Libertyblog: Missing the Point

A lefty take on how prudes are being short-sighted over David Petraeus:

It?s not just David Petraeus and his former mistress Paula Broadwell who are the big losers in this unfolding scandal?America has lost too.

?Adjusted for inflation, it?s more than a million dollars just on his education,? retired Maj. Mike Lyons tells The Daily Beast. Lyons is a senior fellow at the Truman National Security Project, a Washington-based national-security leadership institute, and a West Point graduate. He says the government pays the freight for a cadet?s continuing education, no matter how long it lasts. ?And, he?d be getting his military pay at the same time he went to school,? Lyons added. During Petraeus?s years at Princeton in the mid-?80s, for example, Lyons estimates his take-home military pay would have been between $50,000 and $60,000 per year. ?Remember too, a military person also gets to pay less at the commissary (for groceries and other necessities), and they get free medical and housing or a housing allowance.?

Of course, there?s a reason we invest in brilliant young men like David Petraeus. The country has gotten a considerable return on a considerable investment. Among his long list of accomplishments, Petraeus commanded a division that helped liberate Iraq. He steered the course for America?s exit from Afghanistan. And drawing from his study of the Vietnam War, he developed the ?Petraeus doctrine,? a deft counterinsurgency strategy that combines troop surges, on-the-ground public relations with locals, media management, and political savvy. While his tactics have been criticized, it?s also been seen as effective?and it?s sure to be taught at military academies if it isn?t already.

[...]

He has developed into a highly valuable commodity, and now it seems that only the corporate world will benefit from his expertise. Corporations seeking to do business with foreign governments will be lining up with open wallets to tap into Petraeus?s considerable knowledge.

Those would be the corporations who pay the highest tax rates in the world to the American government, and create jobs for Americans, and provide goods and services to Americans?well, you get the point. The return on investment hasn?t stopped, it?s just about to follow a different path. Indeed it?s shifting to a commercial path at just the moment our financial concerns have utterly eclipsed our military ones, at least for the moment. (Via Hot Air.)

Source: http://www.libertyblog.com/2012/11/missing-the-point-1.html

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