General Failures: Making Love And War

 

 

By Colonel Ralph Peters (Ret)

This is personal. My two decades in the US Army were the centerpiece of my life. I believe in the ethics professed by the officer corps. Yet, I recognize that we mortals are imperfect (I certainly am) and the human heart is the ultimate IED. So while I’m disappointed that Gen. David Petraeus fell for Miss Fatal Attraction 2012, what makes me really angry is his hypocrisy.

Petraeus preached a gospel of perfect virtue — always a foolish move — and became another fallen televangelist.

Nor is it only Petraeus: Misbehavior, double standards and outright criminal acts have become epidemic among our senior officers. There have been dozens of investigations or prosecutions. Our nation’s military leadership is sick.

As for Petraeus, he who rises by the headline, falls by the headline. His shabby indiscretion made national news not only because of his super-sensitive post as CIA director, but because he’d worked to make himself a media phenomenon. Ultimately, his cultivation of the press was far more successful than his failed (but celebrated) counterinsurgency doctrine.

For his fellow officers, Petraeus’ love of the spotlight was an annoyance, but not a transgression. Even his tawdry “under the desk” sex with a squirrely hustler on the make (a “writer” who had to have “her” book ghost-written) also might have been written off as an all-too-human mistake (let he who is without sin. . .). What killed Petraeus was his dazzling hypocrisy.

The general held himself up as a paragon of self-discipline and model family man. In Iraq and then Afghanistan, he rigorously enforced “General Order No. 1,” which prohibits our troops from fraternization, all sex, alcohol consumption, the possession of pornography and, generally, from any activity that might make the boredom and terror of this kind of war more bearable. When our troops screwed up, they got hammered.

Generals can take a weekend in Paris and get drunk (as Gen. Stanley McChrystal did), but the grunt who goofs in a firefight faces a court-martial.

Now those who’ve tied their military or literary careers to Petraeus and his inept counterinsurgency doctrine are rushing to make excuses for the general: He’s too important to be sacrificed like this, the president shouldn’t have accepted his resignation (resignation my butt — the guy was fired), and the affair only started after he left the military . . .

No man’s too important to be sacrificed. Petraeus had to go. CIA employees must conform to behavior standards even stricter than those of our military — careers end over extramarital affairs or just the wrong flirtations. And as Petraeus himself loved to point out, leaders set the example. As for the timing of his affair, hey, the post of CIA director’s more sensitive than that of any general.

Petraeus has one shot at redemption, though. He’s scheduled to testify on the Hill this Friday. (Put him under oath!) He can do his country a last great service by telling the truth about the Benghazi debacle: What did the president know and when did he know it?

Then there’s Gen. John Allen, the Marine who succeeded Petraeus in Afghanistan. Allen’s the guy who, whenever anything went wrong, blamed our troops and told them they had to “respect Afghan culture” (The rape of little boys? The stoning of women? The rampant corruption?).

Thus far, there’s no hard evidence of sexual hijinks by Gen. Allen. But he sure suffered a mighty case of the dumb-ass, as my old drill sergeant liked to say. This guy’s supposed to be running a war — a full-time job for most folks — yet he generated more pages of flirtatious e-mails to a high-rolling bimbo than a professional writer could have produced. Allen’s married, too.

Defenders claim he’s just a Southern gentleman who responded to a damsel in distress. Spare me.

And these cases are peccadillos compared to the charges against Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair, former deputy commander of the 82^nd Airborne: the forcible sodomy of female subordinates and a host of other nasty sex violations.

On Tuesday, we learned that four-star Gen. William “Kip” Ward, former head of Africa Command, will lose a star and pay a fine of $82,000 for cheating on government travel. Had Sgt. Peters done that, I would have gotten a dishonorable discharge and, probably, jail time.

Incredibly, Ward’s fellow generals closed ranks and argued it was unfair to take away a star because that would reduce Ward’s annual retirement pay by $30,000. Jumpin’ Jeepers in Jerusalem, Batman! The guy still gets over $200,000 a year in retired pay, plus the inevitable defense-industry handouts. And his buddy generals think it’s unfair to bust this jerk one grade?

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta — a good man — had to insist that Ward lose at least one star.

Every service has been hit by flag-officer scandals in recent years. One or two might be explained away, but there’s clearly a crisis of ethics atop our military.

Instead of going easier on the generals, they should face harsher penalties than the captains. Generals know better. But their sense of entitlement has murdered their sense of duty, honor, country.

Ralph Peters is Fox News’ Strategic Analyst and the author of “Cain at Gettysburg.”