The investigation surrounding former CIA Director David Petraeus and his alleged mistress, Paula Broadwell, has now widened to include the commander of allied forces in Afghanistan, General John Allen, and the woman who triggered the investigation, socialite Jill Kelley, who serves as an \u201cunpaid social liaison\u201d to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.<\/p>\n
Eli MacKinnon of \u201cLife\u2019s Little Mysteries\u201d notes that the phrase unpaid social liaison has been used repeatedly by the media to describe Jill Kelley, the 37-year-old Tampa socialite \u201c\u2026whose complaint about receiving harassing emails led to the investigation of Petraeus.\u00a0 [Kelley] serves as an unpaid social liaison to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa<\/a>, where the military\u2019s Central Command and Special Operations Command are located.\u201d<\/p>\n News reports don\u2019t detail what Kelley\u2019s position as an unpaid social liaison entails, but her ties to Petraeus and Allen run deep.\u00a0 Kelley and her husband, Scott, a surgeon, became friends with Petraeus when he was stationed at MacDill from 2008 to 2010.\u00a0 Kelley also hosted functions for U.S. Central Command in Tampa, where both Petraeus and Allen worked.\u00a0 For her efforts as an unpaid social liaison, the Associated Press reports that Kelley \u201cearned\u201d an official commendation from the Central Command, including receiving an \u201cappreciation certificate on which she was referred to as an \u2018honorary ambassador\u2019 to the coalition.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLife\u2019s Little Mysteries\u201d decided to delve deeper into just what the role of an \u201cunpaid social liaison\u201d entails.\u00a0 The transcript of their conversation with an unnamed military spokesperson follows:<\/p>\n LLM:\u00a0 \u201cWhat does being an unpaid social liaison entail?\u201d<\/p>\n Spokesperson: \u201cI don\u2019t think it entails anything.\u00a0 Someone does some nice things for people, and then they give them a piece of paper and a gift and say thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n LLM:\u00a0 \u201cAre there other unpaid social liaisons in Central Command or is Kelley the only one?\u201d<\/p>\n Spokesperson:\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a position.\u00a0 It\u2019s like saying CentCom has a green thermos.\u00a0 A green thermos isn\u2019t some official position; there\u2019s no official green thermos.\u00a0 Someone might have considered themselves a green thermos.\u201d<\/p>\n LLM:\u00a0 \u201cHow and why would the decision to bestow an \u2018honorary ambassador\u2019 status on Kelley have been made?\u201d<\/p>\n Spokesperson:\u00a0 \u201cThey probably said, \u2018Hey, this nice lady hosted several parties we were at.\u00a0 We had a lot of fun and she seems really nice and does things to help us out, so let\u2019s give her a certificate and make her an honorary ambassador to the coalition.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Besides offering ambiguous terminology and some creative double-talk, the military spokesperson effectively dodged answering LLM\u2019s questions about unpaid social liaisons.<\/p>\n As for Jill Kelley, she\u2019s finding out that her \u201chonorary ambassadorship\u201d has limitations.\u00a0 Kelley made calls to police recently in attempts to use her purported \u201cdiplomatic protection\u201d to keep the media and public away from her home.\u00a0 In a call to 911, Kelley was quoted as saying \u201cI’m an honorary consul general, so I have inviolability, so they (reporters) should not be able to cross my property.\u00a0 I don’t know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well, because that’s against the law to cross my property because, you know, it’s inviolable.”<\/p>\n According to the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, however, \u201chonorary diplomats receive no specific privileges or protections;\u201d thus, Kelley\u2019s property is not\u00a0 inviolable. \u00a0And while Kelley supposedly may not be receiving special privileges, her Mercedes Benz S500 does sport special license plates that read \u201cHonorary Consul.\u201d \u00a0It turns out that Jill Kelley is \u201chonorary consul\u201d to South Korea.<\/a><\/p>\n It remains to be seen what the outcome of this expanding investigation will be.\u00a0 For now, Allen\u2019s nomination to become the next commander of U.S. European Command has been put on hold. And the continuing investigation into the 30,000-plus pages of emails between Kelley and Allen have thus far determined them to not be \u201csexually explicit or seductive,\u201d according to senior U.S. officials, but they do include such pet names as \u201csweetheart\u201d and \u201cdear.\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps these are just honorary pet names used for honorary consuls like Kelley, but if found to be otherwise, adultery is a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.\u00a0 Let\u2019s hope justice and truth will come out in the end, and that these investigations aren\u2019t just honorary.<\/p>\n Link to article as it appears in print:<\/p>\n