(General Dave Petraeus in happier times testifying before the House Armed Services Committee. Photo AP.)
I was going to explore the wonderful, magical world that is about to come with you this morning. It is part of what my pal the economist calls “the business cycle,” and the coming boom in oil and gas. It comes with new technology that will enable a new world. The idea of Three Dimensional Printing has been around for a while, like most transformative technologies, but is just on the verge of altering everything about how things are produced.
3D printing will end China’s run as the number one manufacturing economy. It is flat out amazing as an application: the new “printers” are nothing of the sort. They are actually CAD-to-object manufacturing machines which create layers at the molecular level to create finished objects. This will eliminate the waste of milling and machining to create working products.
As the Giant Catfish Namazu says on his blog at http://americanadmiraltybooks.blogspot.com/
“In short you are looking at the arrival of the STAR TREK replicator.”
Unfortunately, reality gets in the way of a good story, and 3D printing is going to be with us for a very long time. I heartily recommend checking out Namazu’s blog site. It is worth the time.
But overnight the story of the downfall of our most famous modern General spread and this morning people are talking.
I am taking great pains to be optimistic about the next four years. The coming boom in oil and gas is one thing to be positive about, along with the enabling technology that will free us from the old-style factory floor. Just in time, since that business model doesn’t work against global competition.
It is ruthless, just like the roar of the re-invigorated Administration. Time’s awastin,’ after all. There are a lot of left over issues that had to be kept in the closet until Tuesday was done.
Like yesterday’s end-of-cycle news. In an attempt to shut down the coming boom in oil, 1.6 million acres of Western public lands have been put off limits by the Interior Department. There is a lot of product located under private lands, and the boom is going to happen anyway. That strange international treaty about weapons trafficking is back on the menu- and don’t think people haven’t noticed.
I got a tweet from the shooting range at NRA headquarters out in Fairfax, saying my informant had never seen things so busy. The wife of a friend of mine was out all day withdrawing money from banks and purchasing ammunition.
I would prefer to just be optimistic. But the startling resignation of the Director of Central Intelligence has caused us all to run off in another direction this morning.
So back to General David Petraeus. There are conflicting reports this morning about his extramarital affair- the General was the most visible and popular military man of his generation, and his abrupt departure over the matter has everyone abuzz- at least for this news cycle.
There are conflicting accounts this morning, and his paramour has been named. She is a stone fox, just like Ike’s driver, Kay Summersby.
(Kay was a fair Irish lass who met, married and divorced a man by the name of Summersby. She later became engaged to an American colonel who was killed in Tunisia during the beginning of the American involvement in World War II. Subsequently, she met and became the personal driver and confidential secretary to Ike Eisenhower, from 1942 to 1945, while he was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. Ike was under considerable stress at the time, and considered divorcing his wife Mamie to marry Summersby. General of the Army George C. Marshall did not fire Ike when he learned of it, but instead counseled him not to do that, since it would cost him his career. Kate went on to marry a man named Morgan and lived out the rest of her life in Southampton, New York. Ike decided to be a two-term and epoch-defining President of the United States.)
Note the contrast to what happened to Dave Petraeus.
(Paula Broadwell. She has an impressive resume of achievement. Look it up.).
Apparently Paula did the General’s biography, and things being what they are in wartime a long way from home, one thing apparently led to another. If I was a paragon of virtue I might say something disparaging, but I am thoroughly human, and don’t think it is anyone’s business except theirs, and of course Dave’s wife of 37 years.
The interesting thing is the context for the revelation and the repercussions.
One version of the story says that the background vetting of the General prior to his appointment as the CIA Director would have been thorough enough for the Administration to have known; maybe that is true and maybe it isn’t. I have passed all my background investigations, and all they have proven is that I am not a Soviet Agent.
This morning, the news cycle is spewing the inevitable: this is all more fall-out from the election, which appears to be a gift that just keeps on giving.
Apparently, the FBI had been investigating Dave for months, long before his appointment to CIA. Apparently the probe began when American intelligence mistook an email Dave sent to his Paula as a reference to corruption. Now, exactly who was reviewing the Commander of ISAF’s gmail account is sort of interesting, considering Dave was then commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, and it led directly to the FBI poring over his emails in the ensuing months.
That is really weird, but that is the world we live in.
Given his top secret clearance and the fact that Petraeus is a married man, the FBI continued to investigate and intercept email exchanges between Dave and Paula, which include some graphic and unmistakable references to intimacy.
The sanctimonious media is cluck-clucking about that, saying that the “relationship (wa)s a breach of top secret security requirements and could have compromised the General.”
Paula was on active duty as an Army Major at the time, so I am not completely sure about that. When I was working for the Other Government Agency, the thinking was that if employees were hitting the sack with one another, at least that was more acceptable than fooling around with people who have not been investigated.
That is where this gets stranger. With all that, it is apparent that the Administration knew of the vulnerability before they nominated Dave for the Directorship.
Right before the election, Petraeus made an effort to support his people. He announced that neither he nor anyone else in the Agency was involved in standing down a rescue attempt to save Ambassador Stevens at the facility in Benghazi.
Politics is a ruthless business, but this is a pretty graphic example of how the game is played. I suspect the White House wanted the General gone before the House Intel committee got their teeth into him. Now, humiliated, even if Dave goes rogue now that that he is free, his credibility is trashed.
Dwight would not have survived this. It is a new world. Thank god we have 3D printing and plenty of oil. Otherwise this would look pretty bleak. The more things change, the more they stay the same, you know?
Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com