonsense is dispensed with what do you think about the way Obama is managing the CIA? I think he's doing great!

[JVS]

30. "The personal politics of the CIA tends to lean heavily liberal"

Anything to back that up?

[MADem]

6. Petraeus is not the first military (former or active) head of the CIA,

and he probably will not be the last.

https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2010-featured-story-archive/military-directors-of-cia.html

2010 Featured Story Archive > Military Directors of the CIA
RSS
Military Directors of the CIA

Throughout the history of intelligence the military has played a large role, especially when it comes to leaders. Maj. Gen. William Donovan, the head of the Office of Strategic Services — America’s first civilian intelligence organization — was a great military leader. Since the creation of the Central Intelligence Group and later the CIA, several Directors of Central Intelligence (DCI) and Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency (DCIA) have come from military backgrounds, including the Navy, Army, and Air Forces. All of the directors mentioned in this article were on active duty during their term, except for Vice Adm. William Raborn.

Rear Adm. Sidney Souers, U.S. Naval Reserve
Lt. Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg, U.S. Army Air Forces
Rear Adm. Roscoe Hillenkoetter, U.S. Navy
Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, U.S. Army
Vice Adm. William Raborn, U.S. Navy
Adm. Stansfield Turner, U.S. Navy
Gen. Michael V. Hayden, U.S. Air Force

[MineralMan]

8. It's difficult not to appoint Military to head the CIA.

Civilian State Department folks don't have the intelligence background. There are civilians who are deeply involved with US Intelligence, but leadership of the NSA and other intelligence agencies have traditionally been military.

I agree that Petraeus was a poor choice, and always thought so. However, running the CIA is a difficult job for anyone from outside the intelligence community. The CIA, particularly, has a deeply-entrenched hierarchy that can easily thwart naive leadership.

[kentuck]

11. Panetta was running the CIA when Bin Laden was captured.

Right? He was no general.

[MineralMan]

21. Yes. Panetta has very broad experience.

[magical thyme]

9. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

We don't know what Petraeus really resigned over. But affair? Just the excuse. My guess is President Obama had insiders that got inside dirt on him that is the real reason he resigned.

Washington is filled with insiders looking to get rich quick off some scheme or other. Nothing new there

[RobertEarl]

13. Obama knew

He knew Petie was banging Broadwell. And doing other stuff.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. They should have kept Petraeus and got rid of the CIA.

And, assigned him a job doing something he's good at...polishing brass.

[HereSince1628]

17. Have you noticed, the problem that skewered Petraeus spins from private contractors

and the network of inside dealers that surround the military-intelligence complex?

This scandal is burning right on top of a fuse that leads back to a whole bunch of republican wheeler dealers.

[Hydra]

23. Patraeus was a bad holdover from the Bush Era

We've had several of those. President Obama's fondness for Republicans in his administration has never turned out well, so hopefully he's over his fantasy of "uniting us" with the crooks.

I'm really hoping for some new ideas this coming 4 years, because as the President campaigned originally, the same ideas aren't going to get us to a better place.

[zipplewrath]

25. Rec

Your post is an example of why I wish we could recommend responses.

Never shoulda kept Gates. Never shoulda kept Patreaus, much less promoted him. Whole chunks of the command staff shoulda been gone in the first 2 years. Instead we have this group of Cheney hold overs keeping us in Afghanistan for years, with more troops than Bush ever allowed there.

[libdem4life]

28. Changing of the Political Guard is expected. That's why we have Parties. Cooperate best you can,

Last edited Mon Nov 19, 2012, 09:55 PM - Edit history (1)

but hire those who have vested interests carefully developed by your own party. I believe that Obama so dislikes conflict, that he fails to fully engage. Second term? Certainly I support him, but not holding my breath as he's already used the Mitt Word.

[Hydra]

32. The either-or problem continues

Either President Obama is naive and weak or he agrees with these evil cretins.

I don't like either answer, but this is his chance to show his true colors. We'll see what they really are.

[libodem]

26. Absolutely

From your keyboard to God's ears. Spot on, brother.

[spanone]

29. first head of cia...military

Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, 1947–1950
Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter was appointed as the first Director of Central Intelligence (i.e., full Director of Central Intelligence[clarification needed]). During his tenure, a National Security Council Directive on Office of Special Projects, June 18, 1948, (NSC 10/2) further gave the CIA the authority to carry out covert operations "against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups but which are so planned and conducted that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons."[1] Those operations, however, were initially conducted by other agencies such as the Office of Policy Coordination. See Approval of Clandestine and Covert Operations and Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action for details of the eventual merger of these operations with the CIA, as well as how the equivalent functions were done in other countries.

[Kablooie]

33. Mandy Patinkin would have been a better choice.