Rafael Correa seems to think the CIA is acting outside of the control of the administration.

He also said those are operations that are plotted and carried out behind a government’s back and in this case, he thinks Obama’s government “would not do these things conscientiously.”
Correa considerd feasible that the CIA is a superstructure that acts independently from its government and the public scrutiny and said there are precendents about CIA operations without the US government awareness.
He also remarked that permanently, not necessarily the CIA, US ultra-rightwing foundations are financing civil organizations to destabilize, based on criticism, the Ecuadorian national government and he mentioned Fundamedios as an example.
Asked if he feared to be assassinated, Correa said “it was a possibility that can not be ruled out” and recalled the events on September 30, 2010 with the coup attempt.
“Although the media denies what can not be denied, the pictures of the six bullets shot to the presidential car, in which they thought he was, are there. The orders were to kill the president,” he recalled after highlighting that “those people are capable of anything to defend their privileges.”

Posted by: somebody | Nov 10 2012 8:18 utc | 4

Hasn’t Correa heard of plausible deniability?

Posted by: Maracatu | Nov 10 2012 13:59 utc | 6

Petraeus’s comments about the threat Israel posed to our security led to his diminished public stature, and, probably contributed to his ultimate downfall. Note the media’s inattention to his carreer after his unscripted criticisms of Israel. They, (the media), also stopped marketing him as a potential political player. I can only imagine how intimidating it musta been to the Israeli’s to have this guy at the head of the CIA, knowing his opinions about the corrosive effect our support of Israeli policies is to our own security. There is much to loath about this man, but he deserves a bit of respect for being honest about this aspect of our foreign policy. A shame they so successfully managed to hide his public statements about Israel, and were able to subsequently muzzle him.

Posted by: PissedOffAmerican | Nov 10 2012 14:57 utc | 8

Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall for having an affair?
Before they could erect a statue to him in Firdos Square?
So now there will be no President Betrayus,
Only the usual suspects to service us.

Posted by: JohnH | Nov 10 2012 16:07 utc | 10

If the US didn’t provoke the Iraqis once we occupied Iraq, there wouldn’t have been much of a “war”
Of course, why anybody expects a military punitive epidition which was corrupt from its inception to be conducted with anything but corruption and brutality is beyond me. And now, should it become a problem, they have a scapegoat.
Of course Patreus is corrupt, that’s why they choose him for the job.

Posted by: Mooser | Nov 10 2012 16:56 utc | 12

Is there any chance that Petraeus was outed because the drone was CIA’s and they wanted to push the administration into a showdown with Iran? Recall that Petraeus was the one who pushed for the ridiculous Iranian car salesman plot.

Posted by: s | Nov 10 2012 18:07 utc | 14

…..or was Broadwell’s husband looking to get even?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/10/paula-broadwells-husband-wrote-letter-nyt-affair-david-petraeus_n_2109455.html

Posted by: dh | Nov 10 2012 18:27 utc | 16

In France, it has been clear for some time, that top pols, men, have handmaidens who are media women, announcers, chroniclers, book writers, TV personalities, journalists, commentators, blog owners, and so on.
The female support staff is paid, believe you me, very generously.
They present a soft face on politics, in nice clothes, cute faces, skimpy attire, etc. Sometimes they pretend to be puzzled, have hesitations, etc. They write biographies and pretend to be tough interrogators on the blue screen or radio, it is just BS. Often, they sleeep with their subjects who are their mentors and controllers at the same time.
That has come to the US? Heh. Too funny.

Posted by: Noirette | Nov 10 2012 19:36 utc | 18

Or is it a wig?

Posted by: alexno | Nov 10 2012 20:11 utc | 20

Watching Broadwell in that Jon Stewart clip joggled my memory of another well known illicit military couple. Hot Lips and Frank. Striking similarity…

Posted by: вот так | Nov 10 2012 20:35 utc | 22

re 18 Noirette

In France, it has been clear for some time, that top pols, men, have handmaidens who are media women, announcers, chroniclers, book writers, TV personalities, journalists, commentators, blog owners, and so on.
The female support staff is paid, believe you me, very generously.
They present a soft face on politics, in nice clothes, cute faces, skimpy attire, etc. Sometimes they pretend to be puzzled, have hesitations, etc. They write biographies and pretend to be tough interrogators on the blue screen or radio, it is just BS. Often, they sleep with their subjects who are their mentors and controllers at the same time.

You should mention DSK (Dominique Strauss-Kahn). That at least indicates a beginning of change.
France is a funny country. It is beloved of many women worldwide, but in fact it is as sexist as any.
However things change, and I suspect, Noirette, that you are talking of the old France. Our faculty has been dominated by women since 2001.
In the media, the split older men/younger women is the same as elsewhere. At the moment there is a discussion in UK as to whether women can be sacked when they begin to appear to be old. Evidently it is completely illegitimate to do away with women presenters simply because they’ve passed a certain age.
The split is sexual. Older man=provider; younger woman=capable of bearing children. It won’t be easily erased, but it is coming, in France as elsewhere.

Posted by: alexno | Nov 10 2012 21:51 utc | 24

@8
According Mondoweiss, Petraeus recognized his ‘error’ and attempted to mend his relations with Tel Aviv.

Posted by: Watson | Nov 10 2012 22:23 utc | 26

Petraeus could be on a conservative political salvation ticket for 2016, now that the republicans have used up all the crazy. The man in uniform is probably their Plan B: someone who will be ideologically neutral, albeit blood-soaked. His infidelity will by then be old news; and none of his sexual monkey business would really spoil him in the eyes of the old fart republicans, as long as they conclude that he is one of them.

Posted by: Copeland | Nov 11 2012 1:30 utc | 28

I agree, b. Tom Ricks needs to go, too. Ricks’s stand-by-your-man apology on his blog is especially offensive when contrasted with the before & after photos of Tarok Kolachie.

Posted by: ess emm | Nov 11 2012 5:47 utc | 30

re US policy in Latin America – I have been wondering how the multinationals seem to have lost a lot of control and/or interest there the last decades or so – not that they were not trying … maybe because political priorities were in the Middle East?
On returning there back now – Correas statement – I think he refers to this
Washington Post – Explore Top Secret America

The government has built a national security and intelligence system so big, so complex and so hard to manage, no one really knows if it’s fulfilling its most important purpose: keeping its citizens safe.

The Washington’s Post series should have created a storm in any democracy – as the conclusion of the above quote is “nobody controls it and nobody knows what it is doing”
I have also wondering: As both US parties now have to fight for the Latin American vote and this time it is the vote of poor immigrants sending money home to their folks and not rich Cuban ex property owners will they be able to afford the old US Latin American policies?

Posted by: somebody | Nov 11 2012 11:03 utc | 32

I don’t understand why Petraeus, head of the CIA, was being investigated (turned up in some check? ..what?) by the FBI, because I don’t know how this all works, institutionally. That would be a first thing to grasp. Who was investigating, checking, vetting, whom and why? SOP? (see Colm above..)
So he was bonking the biographer babe. Big deal. You can be sure everyone knew and nobody cared. This is just an excuse for his hasty exit, stage right.
EMBEDDED for a year (!) to write a book titled ALL IN, authored BROADWELL, you gotta laugh.
I remember rumors of an affair long ago, when he was in Afgh. or Irak?…hard to look up now without more detail as the media is swamped with the present story. I’ll give is a shot (sic) if time.
My guess: Money and/or missing military/other records. All that money missing in both countries. Plus, women, or something else extra. P would not have been, imho, interested in or tempted by ordinary graft to benefit himself. Also difficult to hide in his position. It could simply be that he was super careless or much worse and that ‘under his watch’ all kind of shenanigans to be covered up took place, so his mouth has to be shut in a ‘soft’ way. Note, this is speculation.

Posted by: Noirette | Nov 11 2012 16:22 utc | 34

@ alexno 24. I understand all that. And France is a funny country indeed.
The point is, the attractive media birds (journos, tv presenters, interviewers, biographers, scribblers, groupies, etc.) have more impact than before.
They appear to be ‘genuine’, ‘unbiased’, ‘tough’, ‘caring’, even ‘crack’ reporters who risk their lives (Florence Aubenas, etc.) but they merely uphold or enforce the power structure as is.
It’s a career choice, risky but lucrative to some degree, and very socially admired, which is the main attraction. Ppl suck it up because they are women.
Handmaidens > new form of power of the visual media is maybe the main theme.

Posted by: Noirette | Nov 11 2012 17:02 utc | 36

#32
“On returning there back now – Correas statement – I think he refers to this
Washington Post – Explore Top Secret America
The government has built a national security and intelligence system so big, so complex and so hard to manage, no one really knows if it’s fulfilling its most important purpose: keeping its citizens safe.
The Washington’s Post series should have created a storm in any democracy – as the conclusion of the above quote is “nobody controls it and nobody knows what it is doing”
My first reaction to reading that is it sounds like one of those sci-fi thrillers where machines gradually take over that are periodically popular in film. Makes an occasional film entertaining, but a bit too far fetched to be taken serious outside of fiction.
Another scenario one hears frequently about is a cabalist like secret take over of the government by a small, well organised group – the film “Fail Safe” is a well known fictional example of this scenario. There is the related take over by outside, nefarious forces scenario – “Manchurian Candidate”, a well known portrayal of this fictional scenario. Duff posits something like these here (among other things):
Why else did the CIA spymaster resign?
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/11/271529/political-maelstrom-in-postelection-us/
It is possible that some small group could take over the U.S. government. It has been attempted at least one time before. In the 1930’s when some very rich, far right corporate fascists decided FDR wasn’t fascist enough for them and decided they could do a better job. The plan got exposed when these fascists picked the wrong man who was to be their front man after the coup (Smedley Butler), and he exposed them.
Some interesting events reported on in the Duff piece I didn’t know about was these:
“A week ago, Vice Admiral Gaouette, in command of the USS Stennis and her support task force including nuclear submarines, was “perp walked” off the flight deck of the giant American carrier, twenty miles off the coast of Iran, as though he were a common criminal.
The removal of Gaouette is unique in military history with one exception, the firing of General McArthur by President Harry Truman during the Korean War. Truman fired MacArthur for not just planning but preparing a nuclear attack on China and a full-scale invasion of the Chinese mainland.
With only one direct parallel in the last century, it is reasonable to assume that Gaouette was following in the path of former 5th Fleet commander, Admiral Cosgriff.
Cosgriff, according to Gwyneth Todd, Chief Political Officer for the fleet, reported Cosgriff to the Department of State when she learned that he was planning false flag terror attacks against American troops in the Persian Gulf theatre and was planning to sail American warships well into Iranian waters.”
I don’t know how accurate that representation of those events is, but it is also likely others are getting the axe that we are not hearing about. This means a major shake-up in going down, mostly probably behind the scenes. I think Betrayus resigning is part of that shake-up.
I don’t think this is about a busted secret conspiracy to take over the government, or some “rogue elements” setting up an unapproved falseflag. What I think is going on is rivalry between management teams, and the team Betrayus is on is “out of favour” with the “board of directors” and “major stock holders”. I think the various fascist interests who run the west, run it exactly like they run their multinational corporations. Countries are their “corporate subsidiaries”. The people we know as “leaders” are, in effect, frontmen for the various management “teams” or alike thinking groups who run things for this polygarchy. Like different management groupings in a large corporation, these “teams” both work with each other and at the same time try to push their “management method” forward. Sometimes, in the eyes of “the boss”, they blow it enough, elements of the “team” get sacked.
What I think this means is that Israel-America is going to make some major changes to the way they approach their goal to dominate the planet and planners of policies they think were failing in that respect are being replaced. My own view, pessimist that I am, is to look for a meaner and leaner world super power who will be more aggressive, more duplicitous and who will be staging a more widespread and better coordinated attack on those still independent of its clutches. Look for more centralisation of power into publicly unaccountable fascist hands and more repression at home, both covert and overt.

Posted by: вот так | Nov 11 2012 20:47 utc | 38

Scorched earth is the strategy of the defeated.
Funny how a bestial bonk receives more attention than the horrors this man has inflicted on his fellow man. Now time to look forward to the next psycopath in charge.

Posted by: david | Nov 12 2012 8:57 utc | 40

rmmbr the paramour thing is gossip – below is what i was murkily recalling.
NYT, Aug 2007
Several federal agencies are investigating a widening network of criminal cases involving the purchase and delivery of billions of dollars of weapons, supplies and other matériel to Iraqi and American forces, according to American officials. The officials said it amounted to the largest ring of fraud and kickbacks uncovered in the conflict here.
The inquiry has already led to several indictments of Americans, with more expected, the officials said. One of the investigations involves a senior American officer who worked closely with Gen. David H. Petraeus in setting up the logistics operation to supply the Iraqi forces when General Petraeus was in charge of training and equipping those forces in 2004 and 2005, American officials said Monday. (…)
There is no indication that investigators have uncovered any wrongdoing by General Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, who through a spokesman declined comment on any legal proceedings.(…)
The inquiries are being pursued by the Army Criminal Investigation Command, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, among other agencies. (…)
(…) That operation moved everything from AK-47s, armored vehicles and plastic explosives to boots and Army uniforms, according to officials who were involved in it. Her former colleagues recall Colonel Selph as a courageous officer who was willing to take substantial personal risks to carry out her mission and was unfailingly loyal to General Petraeus and his directives to move quickly in setting up the logistics operation.
http://tinyurl.com/bmv2htt
From the Dpt. of Justice, Aug. 16, 2011,
A retired colonel in the U.S. Army was sentenced today to 12 months in prison for her role in a scheme to pay bribes for contracts awarded in support of the Iraq war, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division. Levonda J. Selph, 57, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton of the District of Columbia.(…)
http://tinyurl.com/c4at7a5
Current, WSJ:
Petraeus had a G mail account (!) for sexy chats with BiogBabe. Apparently the present flap was sparked by BiogBabe sending threatening mails to a rival.
http://tinyurl.com/czv6u66
How ‘security’ was breached is unclear from this article.

Posted by: Noirette | Nov 12 2012 17:52 utc | 42

Lendman has a scathing critique of Betrayus. Here is a sample:
Petraeus: Resignation or Sacking?
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2012/11/petraeus-resignation-or-sacking.html
“The man behind the image was fake. He’s a shadow of how he and spin doctors portrayed him publicly.
Competence didn’t earn him four stars. Former peers accused him of brown-nosing his way to the top. It made him a brand as much as general. Talk about him being presidential material surfaced.
In 2007, Time magazine made him runner-up as Person of the Year. The designation is as meaningless and unworthy as Nobel Peace awards.
So is current and previous praise. John McCain once called him “one of (our) greatest generals.” His judgment leaves much to be desired.
He’s not the best and brightest on Capitol Hill. He once admitted to graduating near the bottom of his Naval Academy class [and the military colleges are the lowest of the low of the higher education institutions – вот так].
White House and media spin praised Petraeus’ performance as Iraq commander and CENTCOM head. It was falsified hype. Performance contradicted facts. Iraq was more disaster than success. His Afghanistan surge failed. Syria on his CIA watch didn’t fare better.
Before he fell from grace, he was called aggressive in nature, an innovative thinker on counterinsurgency warfare, a talisman, a white knight, a do-or-die competitive legend, and a man able to turn defeat into victory.
In 2008, James Petras described him well in an article titled “General Petraeus: Zionism’s Military Poodle. From Surge to Purge to Dirge.”
He explained what spin doctors concealed. He quoted Petraeus’ former commander, Admiral William Fallon, calling him “a piece of brown-nosing chicken shit.” Petras added:
“In theory and strategy, in pursuit of defeating the Iraqi resistance, General Petraeus was a disastrous failure, an outcome predictable form the very nature of his appointment and his flawed wartime reputation.”
The generalissimo is more myth than man. He shamelessly supported Israel “in northern Iraq and the Bush ‘Know Nothings’ in charge of Iraq and Iran policy planning.”

Posted by: вот так | Nov 13 2012 2:07 utc | 44

Follow-up to #31
Bales attorneys have now opened Pandora’s Box:
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales didn’t act alone, attorneys suggest
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/11/12/174439/staff-sgt-robert-bales-didnt-act.html
“Bales’ defense team, however, has plenty of material to suggest that multiple soldiers participated in the killings.
“One person cannot do this work,” said Maj. Khudai Dad, an Afghan officer who investigated the killings the morning after they took place.
He testified via a video link from Kandahar Province late Sunday. He did not have evidence to support his argument, only a contention that one person could not kill so many people in separate villages.
Better evidence could come from Masooma, the widow of a man killed in Najiban. She told an Army Criminal Investigative Command agent in June that she saw two American soldiers enter her home, shout about the Taliban, take her husband Mohammed Dawood outside and execute him with a pistol to his head.
Mohammed Dawood’s widow told 1st Agent Leona Mansapit that she overheard multiple Americans speaking English in the compounds around her home. The widow also reported hearing helicopters overhead and seeing multiple flares shot in the sky.
Mansapit, who presented Masooma’s version of events in court Sunday, said she had no reason to doubt the credibility of the widow.”
The article still tries to discredit any thought America’s Sacred Troops were out there slaughtering in force, and that such terror ops are part of policy, just as they did in Vietnam.

Posted by: вот так | Nov 13 2012 6:00 utc | 46