Now for the most part, I have no qualms with General Petraeus. I haven't kept an excessively close eye on the minutiae of his tenure, but this particular detail struck me this morning. Evidently, as part of a wider authorization of U.S. covert operations in countries around the world, Petraeus if focused on intelligence gathering by troops, as well as "academics, foreign business people, or others."
Great. Do he have any idea how often Americans abroad are assumed to be agents of the CIA? How many times journalists and students are accused of being part of the Zionist conspiracy, or working for the government? It's hard enough for many people to do their jobs and live their lives without having official policy give weight to the conspiracy theories of extremists. Now they'll have decent reason to surmise that Americans are all CIA spies, and many times (the sad ending of Daniel Pearl comes to mind) that has real consequences.
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