In the Australian honours system appointments to the Order of Australia confer the highest recognition for outstanding achievement and service.

There are two divisions of the Order of Australia: the Civil or General Division and the Military Division.

The General Division of the Order of Australia has four levels:

• Companion of the Order (AC)
• Officer of the Order (AO)
• Member of the Order (AM)
• Medal of the Order (OAM)

The Military Division of the Order of Australia has four levels for service and performance of duties:

• Companion of the Order (AC)
• Officer of the Order (AO)
• Member of the Order (AM)
• Medal of the Order (OAM)

Hi Gus,

If ever there was evidence of how both sides of politics are part of the same corrupt whole, this must be it.

I for one can find absolutely no difference between Rudd & Rattus or Obama & Bushit .... other than in their respective degrees of stridency.

Welcome to club amerika ....

Petraeus Steps Down as C.I.A. Chief, Saying He Had Affair

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

David H. Petraeus, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, resigned on Friday after issuing a statement saying that he had engaged in an extramarital affair.

The sudden development came just days after President Obama won re-election to a second term. Mr. Petraeus, a highly decorated general who had led the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, had been expected to remain in the president’s cabinet.

Instead, Mr. Petraeus said in the statement that the president accepted his resignation on Friday after he had informed him of his indiscretion a day earlier.

“After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair,” Mr. Petraeus wrote. “Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the president graciously accepted my resignation.”

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/us/citing-affair-petraeus-resigns-as-cia-director.html?_r=0&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1352493118-Oht3sNV0Vc3pEz6jLolGHA       

 

See toon at top...

 

In Petraeus downfall, hubris meets high tech

By Ruth Marcus, Monday, November 12, 9:47 AM

Think Sophocles in cyberspace.

The fall of David Petraeus is part Greek tragedy, part cautionary tale about the omnipresence of modern technology.

The tragic part is classic: the protagonist who believes himself invincible, not subject to the rules governing ordinary mortals. Hubris is part of the human condition. Each of us is captive to the capacity for self-delusion. Every hero has a fatal flaw, every Achilles his heel. If the hero is a man, it’s a safe bet that it involves susceptibility to the opposite sex.

The technological part is something that we have not yet fully internalized, although Petraeus, of all people, ought to have known: There are no true secrets in the modern world.

Privacy is an illusion that we allow ourselves to avoid the alternative of paralysis. Every communication is potentially public. Like the gift of fire, technology is a magical device that, if not used carefully, contains the seeds of our own destruction.

At the risk of arm-chair psychologizing, it is easy to imagine the inexorable path to Petraeus’ resignation. He is a gifted man who also possessed the gift of good positioning: the cadet who married the superintendent’s daughter, the young officer with a knack for attaching himself to the right mentor, the general who understood that giving reporters your e-mail address and responding with alacrity could garner good publicity.

How fitting that the consummate networker was undone by another. Paula Broadwell met her fellow West Point graduate at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, when she was among the students invited to a dinner after a Petraeus speech.

“I introduced myself to then-Lt. Gen. Petraeus and told him about my research interests,” Broadwell wrote in her biography of Petraeus. He proffered his business card. She followed up.

In retrospect, how could Petraeus not have been taken with a female doppelganger, a woman who could keep pace with his six-minute miles and match him pushup for pushup? “Petraeus once joked I was his avatar,” Broadwell told The Charlotte Observer earlier this year.

We don’t know who seduced whom, but history suggests that the way to a man’s heart is through his ego. History further suggests that, well let’s call it ego, tends to trump intelligence when sex is involved. Beware the woman who goes on “The Daily Show” wearing a black silk halter top and flaunting her toned triceps. Men should know better, but, it seems, they rarely do.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ruth-marcus-in-petraeus-dowfall-hubris-meets-high-tech/2012/11/11/ad63214c-2c4e-11e2-a99d-5c4203af7b7a_print.html

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Here we go again... Not the first time a pollie, a priest or a geek in position of power has gone with fancyfooting... In the US we had the "I did not have sex with that woman" from a president who got re-elected (forgiven...) after the half-cocked deed and other preachers who beg forgiveness from their church followers for having got their sexual instrument out of wedlock. Usually, most of the followers are forgiving (it's a bleeding nuisance to have to switch church after one has coughed up thousands of dollars to the collection plates for building a church palace) while keeping an eye on their daughters.  It also shows that the geeks running the church are mortals...

That a biographer falls in bed with the subject is not new and in Australia we had the Bob Hawke's Blanche who got bedazzled by the PM then also known as the silver budgie... In the case of Petraeus, the situation is the same, apart from the fellow is still employed as the chief of a secret organisation — and to some extend this shows he's not that good at keeping things secret...

 

 

 

The twin Florida socialites at the centre of the David Petraeus affair gained intimate access to America's military and political elite through their high-rolling lifestyles even as they quietly racked up millions of dollars in debts and credit card bills.

Ms Khawam appears to lack any appreciation or respect for the importance of honesty and integrity in her interactions with her family, employers and others with whom she comes in contact 

Jill Kelley, whose complaint over threatening emails prompted the FBI inquiry that has ensnared two generals, is mired in lawsuits from a string of banks totalling $US4 million, court filings obtained by London's The Daily Telegraph in Florida show.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/double-trouble-identical-twin-sisters-courted-generals-lived-the-high-life-and-racked-up-millions-in-debt-20121114-29bhu.html#ixzz2CABUPr66

Why were the US generals dealing with the twins?... What's the degree of separation?.... Very weirdo....

 

 

The FBI is making a new push to determine how a woman who had an affair with retired Gen. David H. Petraeus when he was CIA director obtained classified files, part of an expanding series of investigations in a scandal that also threatens the career of the United States’ top military commander in Afghanistan.

Senior law enforcement officials said that a late-night seizure on Monday of boxes of material from the North Carolina home ofPaula Broadwell, a Petraeus biographer whose affair with him led to his resignation last week, marks a renewed focus by investigators on sensitive material found in her possession.

“The issue of national security is still on the table,” one U.S. law enforcement official said. Both Petraeus and Broadwell have denied to investigators that he was the source of any classified information, officials said.

The surprise move by the FBI follows assertions by U.S. officials that the investigation had turned up no evidence of a security breach — a factor that was cited as a reason the Justice Department did not notify the White House before last week that the CIA director had been ensnared in an e-mail inquiry.

The disclosure about the FBI’s renewed focus comes as investigations of the matter expanded on other fronts.

The Defense Department said Tuesday that its inspector general is examining hundreds of e-mails between Marine Gen. John R. Allen, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and aFlorida woman also linked to the Petraeus inquiry.

At the same time, key lawmakers signaled their intent to scrutinize the Justice Department’s handling of an inquiry that focused initially on a potential conflict between two private people but quickly morphed into an examination of the e-mail of two top national security officers.

read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-investigating-how-petraeus-biographer-broadwell-obtained-classified-files/2012/11/13/e61a5cfc-2dd5-11e2-beb2-4b4cf5087636_print.html

The US justice department is reported to be weighing up criminal charges against David Petraeus stemming from an investigation of whether the former CIA director gave a lover access to classified information.

The New York Times on Friday quoted an unnamed official as saying prosecutors had recommended felony charges against the former general, who quit his CIA post in 2012 after admitting he had an affair with Paula Broadwell, an army reserve officer, while she was writing his biography.

The Associated Press later similarly reported that charges were being considered, quoting its own confidential source.

Federal investigators have been looking into whether Petraeus provided classified information to his biographer. A lawyer for Petraeus declined to comment on Friday night, as did the justice department and the FBI.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/10/david-petraeus-facing-possible-criminal-charges-reports