James Petras
Introduction
The
headline stories claim that CIA Director General David Petraeus resigned as
head of the CIA because of an adulterous relation with his young biographer and
that General John Allen, Supreme Commander of US troops in Afghanistan, was
under investigation and his promotion to top commander of US troops in Europe
was on hold, because, we are told, of his ‘inappropriate’ comments in the
exchange of e-mails with a civilian female friend. We are told that a
‘hard-charging’ local FBI agent, Frederick Humphries, Jr., had uncovered
amorous e-mails sent by General Petraeus to his girlfriend-biographer in the
course of investigating a complaint of ‘cyber-stalking’. Out of concern
that the General’s ‘adulterous behavior’ posed a risk to US national security,
Florida-based FBI Agent Humphries handed the evidence over to one of
Washington, DC’s most powerful Republican, Congressman Eric Cantor, who in turn
passed them on to the Director of the FBI… leading to Petraeus resignation.
In
other words, we are asked to believe that a single, low-ranking, zealous FBI
agent has toppled the careers of two top US Generals: one in charge of the
principle global intelligence agency, the CIA, and the other in command of the
US and allied combat forces in the principle theater of military engagement –
on the basis of infidelity and flirtatious banter!
Nothing
could be more far-fetched simply on prima facie evidence.
In
the sphere of tight hierarchical organizations, like the military or the CIA,
where the activity and behavior of subordinate functionaries is centrally
directed and any investigation is subject to authorization by senior officials
(most especially regarding prying into the private correspondences of the heads
of the CIA and of strategic military operations), the idea that a lone agent
might operate free-lance is preposterous. A ‘cowboy’ agent could not
simply initiate investigation into such ‘sensitive’ targets as the head of the
CIA and a General in an active combat zone without the highest level
authorization or a network of political operatives with a much bigger
agenda. This has much deeper political implications than
uncovering a banal sexual affair between two consenting security-cleared adults
despite the agent’s claim that fornication constitutes a threat to the United
States.
Clearly
we are in deep waters here: This involves political intrigue at the
highest level and has profound national security implications, involving
the directorship of the CIA and clandestine operations, intelligence reports,
multi-billion dollar expenditures and US efforts to stabilize client regimes
and destabilize target regimes. CIA intelligence reports identifying
allies and enemies are critical to shaping global US foreign policy. Any
shift at the top of the US empire’s operational command can and does have
strategic importance.
The
‘outing’ of General Allen, the military commander in charge of Afghanistan, the
US main zone of military operations occurs at a crucial time, with the
scheduled forced withdrawal of US combat troops and when the Afghan ‘sepoys’,
the soldiers and officers of the puppet Karzai regime, are showing major signs
of disaffection, is clearly a political move of the highest order.
What
are the political issues behind the beheading of these two
generals? Who benefits and who loses?
At
the global level, both Generals have been unflinching supporters of the US
Empire, most especially the military-driven components of empire
building. Both continue to carry out and support the serial wars launched
by Presidents Bush and Obama against Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as, the
numerous proxy wars against Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, etc. But both
Generals were known to have publicly taken positions unpopular with certain key
factions of the US power elite.
CIA
Director, General Petraeus has been a major supporter of the proxy wars in
Libya and Syria. In those efforts he has promoted a policy of collaboration
with rightwing Islamist regimes and Islamist opposition movements,
including training and arming Islamist fundamentalists in order to topple
targeted, mostly secular, regimes in the Middle East. In pursuit of this
policy – Petraeus has had the backing of nearly the entire US political
spectrum. However, Petraeus was well aware that this ‘grand
alliance’ between the US and the rightwing Islamist regimes and movements to
secure imperial hegemony, would require re-calibrating US relations with
Israel. Petraeus viewed Netanyahu’s proposed war with Iran, his
bloody land grabs in the Occupied Territories of Palestine and the bombing,
dispossession and assassination of scores of Palestinians each month, were a liability
as Washington sought support from the Islamist regimes in Egypt, Tunisia,
Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Gulf States, Iraq and Yemen. Petraeus
implied this in public statements and behind closed doors he advocated the
withdrawal of US support for Israel’s violent settler expansion into Palestine,
even urging the Obama regime to pressure Netanyahu to reach some settlement
with the pliable US client Abbas leadership. Above all, Petraeus backed
the violent jihadists in Libya and Syria while opposing an Israel-initiated war
against Iran, which he implied, would polarize the entire Moslem world against
the Washington-Tel Aviv alliance and ‘provoke the US-proxy supplied Islamist
fundamentalists to turn their arms against their CIA patrons. The
imperial policy, according to General Petraeus world view, was in conflict with
Israel’s strategy of fomenting hostility among Islamist regimes and movements
against the US and, especially, the Jewish state’s promotion of regional
conflicts in order to mask and intensify its ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
Central to Israeli strategy and what posed the most immediate threat to the
implementation of a Petraeus’ doctrine was the influence of the Zionist power
configuration (ZPC) in and out of the US government.
As
soon as General Petraeus’ report naming Israel as a ‘strategic liability’
became known, the ZPC sprang into action and forced Petraeus to retract his
statements – at least publicly. But once, he became head of the CIA,
Petraeus continued the policy of working with rightwing Islamist regimes
and arming and providing intelligence to jihadi fundamentalists in order to
topple independent secular regimes, first in Libya, then on to Syria. This
policy was placed under the spotlight in Benghazi with the killing of the US
ambassador to Libya and several CIA/Special Forces operatives by CIA-backed
terrorists leading to a domestic political crisis, as key Republican Congress
people sought to exploit the Obama administration’s diplomatic failure. They
especially targeted the US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, whose maladroit
efforts to obscure the real source of the attacks in Benghazi, have undermined
her nomination to replace Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State.
General Petraeus, faced with mounting pressure from
all sides: from the ZPC over his criticism of Israel and overtures to Islamist
regimes, from the Republicans over the Benghazi debacle and from the FBI, over
the personal investigation into his girlfriend and hyped up media smear, gave
in. He ‘fessed up’ to a ‘sexual affair’, saluted and resigned. In
so doing, he ‘sacrificed’ himself in order to ‘save the CIA’ and his strategy
of long-term alliance-building with ‘moderate’ Islamist regimes while forming
short-term tactical alliances with the jihadists to overthrow secular Arab
regimes.
The
key political operative behind the high-level FBI operation
against Petraeus has been House Majority leader Eric Cantor, who cynically
claims that the General’s romantic epistles represent a national security
threat. We are told that Congressman Cantor gravely passed the e-mails
and reports he had received from the ‘Lone Ranger’ FBI agent Humphries to FBI
Director Mueller ordering Mueller to act on the investigation or else face his
own Congressional inquiry.
Washington-based Representative Cantor is a zealous
lifetime Israel-firster and has been hostile to the Petraeus report and the
General’s assessment of the Middle East. Florida-based, Agent Humphries
was not just any old conscientious gum-shoe: He was a notorious Islamaphobe
engaged in finding terrorists under every bed. His claim to fame (or
infamy) was that he had arrested two Muslims, one of whom, he claimed, was
preparing to bomb the Los Angeles airport while the other allegedly planned a
separate bombing. In a judicial twist, unusual in this era of FBI sting
operations, both men were acquitted of the plots for lack of evidence, although
one was convicted for publishing an account of how to detonate a bomb with a
child’s toy! Agent Humphries was transferred from Washington State to
Tampa, Florida – home of the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM).
Despite their clear differences in station and
location, there are ideological affinities between House Majority Whip Cantor
and Agent Humphries – and possibly a common dislike of General Petraeus. Concerns
over his Islamophobic and ideological zealotry may explain why the FBI quickly
yanked Agent Humphries out from his mission of ‘obsessive’ prying into CIA
Director Petraeus and General Allan’s e-mails. Undeterred by orders from
his superiors in the FBI, Agent Humphries went directly to fellow zealot
Congressman Cantor.
Who
would have benefited from Petraeus ouster? One of the top three
candidates to replace him as head of the CIA is Jane Harmon, former California
Congresswomen and Zionist uber-zealot. In another twist of justice, in
2005 the Congresswoman had been captured on tape by the National Security
Agency telling Israeli Embassy personnel that she would use her influence to
aid two AIPAC officials who had confessed to handing classified US documents to
the Israeli Mossad, if the AIPAC could round up enough Congressional votes to
make her Chairwoman of the US House Committee on Intelligence, an act
bordering on treason, for which she was never held to account. If she
were to take his position, the ousting of CIA Director Petraeus could represent
to the greatest ‘constitutional coup’ in US history: the appointment of a
foreign agent to control the world’s biggest, deadliest and richest spy
agency. Who would benefit from the fall of Petraeus? – first and foremost
– the State of Israel.
The
innuendos, smears and leaked investigation into the private e-mails of General
Allen revolve around his raising questions over the US policy of prolonged
military presence in Afghanistan. From his own practical experience
General Allen has recognized that the puppet Afghan army is unreliable:
hundreds of US and other NATO troops have been killed or wounded by their
Afghan counterparts, from lowest foot soldiers to the highest Afghan security
officials, ‘native’ troops and officers that the US had supposedly trained for
a much ballyhooed ‘transfer of command’ in 2014. General Allen’s change
of heart over the Afghan occupation was in response to the growing influence
of the Taliban and other Islamist resistance supporters who had infiltrated the
Afghan armed forces and now had near total control of the countryside and urban
districts right up to the US and NATO bases. Allen did not believe that a
‘residual force’ of US military trainers could survive, once the bulk of US
troops pulled out. In a word, he favored, after over a decade of a losing
war, a policy of cutting the US’ losses, declaring ‘victory’ and leaving to
regroup on more favorable terrain.
Civilian
militarists and neo-conservatives in the Executive and Congress refuse to
acknowledge their shameful defeat with a full US retreat and a likely surrender
to a Taliban regime. On the other hand, they cannot openly reject the
painfully realistic assessment of General Allen, and they certainly cannot
dismiss the experience of the supreme commander of US ground forces in
Afghanistan.
When,
in this charged political context, the rabidly Islamaphobic FBI agent Humphries
‘stumbled upon’ the affectionate personal correspondences between General Allen
and ‘socialite’ femme fatale Jill Kelly, the Neocons and civilian militarists
whipped up a smear campaign through the yellow journalists at the Washington
Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal implying another
‘sex’ scandal – this time involving General Allen. The neo-con– militarist-mass
media clamor forced the spineless President Obama and the military high command
to announce an investigation of General Allen and postpone Congressional
hearings on his appointment to head the US forces in Europe. While the
General quietly retains his supreme command of US forces in Afghanistan, he has
become a defeated and disgraced officer and his expertise and professional
views regarding the future of US operations in Afghanistan will no longer be
taken seriously.
Key Unanswered Questions Surrounding Elite Intrigues and Military Purges
Given
that the public version of a lone-wolf, low ranking, zealously Islamophobic and
incompetent FBI agent who just happened to ‘discover’ a sex scandal leading to
the discrediting or resignation of two of the US highest military and
intelligence officials is absurd to any thinking American, several key
political questions with profound implications for the US political system need
to be addressed. These include:
1.
What
political officials, if any, authorized the FBI, a domestic security agency to
investigate and force the resignation of the Director of the CIA?
2.
Have
the current police state structures, with their procedures for widespread and
arbitrary spying led to our spy agencies spying on each other in
order to purge each other’s top personnel? Is this like the sow devouring
her own offspring?
3.
What
were the real priorities of the political power-brokers who protected the
insubordinate FBI agent Humphries after he defied top FBI officials’
orders to stop meddling in the investigation of the CIA Director?
4.
What
were FBI Agent Humphries ties, if any, to the neo-con, Zionist or Islamophobic
politicians and other intelligence operatives, including the Israeli Mossad?
5.
Despite
Obama’s effusive praise of his brilliant ‘warrior-scholar’ General Petraeus in
the past, why did he immediately ‘accept’ (aka ‘force’) the CIA
Director’s resignation after the revelation of something as banal in civilian
life as adultery? What are the deeper political issues that led to
the pre-emptive purge?
6.
Why
are critical political issues and policy disputes resolved under the guise of
blackmail, smears and character assassination, rather than through open debates
and discussions, especially on matters pertaining to the nation’s choice of
strategic and tactical ‘allies’ and the conduct of overseas wars?
7.
Has
the purge and public humiliation of top US military officers become an
acceptable form of “punishment by example”, a signal from civilian militarists
that when it comes to dealing with politics toward the Middle East, the role of
the military is not to question but to follow their (and Israel’s) directives?
8.
How
could a proven collaborator with the Israeli-Mossad and Zionist zealot
like Jane Harmon emerge as a ‘leading candidate’ to replace General Petraeus,
as Director of the CIA, within days of his resignation? What are the
political links, past and present between Congressman Eric Cantor, (the
fanatical leader of the pro-Israel power bloc in the US Congress, who handed
Agent Humphries’ unauthorized files on Petraeus over to the FBI Director Muellar)
and Zionist power broker Jane Harmon, a prominent candidate to replace
Petraeus?
9.
How
will the ouster of Director Petraeus and Jane Harman’s possible appointment to
head the CIA deepen Israeli influence and control of US Middle East policy and
the US overtures to Islamist countries?
10. How will the
humiliation of General Allen affect the US ‘withdrawal’ from the disaster in
Afghanistan?
Conclusion
The
purge of top-level generals and officials from powerful US foreign policy and
military posts reflects a further decay of our constitutional rights and
residual democratic procedures: it is powerful proof of the inability of
leadership at the highest level to resolve internecine conflicts without
drawing out the ‘long knives’. The advance of the police state, where spy
agencies have vastly expanded their political power over the citizens, has now
evolved into the policing and purging of each other’s leadership: the
FBI, CIA , Homeland Security, the NSA and the military all reach out and build
alliances with the mass media, civilian executive and congressional officials
as well as powerful foreign interest ‘lobbies’ to gain power and leverage in
pursuit of their own visions of empire building.
The
purge of General Petraeus and humiliation of General Allen is a victory for the
civilian militarists who are unconditional supporters of Israel and therefore
oppose any opening to ‘moderate’ Islamist regimes. They want a long-term and
expanded US military presence in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The
real precipitating factor for this ugly ‘fight at the top’ is the crumbling
of the US empire and how to deal with its new challenges. Signs of
decay are everywhere: Military immorality is rampant; the be-medaled
generals sodomize their subordinates and amass wealth via pillage of the public
treasury and military contracts; politicians are bought and sold by millionaire
financial donors, including agents of foreign powers, and foreign interests
determine critical US foreign policy.
The
disrepute of the US Congress is almost universal – over 87% of US citizen
condemn ‘the House and Senate’ as harmful to public welfare, servants of their
own self-enrichment and slaves of corruption. The economic elites are
repeatedly involved in massive swindles of retail investors, mortgage holders
and each other. Multi-national corporations and the fabulously wealthy
engage in capital flight, fattening their overseas accounts. The
Executive himself (the ever-smiling President Obama) sends clandestine death
squads and mercenary-terrorists to assassinate adversaries in an effort to
compensate for his incapacity to defend the empire with diplomacy or
traditional military ground forces or to prop-up new client-states. Cronyism
is rife: there is a revolving door between Wall Street and US Treasury and
Pentagon officials. Public apathy and cynicism is rife; nearly 50% of the
electorate doesn’t even vote in Presidential elections and, among those who do
vote, over 80% don’t expect their elected officials to honor their
promises. Aggressive civilian militarists have gained control of key
posts and are increasingly free of any constitutional constraints. Meanwhile
the costs of military failures and burgeoning spy, security and military
budgets soar while the fiscal and trade deficit grows. Faction fights
among rival imperial cliques intensify; purges, blackmail, sex scandals and
immorality in high places have become the norm. Democratic discourses are
hollowed out: democratic state ideology has lost credibility. No
sensible American believes in it anymore.
Is
there a broom large enough to clean this filthy Augean stable? Will a
‘collective Hercules’ emerge from all this intrigue and corruption with the
strength of character and commitment to lead the revolutionary charge? Surely
the sell-out and crude humiliation of American military officials on behalf of
the ‘chicken-hawk’ civilian militarists and their foreign interests should make
many an officer re-think his own career, loyalty and commitment to the
Constitution.
