David Petraeus, as much as anyone else in America, personifies the completely corrupt, unjust, and fraudulent application of the rule of law in these United States today.
I continue to think that the unequal application of justice in America is the single most important issue that must be faced. So many of our problems would be solved overnight if the masses weren’t locked up for Orwellian “victimless crimes,” and rich and powerful criminals were thrown in jail up for extended periods for their far more societally destructive actions.
The case of David Petraeus has been discussed here before, most recently in the post, Some Leaks Are More Equal Than Others – Hypocritical D.C. Insiders Line up to Defend General Petraeus from Prosecution. Here are a few excerpts:
The decimation of the rule of law in these United States has been the key theme at Liberty Blitzkrieg for several years now. The reason I put such an emphasis on this horrible development, is because I think it trumps all others in significance. While the world will always have crime and corruption, the inability for a society to deal with rich and powerful people who engage in such practices thrusts a spear directly into the heart of any given civilization or society. It results in an exponential increase in elite criminality, and a concurrent death spiral downward into a culture primarily defined by a depraved, unaccountable oligarchy. These are symptoms of a fallen society, and these symptoms are evident all around us.
Moving along to today’s topic, which involves the leaking of classified government documents. Whenever whistleblowers have emerged to share important information about our government’s criminal activity, these individuals are either jailed or their lives are ruined. The examples are many.
We have Private Manning, who is currently in jail for releasing videos of war crimes to Wikileaks. There’s also the case of former NSA employee Thomas Drake, as well as John Kiriakou ,the only person jailed with regard to the U.S. torture program, and that’s only because he leaked information about it to the public. Of course, we all know about Edward Snowden, who correctly predicted his fate and wisely fled the country before informing the world of the dystopian nightmare being constructed in the shadows by the NSA and the U.S. government.
In the effort to demonize these American heroes, Washington D.C. political hacks and mainstream media pundits consistently pointed to how dangerous leaking classified information is, and how these individuals must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. In contrast, many of these same cronies are coming out to vigorously defend David Petraeus.
I’m not saying Petraeus should be jailed. I’m saying he should be held to the same standard as others, or we should change the law. When you keep laws on the books just so that you can lock up political opponents, you nothing more than a cheap Banana Republic.
Naturally, Mr. Petraeus easily avoided jail time, and is now likely making a fortune peddling private equity funds for KKR. As Bloomberg reports:
It was an invitation too good to resist.
Matthew McCarthy was asked by KKR & Co. to fly to New York from Ohio, where he manages money for the founders of a consumer-products company. First he had dinner with KKR’s billionaire co-founder Henry Kravis. The next morning, he met David Petraeus, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and current chairman of the KKR Global Institute at the company’s headquarters.
“They didn’t really pitch products,” said McCarthy, 43, whose firm Rockside Capital Partners intentionally stays under the radar. “They brought out General Petraeus.”
If you want to define how the crony, fraud U.S. economy functions in 2015, all you have to do is read the above sentence over and over.
The firms are seeking new pools of wealth to lessen their reliance on state and corporate pension plans. They’re also reaching out at an opportune time. Globally private equity firms reaped a record $428 billion by selling holdings last year, a 30 percent increase from 2013, according to Preqin.
Well sure, with public pensions starting to realize how badly they are getting ripped off by private equity, the industry needs a new mark. See:
Pensions and Private Equity – A Letter to the New York Times Editor
Leaked Documents Show How Blackstone Fleeces Taxpayers via Public Pension Funds
SEC Official Claims Over 50% of Private Equity Audits Reveal Criminal Behavior
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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