Lefty slur about Petraeus & Fallon debunked

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

Dean Barnett pointed out a nice slur making the rounds of the fever swamps of the left these days pertaining to ADM Fallon and Gen. Petraeus. They would like to have us believe that there are deep divisions in CENTCOM and that Petraeus is Bush's puppet while the others would do the right thing and run away.

The lefties at the Daily Kos and Think Progress are both giving a lot of play to the following quote that Admiral William Fallon allegedly (much more on that in a bit) made about his underling David Petraeus during their first meeting in Baghdad last March.  The Daily Kos and Think Progress report Fallon called Petraeus “an ass-kissing little chicken-sh*t.”

I know what you’re thinking.  For reputable outfits like the Daily Kos and Think Progress to report such an incendiary comment, the remark must be impeccably sourced.  Well…

The original report of the comment, the scoop if you will, came in something called the “Inter Press Service News Agency,” or “IPS” as the organization bills itself. What?  You’ve never heard of this IPS and find yourself curious about who and what it is?  IPS describes itself this way on its website: “IPS, civil society's leading news agency, is an independent voice from the South and for development, delving into globalisation for the stories underneath. Another communication is possible.”  I don’t know what any of that means either, but I figure I’d share it with you and put it our there for deconstruction.

Well I thought that was worth checking out so I emailed the CENTCOM PAO to see if they had any insights as to this intense distrust between two of our most important Commanders. I received this a few minutes ago and appreciate the timely response from CENTCOM, I mean it's not like they are busy with a couple of wars right?

Jim,
Thanks for your inquiry.

The story is inaccurate.  Admiral Fallon and General Petraeus have an
outstanding relationship.

LCDR Scott Miller
CENTCOM Public Affairs

That doesn't mean they take long showers together, but it just gets more comical to watch the left flailing about trying to find an angle to hang their anti-war shtick on. Their problem is the facts, and Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker pummeled the Congressional clowns with those.

Next slide.

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2819/21578151

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Lefty slur about Petraeus & Fallon debunked:

» I Call B.S. On This Slur from Chapomatic
Look. A four star doesnt need me to defend him, and Ill be durned if I know what the guys up to or how effective he is because Im here on shore in CONUS. But this is just crap. Dean Barnett says the story has legs in the l... [Read More]

Comments

[Lands’nGrooves]

The more these clowns keep these shiate up, the more I'm convinced the surge is working. What else can explain their desperation?

It's like watching a two year old who can't get his way.

[Mr.Sparkle]

Well apparently their "relationship" isn't that good

Washington Post.

"Bad relations?" said a senior civilian official with a laugh. "That's the understatement of the century. . . . If you think Armageddon was a riot, that's one way of looking at it."

[jordan]

So Fallon did not make that statement? "Another communication is possible" sounds like broken English of a non-native speaker.

[Caper2]

Sparkle:

Err, you realize that in some circles, the Washington Post reputation is at the level of. What you called that fly-by-night outfit again? Ah, IPS.

El Coqui

[Mr.Sparkle]

Hey EC: I'm English, and unaware of their reputation. No offence to the PA fellow but isn't his job to report exclusively nice things to the public? As far as I can see the original Post story is probably true. Modified fill-in-the-blanks version of events has no credibility though

[Valerie]

Mr. Sparkle,

What you don't understand is that in this country, in local papers, "senior civilian official" people do not get to make anonymous, backstabbing comments. It is considered unethical. It is considered unethical because the result often is the class of article you linked.

[cletus]

The question is, what is a "senior civilian official"?

Senior in what? GS rank, or office? And what is his working relationship to the men in question? IOW, how does he "know" this?

Etc., etc.

Washington is full of chicken shiites who love to sound important chatting with journalists. The willingness to make a statement without putting your name to it says something.

[Hard Right]

Here's the article itself from IPSA...m.o.u.s.e.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39235

[Gryph]

I don't see why I should be expected to trust military press releases on face value any more than I should believe them coming from the White House or Congress, or my local Wall-Mart. And the military has some recent bad history with the Lynch/Tillman debacles.

I mean really Jimbo come on, what do you think a public affairs guy is going to tell you if asked that question, that "Yes, they hate each others guts and do mud-wrestling on Friday nights"?

I don't think so.

Its nice to have an official denial, but its hardly an iron-clad source of information which is how you seem to be treating it.
Any public affairs person is paid to influence your opinion first, and to distribute facts, second.

Its a slightly more trustworthy source than the original anonymous acusation, but thats about it.

[Uncle Jimbo]

Fine,

I do not consider it definitive that someone paid to ensure me that Fallon and Petraeus do in fact occasionally take long showers together, says they are cool.

I simply wanted to poke back at the silly left, and my real LCDR trumps their phony anonymous source.

No offense to PA, Flag officers, or long showerers.

Cordially,

Uncle J

[LPierson]

IPS: Outfit out of South Africa staffed by post-colonial diaspora of South Asians and other "social" nationalists. Gareth Porter consumate left-wing propogandist. He wrote for Ramparts (mid-seventies, I wonder if David Horowitz knows this guy?) the Nation, and other hard-left/communist pub's. He was one that was producing writings "skeptical" of the mass murder in SE Asia post September 1975. After reading the article it is plain that his "stripes" have not changed.

Funny, none of the fellow travelers in the MSM has made anything out of this "rift."

[chiropetra]

Thanks Spark.
I've been looking for a reason to comment on this particular example of modern journalism since it ran in the Post.

To keep it brief, the entire story is a study in modern Leakology. It is built almost entirely either from quotes from unidentified sources, unsourced statements or gleanings from published sources, such as Kilcullen's essay.

Now, it's important to keep in mind that leaks are a way of life in political reporting, every leaker has an agenda. So do most of the people who speak on the record, but at least when someone is quoted by name you can find out who and what you're dealing with.

So the first question is, how does our unnamed source know this? Here too the identification is instructive.

He is described as "a senior civilian official" with no further qualification. That's significant.

Typically in an article like this the reporter will attempt to build as much credibility as possible by giving some indication of how the source knows this. If he actually witnessed a set-to, he'd probably be described as 'having witnessed' and incident. If he was close to either man that would be mentioned and so on.

When the identification is this vague it usually means the person isn't in a position to know closely. (The exception is when the person is high-ranking enough to get special consideration. This guy pretty clearly isn't.

Second, the nature of the quote itself. Our source doesn't cite specific instances, doesn't give examples, he simply makes a sarcastic remark. It's a telling remark, but such comments are generally in direct proportion to the person's investment in his or her agenda and inversely proportional to their direct knowledge.

If this person knew something specific he or she would have mentioned it and the reporter wouldn't have had to rely on a catchy generalization.

The entire story is like this. It's an attempt to cover the entire history of the Iraq conflict. It's the sort of thing a beat reporter can sit down and knock out in a couple of hours from memory, and one or two quick references to old notes.

It's a very shaky reed on which to maintain that the two men have trouble working together, or even that they have major policy disagreements.

Now, let's turn it around. Suppose a news story was to quote the comment from the PAO without direct attribution.

"A senior military official in Baghdad, who is in constant contact with both Adm. Fallon and Gen. Petraeus said that the pair had 'an outstanding relationship'."

See the effect of omitting identification and the context that comes with it has on the impact of a quote?

And its a good bet that the Post's source had a lot more reason to slant things than the PAO. (Which is not to say I believe the PAO.)

[defendusa]

LPierson points out where the outfit is...South Africa...which part of the word "Pagat" don't you left-minded thinkers get? ZA is absolutely one of the most corrupt in terms of gov't, news and the like. The Pagat would like nothing more that to create a false rift. Boy, you bats love props, hey?
I think I take UJ and his CENTCOM Man anyday....

[malclave]

'The question is, what is a "senior civilian official"?'

Janitorial supervisor on the night shift?

Now, dont get me wrong... I'm sure the janitorial staff does a wonderful job, and are very definitely needed. But that doesn't make them experts on the military.

[jan (belgium)]

this apparently bogus story was taken over gladly by european newspapers...

[Valerie]

I used to work for a federal apellate judge, and one of the great pleasures of that job was arguing about the cases. These people had a firm belief in the notion that "reasonable minds might differ" and they encouraged the back-and-forth. One time, I found myself nose to nose with one of these august officials, and we were both shouting. We both stepped back, took a breath, and I wondered if I'd just gotten myself fired. The judge grinned and said "That was fun!" It saved my day.

I also met a person that I really liked personally, who reasoned well, who thought I reasoned well, and who seemed to invariably come down on the opposite side of any issue. And I mean any issue. We both wondered at that. We never got very loud. It just did not work that way with us.

The noise or lack of it never meant lack of respect or lack of cordiality. It's just that the judges had decided that, if they wanted to get the best out of their subordinates, they had to give them the freedom to talk without worrying about the volume. It is a valuable technique, and it truly does not play well in public.

People outside this work environment did not understand this, and there were ocassional reports of battles royale, written as if they were motivated by personal animosity.

In my opinion, there had better be some noisy discussions occurring at the top levels of this Administration. These people are charged with decisions that must be made in a compressed time frame, often without all the information they would like, that must balance legitimate, competing interests. These decisions affect the future of all of us, and no matter how good the decisions are, somebody, somewhere will be confronted with revolting developments. If these discussions are being held among the right kind of people, with the right mix of responsibilities and with clean but differing mental habits, they will be noisy at times. I would be afraid of an overly quiet decision-making process with respect to a war.

[john Ryan]

Both the NYT and Fox News are corporations who answer only to their shareholders.
In these United States citizens have a wide and varried choice of their news sources. Your problem isn't so much the content as the fact that so many Americans choose xources that you do not agree with.

[Grimmy]

john Ryan:

Your problem is that you are unable to differentiate between disagreement and betrayal.

[Valerie]

John Ryan

We are taking about a specific article found in the IPS and Washington Post.

[Deltabravo]

Ahh... the Washington Compost. There's a rag for ya!

How do I say this politely...? "Senior Civilian Official?" There is a long-standing gulf between our civilians and our military. The civvies, God bless 'em, just don't understand. They're on the outside looking in. And I've had more than my fair share of contact with the gin-swilling striped-pants cocktail party civilians and the U.S. military to be able to draw some conclusions.

The conclusions will not be politically correct. So if you are faint of heart or easily insulted, now is the time to leave.

Mind you, these are just gross generalizations. The exceptions usually prove the rule.

Let's amuse Mr. Sparkle and the True Believers for a moment and indulge their fantasy that the two Officers in Question truly do detest each other. And that their conversations may even become loud and heated.

Down where I live, as they say, "That don't make a damn bit of difference."

You see, military people are not like that Senior Civilian who fears to own up to his own quotes. Senior Civilian is the rat at the water cooler stirring the office pot and backbiting to climb the ladder. It's how he does it. He thinks he's trusted and respected, but everyone is onto him.

Military people are not like civilians. They chose jobs that require loud noises, violence, death, destruction and the occasional trip to the infirmary. Their personalities, by dint of background, training and years of practice are not usually of the shy and timid variety.

And part of that training is that the mission comes first. No matter what personal feelings one has, The Mission Comes First.

Civvies may not get that point.

They don't understand that even violent disagreements or loud conversations about said disagreements do not matter in the end. The mission and the orders matter.

Most military people I know are loud people. That may sound like the world is coming to an end to the striped pants set that observes this, but it's really not.

Most of our military is professional enough to put aside whatever personal issues they have for the overall mission.

Try to do that at the civvie water cooler and you'll be mowed over like a dog on the Beltway.

A better headline would be:
Two Generals With Strong Personalities Discuss Tactics.

Big whoop.

[meh130]

The leftists are in full spin cycle to defend MoveOn.org-The Democratic Party-Daily Kos-Huffington Post.

IPS is the media arm of something called Media Watch Global (http://www.mwglobal.org/), which looks like an international socialist organization of some type. Several of its key members are ex-Le Monde diplomatique writers.

Someone else commented on Porter's history.

This really smacks of a contrived article. Somebody decided the MoveOn.org Petraeus ad was blowing up in their face, and in classic leftist fashion, instead of distancing themselves from MoveOn.org, decided Petraeus must be destroyed at all costs.

The order no doubt went out, someone saw the WaPo piece, dated 9 September, and decided to expand on it.

Porter must be the left's useful idiot to write the story.

Then let ThinkProgress, DailyKos, and HuffPo bullhorn take it from their. Get the word out to the seminar callers (just heard one on Hannity).

I'll be honest. I don't believe it. Petraeus is Fallon's only 4-star subordinate. I cannot imagine Fallon saying something that disrespectful about another 4-star to a 3-star of lower, or worse, a group of people, after meeting with Petraeus. I could see a 4-star admiral say it another 4-star admiral who he had a close relationship with. But I doubt the CNO or some other Admiral was in the room. Plus, Fallon is a Unified Command Commander. These commanders generally have chief of staffs and aides from different services. Again, I could see an Admiral say this to a close aide who was also Navy, but not to some Colonel or Brigadier General from another service.

Again, this doesn't pass the smell test.

[referman]

One way to catch a vermin to smart to get caught in a trap is to feed em a belly full of tid-bits and follow the chit trail.It very well could be they are following the chit trail and have the senior vermin in their sights..I have tipped many a glass with the brass in the O club not even jokingly would an officer say such about another,well they might think it.They would have retired as butter bars,not with stars..Besides what satisfaction would Adm Fallon get from calling the General an ass kisser?Hes got all the ships a person could want..As meh130 said it don't pass the smell test.

[Dan Brown]

Hi,

Thought this news might be of some interest to your readers:

NEW moveon,org TV ad coming out on monday sept 17th...basically calling president bush a traitor.

Catch it here:
MoveOn.org TV Ad

For general david betray us fans or not:
General David Betray Us

Have a great weekend!
Dan

[Boghie]

You know what is even funnier...

The Left is taking an 'editorial' as a news article.

This amateur outfit (IPS) may not be able to separate news from opinion, but the average American (Not Sparky, obviously) can.

By the way, Sparky, I cannot place the Washington Post or the New York Times at a much higher level. A couple of steps above ranting editorials. And, they use this IPS trash as a source. That tells me something.

[mmc]

I have absoloutely no use for MoveOn.org. At all. They're scum.
But I think its a pretty far stretch to equate the words "A Betrayal of Trust" with traitor.
What's more interesting is that I didn't see them make out even a betrayal of trust on Bush's part. Perhaps they were referring to that newly elected Congress who supposedly promised to get ALL the troops out.

[vincenzo4]

All one has to do is look at General Petraueus' pedigree, his decorations and awards and the fact that as a two-star it is he who is in the combat zone, transversing that combat zone and who is performing superbly, with majestic self-control in the presence of pissants whose birkenstocks and "free tibet" bumper stickers and self-guilt of not serving anything larger than their own egoes has them intimidated in the presence of real men and women who are provodong their freedom to be so despicable. I am seriously wondering if the same elements who financed the anti-war demonstations in the 1960s are funding them today. Anything to topple America.

The genesis of this alleged comment apparently comes from a far left trendy who has manipulated the world once again to fill his own person idaho, a guy named Gareth Porter: "...so basically what the Daily Kos and his like minded leftists want the public to believe is the word of a guy who is a communist apologist who denied the existence of the Killing Fields of Cambodia. How come Kos and company never mentioned that before quoting him?..." - http://forwarddeployed.com/2007/09/15/exposing-gareth-porters-slurs-of-general-petraeus/

[vincenzo4]

Errata: I do know the CINC is a Four Star

[humanliberty]

This reminds me of Patton calling Monty "that cocky little limey fart", and Monty calling Patton a "foul-mouthed lover of war". Patton also once said "God deliver us from our friends; we can handle the enemy".

Daily Kos and Think Progress are dismal sources of information and misguided left-wing propaganda.