Developing: Whistleblower Chelsea Manning Taken to Hospital

[askeptic]

5. to the hypocrites:  The General Who Lost 2 Wars, Leaked Classified Information to His Lover—

https://www.thenation.com/article/the-general-who-lost-2-wars-leaked-classified-information-to-his-lover-and-retired-with-a-220000-pension/
The General Who Lost 2 Wars, Leaked Classified Information to His Lover—and Retired With a $220,000 Pension
 Why hasn’t David Petraeus faced the same career-ending consequences as other leakers?

 Watching the retired general in action, I was reminded of the peculiarity of this peculiar era—an age of generals whose careers are made in winless wars; years in which such high-ranking, mission-unaccomplished officers rotate through revolving doors that lead not only to top posts with major weapons merchants, but also too-big-to-fail banks, top universities, cutting-edge tech companies, healthcare firms, and other corporate behemoths. Hardly a soul, it seems, cares that these generals and admirals have had leading roles in quagmire wars or even, in two prominent cases, saw their government service cease as a result of career-ending scandal. And Citizen David Petraeus is undoubtedly the epitome of this phenomenon.

Celebrated as the most cerebral of generals, the West Point grad and Princeton PhD rose to stardom during the Iraq War—credited with pacifying the restive city of Mosul before becoming one of the architects of the new Iraqi Army. Petraeus would then return to the United States where he revamped and revived the Army’s failed counterinsurgency doctrine from the Vietnam War, before being tapped to lead the “Surge” of US forces in Iraq—an effort to turn around the foundering conflict. Through it all, Petraeus waged one of the most deft self-promotion campaigns in recent memory, cultivating politicians, academics, and especially fawning journalists who reported on his running stamina, his penchant for push-ups, and even—I kid you not—how he woke a lieutenant from what was thought to be an irreversible coma by shouting the battle cry of his unit.

 He retired from the Army in 2011 to take a job as director of the CIA, only to resign in disgrace a year later when it was revealed that he had leaked classified information to his biographer and one-time lover Paula Broadwell and then lied about it to the FBI. Thanks to a deal with federal prosecutors, Petraeus pled guilty to just a single misdemeanor and served no jail time, allowing him, as The New York Times reported last year, “to focus on his lucrative post-government career as a partner in a private equity firm and a worldwide speaker on national security issues.”