Sunday, November 18, 2012

Failure Report: Fluffing The Fascists

Diane Dimond in The Daily Beast:

When we lost our CIA director, we lost four decades of expertise at a time when we need that most. Diane Dimond on the high cost of a scandal.

Paragraph Two:
This country has invested heavily in developing Petraeus into the successful and well-decorated military leader he became. And a decades-long ascension to the elite branches of government doesn’t come cheap. Look at Petraeus’s schooling alone: four years at West Point, where he graduated in 1974 in the top 5 percent of his class; Ranger School; the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College; and Princeton University, where he earned both a master’s and a Ph.D. in international relations.
Well, say no more. Nagonna read the rest, but we'll scan it for mention of "The Surge" in Afghanistan.

Nope. Her theme is that millions have been paid him & spent on his education, we can't waste that. Her theme is not that he's, like, actually competent, or that he has achieved anything beyond promotion. And that he was injured in service to his country (in training accidents). We hope he didn't contract prostate cancer in the service of these United Snakes as well, but Dimond adds that, so ...
Official Washington might be done with David Petraeus, but this is a man who has survived being shot in the chest during a training mishap, a broken pelvis from an ill-fated parachute jump, and prostate cancer. He has developed into a highly valuable commodity, and now it seems that only the corporate world will benefit from his expertise. Corporations seeking to do business with foreign governments will be lining up with open wallets to tap into Petraeus’s considerable knowledge.
We don't follow why someone w/ 40 yrs. of baby-killing experience would be so valuable to those seeking business w/ foreign nations, other than whatever the former Blackwater corporation (Whatever they're calling themselves now.) or other literal mercenary outfits.

No mention either of corporations hoping to do business w/ the military/industrial/Congressional complex. Good fucking job, DiDi.

4 comments:

mikey said...

Of course, also entirely not mentioned is that the CIA is historically and by charter a CIVILIAN intelligence gathering and analysis organization, not another branch of the armed services, and the only reason that Betray-Us (LOVE that one!) and his smarmy predecessor had ANY qualifications to lead that organization is that opportunistic executive branch leadership have decided that what they REALLY needed was the ability to conduct warfare without transparency or accountability...

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Nope. Her theme is that millions have been paid him & spent on his education, we can't waste that.

I wonder if she would be so incensed at the resignation/firing of a scientist at NOAA or a forestry expert at the Department of the Interior.

Substance McGravitas said...

Good lord, I remember her from Hard Copy. Everyone from Hard Copy should have died by now. Violently.

M. Bouffant said...

Memory Editor:
In the '70s the editor tried out for a game show (no recollection which one) & she was one of the other auditoners.

We felt no urge to hasten her violent death at the time.