http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/attack-of-the-drones_b_1464244.html
What a great chance to make money! And they can make money with "anti-drones technology as well!
These are really scaring prospects for our future. The surveillance state becomes reality. They can monitor everything, and kill everybody they suspect he is an opponent, anywhere in the world. When I think of the Iranian scientists who died by explosions last year, I guess this is happening already. I prognosticate the Nazi regime in Germany last century was kindergarten compared to what lies ahead!
A summary of the article in the Huffington Post:
Drones -- unmanned aerial vehicles -- come in all shapes and sizes, from nano-sized drones as small as a grain of sand that can do everything from conducting surveillance to detonating explosive charges, to massive "hunter/killer" Predator warships that unleash firepower from on high.
While there are at least 63 active drone sites around the U.S., the Obama administration is calling for drone technology to be integrated into the national air space by 2015.
While the legislative vehicle for this rapid transition into a surveillance state came in the guise of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill, passed by Congress and signed into law by Obama in February 2012, it was steamrollered into place after intense corporate lobbying by drone makers and potential customers hoping to capitalize on the $12 to $30 billion per year industry.
Fifty-three members of the House of Representatives are part of the drone caucus, which works to expand the use of drones domestically.
While the threat these drones pose to privacy is unprecedented, they are being unleashed on the American populace before any real protocols to protect our privacy rights have been put in place and in such a way as to completely alter the landscape of our lives and our freedoms.
As technology advances and cost decreases -- drones are already orders of magnitude less expensive to purchase and operate than piloted aircraft -- the market for federal, state, and local government and commercial drones rapidly grows.
Indeed, in the name of efficiency and cost-effectiveness, law enforcement agencies will find a whole host of clever and innovative ways to use drones to invade our daily lives, not the least of which will be traffic enforcement and crowd control.
Vanguard Defense Industries has confirmed that its Shadowhawk drone, which is already being sold to law enforcement agencies throughout the country, will be outfitted with lethal weapons, including a grenade launcher or a shotgun, and weapons of compliance, such as tear gas and rubber buckshot.
However, while the lethal capabilities of these drones are troubling, especially when one factors in the possibility of them getting into the wrong hands or malfunctioning, the more pressing concern has to do with the drones' surveillance capabilities.
The point is that with 56 government agencies now authorized to use drones, including 22 law enforcement agencies and 24 universities, the drones are not going away.
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." --James Madison
Please read the full article at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/attack-of-the-drones_b_1464244.html
Montag, 30. April 2012
Mittwoch, 25. April 2012
Time to get U.S. nukes out of Europe | Stephen M. Walt
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/04/18/a_tactical_nuclear_mistake
We tend to forget they still are here. We never wanted them here, the peace movement fought 30 years ago against them, but couldn't avoid them. Steven M. Walt writes:
One of the more pernicious obstacles to rational policy-making is the "ratchet effect": the tendency for policies, once adopted, to acquire a life of their own and to become resistant to change, even when they have ceased to be useful. For example, you can be confident that we will all be wasting time in airport security lines decades from now, long after Osama bin Laden's death. Existing security measures may not pass a simple cost-benefit test, but what political leader would dare relax them?
I thought of this problem as I read a new article by Tom Sauer and Bob van der Zwaan, on the curious persistence of the U.S. tactical nuclear arsenal in Europe. (The title of the article is "U.S. Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Europe after NATO's Lisbon Summit: Why Their Withdrawal is Desirable and Feasible," and it's in the latest issue of the academic journal International Relations.) Sauer and van der Zwaan examine the various arguments for and against keeping U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. They conclude -- convincingly, in my view -- that there is no good reason to keep them there and plenty of good reasons to remove them.
I have to confess that I hadn't realized the United States still had any tactical nuclear weapons left in Europe. (Sorry about that; I can't keep track of everything). But it turns out we still have a couple of hundred or so weapons stationed there (down from about 500 a decade ago). These are mostly gravity bombs deployed under "dual-key" arrangements: The U.S. has custody of the weapons in peacetime, but custody could in theory be transferred to the various host nations (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey) in the event of war.
But isn't this a rather ludicrous situation, two decades after the Cold War ended? There is no threat of a conventional invasion of Western Europe, and thus no need to "link" the U.S. strategic deterrent to Europe's defense via tactical weapons physically deployed on the continent. (The theories that justified these deployments during the Cold War never made much sense to me either, but that's another story.) It's hard to imagine that these weapons are helping Dutch, German, or Turkish elites sleep soundly at night, or helping reassure their respective populations. If anything, local populations should worry about having these devices on their soil, which is why governments tend not to talk about them. Democracy in action!
In short, these weapons serve no legitimate strategic purpose (which is why the numbers have been declining), but bureaucratic inertia and/or political timidity explain why the United States and NATO haven't bitten the bullet and removed them completely.
As Sauer and van der Zwaan make clear, the benefits of doing so would be considerable. It would reinforce the basic logic of nuclear disarmament, and further "de-legitimize" nuclear weapons as status symbols, thereby contributing to broader nuclear security objectives. It would be consistent with the pledges that the United States made when it signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It would reduce the threat of nuclear theft and/or nuclear terrorism, a danger intensified by the fact that U.S. nuclear-storage sites in Europe apparently do not meet our own security standards. If it were linked to further reductions of the Russian tactical nuclear arsenal, it would increase overall nuclear security even more. It would also save money, which is supposedly a priority these days. And if this step had any impact on the credibility of the U.S. commitment to NATO (which is highly doubtful) it might encourage the Europeans to do more for their own defense, instead of continuing to rely on Uncle Sucker.
In short, there's an overwhelming case for removing these archaic and unnecessary weapons from the European continent. Ideally, we would do this as part of a bilateral deal with Russia, but we ought to do it even if Russia isn't interested. It's an election year, which normally encourages a certain degree of chest-thumping on national security matters, so you shouldn't expect any progress until 2013. But getting rid of these useless devices would be a very smart thing to do, no matter who the next president turns out to be.
And then we should rethink airport security...
We tend to forget they still are here. We never wanted them here, the peace movement fought 30 years ago against them, but couldn't avoid them. Steven M. Walt writes:
One of the more pernicious obstacles to rational policy-making is the "ratchet effect": the tendency for policies, once adopted, to acquire a life of their own and to become resistant to change, even when they have ceased to be useful. For example, you can be confident that we will all be wasting time in airport security lines decades from now, long after Osama bin Laden's death. Existing security measures may not pass a simple cost-benefit test, but what political leader would dare relax them?
I thought of this problem as I read a new article by Tom Sauer and Bob van der Zwaan, on the curious persistence of the U.S. tactical nuclear arsenal in Europe. (The title of the article is "U.S. Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Europe after NATO's Lisbon Summit: Why Their Withdrawal is Desirable and Feasible," and it's in the latest issue of the academic journal International Relations.) Sauer and van der Zwaan examine the various arguments for and against keeping U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. They conclude -- convincingly, in my view -- that there is no good reason to keep them there and plenty of good reasons to remove them.
I have to confess that I hadn't realized the United States still had any tactical nuclear weapons left in Europe. (Sorry about that; I can't keep track of everything). But it turns out we still have a couple of hundred or so weapons stationed there (down from about 500 a decade ago). These are mostly gravity bombs deployed under "dual-key" arrangements: The U.S. has custody of the weapons in peacetime, but custody could in theory be transferred to the various host nations (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey) in the event of war.
But isn't this a rather ludicrous situation, two decades after the Cold War ended? There is no threat of a conventional invasion of Western Europe, and thus no need to "link" the U.S. strategic deterrent to Europe's defense via tactical weapons physically deployed on the continent. (The theories that justified these deployments during the Cold War never made much sense to me either, but that's another story.) It's hard to imagine that these weapons are helping Dutch, German, or Turkish elites sleep soundly at night, or helping reassure their respective populations. If anything, local populations should worry about having these devices on their soil, which is why governments tend not to talk about them. Democracy in action!
In short, these weapons serve no legitimate strategic purpose (which is why the numbers have been declining), but bureaucratic inertia and/or political timidity explain why the United States and NATO haven't bitten the bullet and removed them completely.
As Sauer and van der Zwaan make clear, the benefits of doing so would be considerable. It would reinforce the basic logic of nuclear disarmament, and further "de-legitimize" nuclear weapons as status symbols, thereby contributing to broader nuclear security objectives. It would be consistent with the pledges that the United States made when it signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It would reduce the threat of nuclear theft and/or nuclear terrorism, a danger intensified by the fact that U.S. nuclear-storage sites in Europe apparently do not meet our own security standards. If it were linked to further reductions of the Russian tactical nuclear arsenal, it would increase overall nuclear security even more. It would also save money, which is supposedly a priority these days. And if this step had any impact on the credibility of the U.S. commitment to NATO (which is highly doubtful) it might encourage the Europeans to do more for their own defense, instead of continuing to rely on Uncle Sucker.
In short, there's an overwhelming case for removing these archaic and unnecessary weapons from the European continent. Ideally, we would do this as part of a bilateral deal with Russia, but we ought to do it even if Russia isn't interested. It's an election year, which normally encourages a certain degree of chest-thumping on national security matters, so you shouldn't expect any progress until 2013. But getting rid of these useless devices would be a very smart thing to do, no matter who the next president turns out to be.
And then we should rethink airport security...
Montag, 23. April 2012
Dealing with Tyrants: German Military Rethinks Exporting Democracy
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,829191,00.html#ref=rss?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
The German military may soon adopt new guidelines that call into question the export of democracy, SPIEGEL has learned. In the future, the Bundeswehr is to take greater account of local traditions and institutions, even if they are violent and corrupt.
In his second inauguration address, US President George W. Bush vowed to redouble American efforts at exporting democracy around the world. "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture," he said in the January, 2005 speech, "with the ultimate goals of ending tyranny in our world."
Seven difficult years later, however, the situation in Afghanistan continues to demonstrate the challenges facing the spread of Western-style democracy. And Germany, for its part, has now begun to adjust its military policy accordingly.
According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, overseas missions undertaken by the German military are no longer to be focused on exporting Western conceptions of democracy. Political systems are only viable, read new draft guidelines for overseas military missions, when they are founded on "local concepts of legitimacy."
The draft guidelines "for a coherent policy relative to fragile states" were developed jointly by the German foreign, defense and development ministries. The paper indicates that intervention strategy must take into account local traditions and institutions, even if they don't correspond to concepts of liberal democracy.
In some cases, the new concept even supports cooperating with corrupt or violent elites. The paper says that it is the responsibility of each country to choose its leader and authorities and that it is difficult to influence such decisions from the outside. "An overly dominant role played by the international community can be harmful," the paper reads. In the future, foreign military missions in "fragile states" are to be coordinated by a task force headed by the Foreign Ministry.
US Demands More Money from Berlin
Despite shying away from the overly zealous export of democratic principles, the paper clearly argues in favor of the use of force in foreign military missions. "Experience gained from international peace missions clearly shows that an initial robust profile can be a factor for ultimate success," the paper reads.
Still, as ongoing NATO negotiations show, withdrawing from such overseas missions can be difficult. Currently, the Western allies are deadlocked in the search for sufficient post-withdrawal funding for Afghanistan. The US has committed to covering half of the €3.1 billion ($4 billion) per year necessary to equip and train Afghan security forces.
Last week's NATO summit in Brussels, however, brought little in the way of concrete pledges from other member states. Internally, Berlin has assumed it would ultimately be saddled with annual payments of no more than €150 million. Now, however, SPIEGEL has learned that the US is demanding at least €190 million from Germany.
"An adjustment to the previously fixed corridor of €100 to €150 million should be taken into account," reads a confidential Foreign Ministry document, which SPIEGEL has seen.
The German military may soon adopt new guidelines that call into question the export of democracy, SPIEGEL has learned. In the future, the Bundeswehr is to take greater account of local traditions and institutions, even if they are violent and corrupt.
In his second inauguration address, US President George W. Bush vowed to redouble American efforts at exporting democracy around the world. "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture," he said in the January, 2005 speech, "with the ultimate goals of ending tyranny in our world."
Seven difficult years later, however, the situation in Afghanistan continues to demonstrate the challenges facing the spread of Western-style democracy. And Germany, for its part, has now begun to adjust its military policy accordingly.
According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, overseas missions undertaken by the German military are no longer to be focused on exporting Western conceptions of democracy. Political systems are only viable, read new draft guidelines for overseas military missions, when they are founded on "local concepts of legitimacy."
The draft guidelines "for a coherent policy relative to fragile states" were developed jointly by the German foreign, defense and development ministries. The paper indicates that intervention strategy must take into account local traditions and institutions, even if they don't correspond to concepts of liberal democracy.
In some cases, the new concept even supports cooperating with corrupt or violent elites. The paper says that it is the responsibility of each country to choose its leader and authorities and that it is difficult to influence such decisions from the outside. "An overly dominant role played by the international community can be harmful," the paper reads. In the future, foreign military missions in "fragile states" are to be coordinated by a task force headed by the Foreign Ministry.
US Demands More Money from Berlin
Despite shying away from the overly zealous export of democratic principles, the paper clearly argues in favor of the use of force in foreign military missions. "Experience gained from international peace missions clearly shows that an initial robust profile can be a factor for ultimate success," the paper reads.
Still, as ongoing NATO negotiations show, withdrawing from such overseas missions can be difficult. Currently, the Western allies are deadlocked in the search for sufficient post-withdrawal funding for Afghanistan. The US has committed to covering half of the €3.1 billion ($4 billion) per year necessary to equip and train Afghan security forces.
Last week's NATO summit in Brussels, however, brought little in the way of concrete pledges from other member states. Internally, Berlin has assumed it would ultimately be saddled with annual payments of no more than €150 million. Now, however, SPIEGEL has learned that the US is demanding at least €190 million from Germany.
"An adjustment to the previously fixed corridor of €100 to €150 million should be taken into account," reads a confidential Foreign Ministry document, which SPIEGEL has seen.
Freitag, 20. April 2012
Donnerstag, 19. April 2012
Afghanistan: an illusion exposed | Carne Ross
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/16/afghanistan-western-naivety-kabul-attacks
Why am I not surprised? I saw it coming...
Taliban attacks on Kabul are further proof that the west's vision for Afghanistan was a fantasy
For months after the allied invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, there were no Taliban attacks in Kabul. Now, as the weekend's gun, rocket and suicide attacks demonstrate, they are frequent and fatally effective. This is one measure of the progress of the war, more than 10 years on. There are many others.
According to a devastating account from a senior US army officer, the Taliban now range freely across much of the country. US forces barely control the territory they can see from their highly fortified bases. Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis reports that the Afghan army, like its government, is neither competent nor trusted.
The war was supposed to end with the Taliban arriving as supplicants to the negotiating table once sufficiently "degraded" by allied attacks. That strategy has been turned on its head. If anyone is a supplicant it will be the allies, desperate to make a deal they can claim as some kind of limited "victory" before they pull out. But, if this weekend's events are any indicator, the Taliban don't seem very interested in talking.
Where did it go so wrong? With the lucidity of hindsight (for I was once an enthusiastic supporter of the war), it appears that a fatal mistake was made before the campaign even started. In Bonn, an international conference was convened to construct a political strategy to follow the inevitable military victory. A moderate Pashtun would lead a government comprising all factions and ethnicities – or at least those we approved of. This new dispensation was to be endorsed by the traditional loya jirga, or "democracy, Afghan-style", as some chose to call it. It sounded plausible and everyone in the "international community" signed on.
But the new Afghanistan was in fact a fantasy.
Please read the full article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/16/afghanistan-western-naivety-kabul-attacks
Why am I not surprised? I saw it coming...
Taliban attacks on Kabul are further proof that the west's vision for Afghanistan was a fantasy
For months after the allied invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, there were no Taliban attacks in Kabul. Now, as the weekend's gun, rocket and suicide attacks demonstrate, they are frequent and fatally effective. This is one measure of the progress of the war, more than 10 years on. There are many others.
According to a devastating account from a senior US army officer, the Taliban now range freely across much of the country. US forces barely control the territory they can see from their highly fortified bases. Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis reports that the Afghan army, like its government, is neither competent nor trusted.
The war was supposed to end with the Taliban arriving as supplicants to the negotiating table once sufficiently "degraded" by allied attacks. That strategy has been turned on its head. If anyone is a supplicant it will be the allies, desperate to make a deal they can claim as some kind of limited "victory" before they pull out. But, if this weekend's events are any indicator, the Taliban don't seem very interested in talking.
Where did it go so wrong? With the lucidity of hindsight (for I was once an enthusiastic supporter of the war), it appears that a fatal mistake was made before the campaign even started. In Bonn, an international conference was convened to construct a political strategy to follow the inevitable military victory. A moderate Pashtun would lead a government comprising all factions and ethnicities – or at least those we approved of. This new dispensation was to be endorsed by the traditional loya jirga, or "democracy, Afghan-style", as some chose to call it. It sounded plausible and everyone in the "international community" signed on.
But the new Afghanistan was in fact a fantasy.
Please read the full article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/16/afghanistan-western-naivety-kabul-attacks
Mittwoch, 11. April 2012
Question: On the Subject of a state for the Palestinians.
Why have the Arabs rejected every chance at a new state that has been presented to them?
The TERMS are not fair or to their liking
Other
The TERMS are not fair or to their liking
0
Other
1
1. The Peel Commission proposal in 1937, in which the creation of an Arab state was suggested, but the Arabs rejected it.
2. 1947 U.N. Resolution to create a large Arab state with the Jews receiving two disjointed pieces, consisting mostly of much of the coastline and the Negev Desert. Jerusalem was to be internationalized. The Jews accepted the plan. The Arabs totally rejected it.
3. After the 1967 Six-Day War, in which the Israelis trounced the combined armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, Jordan's occupation of the "West Bank" ended and so did Egypt's occupation of Gaza. At that time, Israel offered the hand of friendship to the Arabs, which was rudely rejected when the Arabs issued the Three No's of Khartoum: No Peace, No Negotiation, and No Recognition of Israel.
4. In 1993 and 1995 Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo Accords with the aim of creating a Palestinian state within five years. Israel agreed to withdraw from parts of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel turned over most of its administration of the territories to the Palestinian Authority (PA). But, the Palestinians violated their commitments, thus scuttling the agreement.
5. In 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to withdraw from 97% of the West Bank and 100% of Gaza. That proposal also guaranteed Palestinian refugees the right to return to the Palestinian state and offered reparations from $30 billion of international funds that would be collected to compensate them. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat rejected the deal.
6. In 2003, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon agreed to negotiate with the Palestinians according to the "road map" formulated by the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the U.N. The Palestinians never fulfilled their obligation to normalized relations with Israel and to arrive at a comprehensive peace. Another missed opportunity!
7. In 2005, Israel unilaterally decided to evacuate every soldier and citizen from Gaza. The "reward" for Israel's evacuation was for the Palestinians to launch rockets into Israel from Gaza at an almost daily rate. There were further attempts in 2007 by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and in 2010 by Prime Minister "Bibi" Netanyahu, but all have ended in failure.
The "all-or-nothing" mentality of the Arabs, their unwillingness to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and the Arabs' expressed desire to destroy the hated Jews, have kept peace from flowering. What a shame! If the Arabs had accepted the 1947 partition plan and had not invaded the nascent Jewish state with the armies of five Arab countries, they would not now have the need today to commemorate their "Nakba." They could be celebrating their country's 63rd anniversary, their enduring peace with Israel, and could be part of the tremendous prosperity that Israel has brought to that region of the world.
http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_127.html
Dienstag, 10. April 2012
Still the Least Racist Country in the World
Are race relations in America today better or worse than they were 10 year ago?
Better
Worse
Not Sure
Better
1
Worse
1
Not Sure
0
April 10, 2012
Still the Least Racist Country in the World
By Dennis PragerIn light of the tragic killing of black teenager Trayvon Martin -- and the manufactured hysteria surrounding it -- one thing needs to be stated as clearly and as often as possible: The United States is the least racist and least xenophobic country in the world. Foreigners of every race, ethnicity, and religion know this. Most Americans suspect this. Most black Americans and the entire left deny this.
Black Africans know this. That is why so many seek to live in the United States. Decades ago, the number of black Africans who had immigrated to the United States had already surpassed the number of black Africans who were forcibly shipped to America as slaves.
And members of other races and nationalities know this. Even Muslim and Arab writers have noted that nowhere in the Arab or larger Muslim world does an Arab or any other Muslim have the individual rights, liberty, and dignity that a Muslim living in America has. As for Latinos and Asians, vast numbers of them from El Salvador to Korea regard America as the land of opportunity.
And when any of these people come here - from anywhere, speaking any language, looking like a member of any race -- they are accepted as Americans the moment they identify as such. He or she will be regarded as fully American. This is not true elsewhere. A third-generation Turkish-German, whose German is indistinguishable from the German spoken by an indigenous German, will still be regarded by most Germans as a Turk. The same holds true elsewhere in Europe.
On the other hand, a first-generation Turkish American, who speaks English with a heavy Turkish accent, but who identifies as American, will be regarded every bit as American as anyone else.
As is often the case, a foreigner pointed this out most clearly. On a visit to America in February, The president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, said:
"The other day, I was in a small company -- and there were Asians, Koreans, Middle Easterners, some other people. And they had been in America for, like, two, three, four years. And they talk American. They look American. Body language is American. I'm sure they already think American. Go to Korea and become Korean in one or two years' time. Good luck with that. That's what's so special about this country."
Xenophobic? It is probably fair to say that most Americans are xenophiles. Last week, in Tampa, I met a 40 year-old man who works at a cigar lounge and bar. I commented on all the good-looking women who entered his establishment, and he told me that despite his low salary, that is precisely the reason he works there. They flock to him, he said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because of my accent." He was from Russia.
The left-wing drumbeat about America as racist is a combination of politics and black memory.
The political aspect is this: The Democrats and the left recognize that if blacks cease viewing themselves as victims of racism, the Democratic Party can no longer offer itself as black America's savior. And if only one out of three black Americans ceases to regard to himself as a victim of racism, and votes accordingly, it will be very difficult for Democrats to win any national election.
The other issue is black memory. Apparently, most blacks either cannot or refuse to believe that the vast majority of whites are no longer racist. Most Americans were hopeful that the election of a black president -- thereby making America the first white society in history to choose a black leader -- would finally put to rest the myth of a racist America. More than three years later it seems not to have accomplished a thing. I now suspect that if the president, the vice-president, the entire cabinet, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all nine justices on the Supreme Court were black, it would have no impact on blacks who believe America is a racist society -- or on the left-wing depiction of America as racist.
One can only conclude that the smearing of America's good name is one of the things at which the left has been most proficient.
Montag, 9. April 2012
American Universities Infected by Foreign Spies Detected by FBI
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-08/american-universities-infected-by-foreign-spies-detected-by-fbi.html
Michigan State University President Lou Anna K. Simon contacted the Central Intelligence Agency in late 2009 with an urgent question.
The school’s campus in Dubai needed a bailout and an unlikely savior had stepped forward: a Dubai-based company that offered to provide money and students.
Simon was tempted. She also worried that the company, which had investors from Iran and wanted to recruit students from there, might be a front for the Iranian government, she said. If so, an agreement could violate federal trade sanctions and invite enemy spies.
The CIA couldn’t confirm that the company wasn’t an arm of Iran’s government. Simon rejected the offer and shut down undergraduate programs in Dubai, at a loss of $3.7 million.
Hearkening back to Cold War anxieties, growing signs of spying on U.S. universities are alarming national security officials. As schools become more global in their locations and student populations, their culture of openness and international collaboration makes them increasingly vulnerable to theft of research conducted for the government and industry.
“We have intelligence and cases indicating that U.S. universities are indeed a target of foreign intelligence services,” Frank Figliuzzi, Federal Bureau of Investigation assistant director for counterintelligence, said in a February interview in the bureau’s Washington headquarters.
‘Academic Solicitation’
While overshadowed by espionage against corporations, efforts by foreign countries to penetrate universities have increased in the past five years, Figliuzzi said. The FBI and academia, which have often been at loggerheads, are working together to combat the threat, he said.
Attempts by countries in East Asia, including China, to obtain classified or proprietary information by “academic solicitation,” such as requests to review academic papers or study with professors, jumped eightfold in 2010 from a year earlier, according to a 2011 U.S. Defense Department report. Such approaches from the Middle East doubled, it said.
“Placing academics at U.S. research institutions under the guise of legitimate research offers access to developing U.S. technologies and cutting-edge research” in such areas as information systems, lasers, aeronautics and underwater robots, the report said.
World-Class Talent - Welcoming world-class talent to American universities helps the U.S. sustain global supremacy in science and technology, said University of Maryland President Wallace Loh. He chairs the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s academic advisory council, which held its first meeting March 20 and is expected to address such topics as federal tracking of international students.
Foreign countries “can never become competitive by stealing,” he said. “Once you exhaust that technology, you have to start developing the next generation.”
Foreigners on temporary visas made up 46 percent of science and engineering graduate students at Georgia Institute of Technology and Michigan State and 41 percent at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009, according to a federal survey. China sent 76,830 graduate students to U.S. universities in 2010-2011, more than any other country and up almost 16 percent from the prior year, according to the Institute of International Education in New York.
Finding Recruits
While most international students, researchers and professors come to the U.S. for legitimate reasons, universities are an “ideal place” for foreign intelligence services “to find recruits, propose and nurture ideas, learn and even steal research data, or place trainees,” according to a 2011 FBI report.
In one instance described in the report, the hosts of an international conference invited a U.S. researcher to submit a paper. When she gave her talk at the conference, they requested a copy, hooked a thumb drive to her laptop and downloaded every file. In another, an Asian graduate student arranged for researchers back home to visit an American university lab and take unauthorized photos of equipment so they could reconstruct it, the report said.
A foreign scientist’s military background or purpose isn’t always apparent. Accustomed to hosting visiting scholars, Professor Daniel J. Scheeres didn’t hesitate to grant a request several years ago by Yu Xiaohong to study with him at the University of Michigan. She expressed a “pretty general interest” in Scheeres’s work on topics such as movement of celestial bodies in space, he said in a telephone interview.
Unaware of Credentials
She cited an affiliation with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a civilian organization, Scheeres said. The Beijing address Yu listed in the Michigan online directory is the same as the Academy of Equipment Command & Technology, where instructors train Chinese military cadets and officers. Scheeres said he wasn’t aware of that military connection, nor that Yu co-wrote a 2004 article on improving the precision of anti- satellite weapons.
Once Yu arrived, her questions made him uncomfortable, said Scheeres, who now teaches at the University of Colorado. As a result, he stopped accepting visiting scholars from China.
“It was pretty clear to me that the stuff she was interested in probably had some military satellite-orbit applications,” he said. “Once I saw that, I didn’t really tell her anything new, or anything that couldn’t be published. I didn’t engage that deeply with her.”
Wrote About NASA
Yu later wrote a paper on the implications for space warfare of the NASA Deep Impact mission, which sent a spacecraft to collide with a comet. She couldn’t be reached for comment.
American universities have also trained Chinese researchers who later committed corporate espionage. Hanjuan Jin, a former software engineer at Motorola Inc., was found guilty in February in federal court of stealing the Schaumburg, Illinois-based company’s trade secrets and acquitted of charges she did so to benefit China’s military. She is scheduled for sentencing in May and has also filed a motion for a new trial.
Jin joined the company, now known as Motorola Solutions Inc. (MOT), after earning a master’s degree from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. While at Motorola, she received a second master’s, this time in computer science, from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. IIT’s own research wasn’t compromised, institute spokesman Evan Venie said in an e-mail. A Notre Dame spokesman declined to comment.
Study Abroad Targets
More Americans are heading overseas for schooling, becoming potential targets for intelligence services, Figliuzzi said. More than 270,000 Americans studied abroad for credit in 2009- 2010, up 4 percent from the year before. President Barack Obama has announced an initiative to send 100,000 American students to China, and China has committed 10,000 scholarships for them.
As a junior at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, Glenn Duffie Shriver studied at East China Normal University in Shanghai. After graduation, he fell in with Chinese agents, who paid him more than $70,000. At their request, he returned to the U.S. and applied for jobs in the State Department and the CIA. He was sentenced to four years in prison in January 2011 after pleading guilty to conspiring to provide national-defense information to intelligence officers of the People’s Republic of China.
“Study-abroad programs are an attractive target. Foreign security services find young, bright U.S. kids in science or politics, it’s worth winning them over,” Figliuzzi said.
Front Companies
Unlike its counterparts in other countries, which rely on their own operatives, China’s intelligence service deploys a freelance network including students, researchers and false- front companies, said David Major, president of the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies in Falls Church, Virginia and a former FBI official.
China has “lots of students who either are forced to or volunteer to collect information,” he said. “I’ve heard it said, ‘If it wanted to steal a beach, Russia would send a forklift. China would send a thousand people who would pick up a grain of sand at a time.’”
China also has more than 3,000 front companies in the U.S. “for the sole purpose of acquiring our technology,” former CIA officer S. Eugene Poteat, president of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers in McLean, Virginia, wrote in the fall/winter 2006-2007 edition of “Intelligencer: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies.”
U.S. and Canadian universities reaped $2.5 billion in 2011 from licensing technology, up from $222 million in 1991, according to the Association of University Technology Managers in Deerfield, Illinois.
‘Opened Some Eyes’
Universities “may not fully grasp exactly who they’re spinning off their inventions to,” Figliuzzi said. “The company could be a front for a foreign power, and often is. We share specific intelligence with university presidents, and we’ve opened some eyes.”
Michigan State’s Simon learned to be wary of front companies by serving on the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board, established by the FBI and CIA in 2005. It “makes you more aware that you need to look below the surface of some of these offers,” she said. “A short-term solution may turn into an institutional embarrassment.”
Arizona State University President Michael Crow also sits on the board. “It’s all a little perplexing and overwhelming,” he said. “We’re in the business of trying to recruit more students from China. We’re operating at a total openness mode, while we recognize there are people working beyond the rules to acquire information.”
The Chinese embassy in Washington and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing didn’t respond to e-mailed questions.
Enabling China
Over the years, American universities have enabled China “to leapfrog into the cutting edge of military capability on the way to superpower status,” Richard Fisher, senior fellow on Asian Military Affairs at the International Assessment and Strategy Center in Alexandria, Virginia, said in an e-mail.
Chen Dingchang, the head of a Chinese military-sponsored working group on anti-satellite technology, led a delegation in 1998 to the University of Florida to learn about diamond-coating manufacturing, used in missile seekers and other systems, said Mark Stokes, executive director of the Project 2049 Institute in Arlington, Virginia, which studies Chinese aerospace technology. In a 1999 report in a Chinese journal, the authors, including Chen, said the university’s cooperation would assist in overcoming a technical bottleneck in China’s development of anti-satellite warheads.
‘Unlikely to Advertise’
“A university may not know that a visiting engineer could be conducting sponsored research on a military program that could hurt Americans in the event of a conflict,” Stokes said. “An engineer supporting a People’s Liberation Army program is unlikely to advertise his or her purpose.”
The University of Florida is “unable to verify” the incident, spokesman Stephen Orlando said.
Chen is a technology adviser at China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp., which didn’t respond to an interview request.
University administrators have traditionally viewed their role as safeguarding academic freedom and making sure that all students, domestic or foreign, are treated the same.
“I’ve been to campuses where deans would say to Chinese students, ‘The FBI is coming to talk to you. You have no responsibility to talk to them,’” Major said. “Very hostile environments.”
Some faculty members remain uneasy about a partnership with federal investigators. “The FBI thrives on a certain degree of paranoia, and it operates in secrecy,” said David Gibbs, a history professor at the University of Arizona. “The secrecy goes against so much of what universities are about, which is openness and transparency.”
Stanford University
Stanford University avoids seeking contracts for “export- controlled” research, which only Americans can work on without a license because it has implications for economic or national security.
“Stanford does not, nor will it, restrict participation of students on the basis of citizenship,” President John Hennessy testified at a January 2010, congressional hearing in Palo Alto, California. More than half of Stanford’s doctoral candidates in the physical sciences and engineering come from outside the U.S., he said.
Asked by Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican congressman from California, if he had read that Chinese military intelligence uses Chinese students, Hennessy said, “I am aware of that.”
“Universities need to think that they are patriotic Americans, too,” Rohrabacher responded.
Hennessy is on sabbatical and unavailable to comment, Lisa Lapin, a Stanford spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.
More Collaboration
After becoming Pennsylvania State University president in 1995, Graham Spanier sought closer collaboration with law enforcement. Reading that a president at another state university expressed shock that a faculty member was under investigation for terrorist ties, he resolved not to be similarly taken aback. He arranged a meeting with representatives of national security agencies including the FBI, CIA, Secret Service and Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
“This had never occurred before,” Spanier said in a phone interview. “Nobody from higher education had reached out.”
If they were making inquiries at Penn State, they should let him know, and he would help, Spanier told them. “That began a very fruitful collaboration,” he said.
Shifting priorities after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to terrorism and espionage from organized crime and kidnapping, the FBI expanded the Penn State model into a national board.
Handpicked Board
Spanier approached other university presidents, and 90 percent agreed to serve, he said. Michigan State’s Simon took over as chair after Spanier stepped down as Penn State president last November in the wake of a scandal over sex-abuse allegations against a former assistant football coach. Simon and the FBI and CIA have agreed to expand the board and start a subcommittee on cyber-hacking.
The FBI handpicks universities for the board, Figliuzzi said. It looks at how much research they conduct, as well as “sensitive cases -- where is there a potential problem? Then we make an invitation.”
Board members must have security clearances. FBI officials brief them about cases on their campuses, and the presidents in return guide federal investigators through the thickets of higher education.
Problem Solved
When a foreign entity compromised the computer system of a major university, the bureau contacted the school’s information- technology administrators, who denied that they had a security breach. The FBI consulted Spanier, who persuaded the university’s president to meet with the bureau.
“That opened the door to a higher level of cooperation,” he said. “The problem was solved.”
Similarly, the bureau warned Simon that research in behavioral science by a foreign graduate student at Michigan State “might breach the security of corporate America,” she said. “We were able to find a way for the student to complete his research and still modify it in a way that took away the national security issues.”
Beyond resolving such cases, the FBI has also alerted board members to the overall threat, most dramatically through a presentation by a former Russian spy. As a colonel in Russian intelligence and its deputy resident in New York from 1995 to 2000, Sergei Tretyakov set his sights on Columbia University and New York University, according to “Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia’s Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War” (2008), by Pete Earley.
Mingled With Professors
“We often targeted academics because their job was to share knowledge and information by teaching it to others, and this made them less guarded than, say, UN diplomats,” Earley quoted Tretyakov as saying. A typical task was to obtain information about “a study of genetically engineered food being done at New York University.”
At the board meeting, Tretyakov described to the presidents how Russian spies used to go to campus events and mingle with professors. “It certainly seemed very bold to me that they felt they could interact with faculty and students and attend seminars,” Spanier said. “We never really think about that happening on our campuses.”
In 2009, around the time Tretyakov was briefing the presidents, a Russian spy, Lidiya Guryeva, was pursuing a master’s degree in business at Columbia under the name Cynthia Murphy, the 2011 FBI report said. Russian intelligence instructed her to strengthen “ties w. classmates on daily basis incl. professors who can help in job search and who will have (or already have) access to secret info,” and to report on their potential “to be recruited by Service.”
Columbia and NYU declined to comment.
Tretyakov died in June 2010. That month, Guryeva was arrested for acting as an agent of a foreign power and deported to Russia.
To contact the reporter on this story: Dan Golden in Boston at dlgolden@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Lisa Wolfson at lwolfson@bloomberg.net
German Officials Are Teaching International Police How To Secretly Monitor Computers - Business Insider
http://www.businessinsider.com/german-officials-are-teaching-international-police-how-to-secretly-monitor-computers-2012-4
Several international law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, held meetings with German police between 2008-12 to discuss the deployment of a monitoring software to covertly infiltrate computers, according to German government reports and reported by Ryan Gallagher at Slate.
The revelations come in response to questions by Andrej Hunko, a member of German Parliament, after a Berlin-based hacker collective called "Chaos Computer Club" exposed in October that the German police were using potentially illegal software called "Bundestrojaner” (i.e. federal Trojan horse) to spy on suspects.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/german-officials-are-teaching-international-police-how-to-secretly-monitor-computers-2012-4#ixzz1rZoXZLaG
Several international law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, held meetings with German police between 2008-12 to discuss the deployment of a monitoring software to covertly infiltrate computers, according to German government reports and reported by Ryan Gallagher at Slate.
The revelations come in response to questions by Andrej Hunko, a member of German Parliament, after a Berlin-based hacker collective called "Chaos Computer Club" exposed in October that the German police were using potentially illegal software called "Bundestrojaner” (i.e. federal Trojan horse) to spy on suspects.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/german-officials-are-teaching-international-police-how-to-secretly-monitor-computers-2012-4#ixzz1rZoXZLaG
Mittwoch, 4. April 2012
Death Wish: How Did America Become The Land of the High-School Massacre?
In the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting and associated race-relation issues in the US in recent weeks, I found this in today's press. Would prefer we don't go over the details of the Zimmerman-Martin case here on this thread, it's been done to death already and I regard it as a bit of domestic US issue... as much as you in Idaho, New York or Arizona would be interested in events in Kathmandu, Lisbon or Johannesburg.
I am very curious though, about why it happens so often, there...
As yet another student opens fire on his former classmates, Jeremy Laurance asks if such atrocities share an underlying cause
WEDNESDAY 04 APRIL 2012
If One L Goh, the 43-year-old Korean who allegedly shot and killed seven people at a private Christian college, Oikos University, in Oakland California on Monday, was seeking notoriety, it did not last long. By lunchtime yesterday the story had already disappeared from the front page of the BBC news website. School shootings are so common in the US that we have become almost inured to them.
What made him do it? And why should the US in particular be prone to such attacks? They are far more frequent in America than elsewhere in the world (though appalling atrocities have occurred in Russia, Israel and a number of European countries).
According to Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan, Goh was "upset with the administration at the school" where he had been a student, until he was expelled a few months ago.
He complained that students had "mistreated him, disrespected him, and things of that nature", Mr Jordan said. "He was having, we believe, some behavioural problems at the school and was asked to leave several months ago."
In addition to his troubles at school, Goh owed thousands of dollars in tax and recently suffered two bereavements, including the death of his mother.
Most perpetrators of school massacres had struggled to cope with personal failure or significant losses prior to the attack, research shows. Many had attempted suicide or behaved in other ways that looked like a cry for help.
Yet personal failure and loss are universal experiences. There are many other potential factors – bullying and revenge, mental illness, exposure to violent films and video games, drugs, access to guns. Which of these account for the higher incidence of attacks in the richest country in the world?
After the infamous Columbine shootings in 1999, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher, the US Secret Service and the US Department of Education established an inquiry that examined 37 similar shootings between 1974 and 2000.
It concluded there were common threads. Shootings were rarely sudden, impulsive acts – in most cases other people knew about the attacker's plans.
Although there was no accurate "profile" of an attacker – attempts to predict which individuals will commit such acts are doomed to fail – most behaved in ways that indicated they needed help. Many felt bullied or persecuted and there were often signs that they were planning for an attack.
The result was the Safe School Initiative, which aimed to help university staff and police share information about possible threats and develop strategies to prevent potential attacks.
In a recent article, "Why does America lead the world in school shootings?", Frank Ochberg, Professor of psychiatry at Michigan State University observed: "Students do not become mass killers overnight. They nurse their fantasies and they leak evidence. Insults, threats and plans are posted on websites. Classmates often know when a student is ready to strike back. Parents hear rumblings and have accurate gut sensations."
New programmes to share information led to several plots being nipped in the bud, he said. Other countries adopted similar programmes. Yet America is still the one where these tragedies happen most.
There is no evidence, Professor Ochberg says, that, compared to other nations, America has "more bullies, more bullying, more victimisation, and more victims who are ticking time bombs, hatching plots of lethal vengeance".
Mental illness has been a feature in some killings. People with mental illness are very rarely violent – they are far more likely to be the victims of violence. But occasionally they can become a danger to others.
"We do not have a sophisticated system of care and protection," Professor Ochberg says. Community care for the mentally ill was "never fully funded" and "leaves much to be desired". But, he adds, America in this regard is "really no worse than other nations".
Violence is ever present – on TV screens, in video games and movies – and many commentators have suggested this can lead to copycat behaviour and desensitisation to its effects. Others counter that it acts as catharsis, defusing potential violent acts.
Professor Ochberg notes that violent role models have a long history and are not limited to America. "Northern Ireland, the Balkans, the children's armies of Africa, the terrorist camps of the Middle East, have their violent role models. Machismo is not an American word, nor is hooligan."
What is left? One factor that, for many, defines America is access to guns. If kids could not bring guns to school, we wouldn't have Columbine or Virginia Tech (where 32 people were slaughtered by 23-year-old student Cho Seung-hui in 2007). Or, now, Oakland, Professor Ochberg might have added.
"The reason we have an American school shooting problem that exceeds other nations has to do with access to loaded weapons by kids who should not have that access. Any serious attempt to prevent school shooting will have to attack the problem," he said.
It is not a view likely to win wide support, especially in states with a powerful gun heritage. Some commentators have argued that the problem has less to do with guns and more to do with civil liberties.
Speaking after the massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007, Richard Arum, Professor of sociology and education at New York University, remarked that Americans enjoy a right to privacy, a right to free speech and a right to due process that is extended to students in schools and colleges, including individuals who are mentally impaired.
"Unfortunately, these freedoms make it very difficult for schools to respond to individual troubled youth. Here was a case of a college student [Cho Seung-hui] who was very deeply troubled, but the school, because it was concerned about the youth's individual rights, had a very difficult time responding in common sense ways to the needs he'd expressed."
Challenged as to whether America's gun culture was to blame, Professor Arum was unapologetic: "Guns have been widely available in our society for a long time, and we didn't have this history of rampage school shootings."
He agreed, however, that when an individual with a history of mental illness was able to walk into a store and purchase a weapon, as Cho Seung-hui did, matters had got out of hand.
"It would be hard to argue that this makes any rational sense at all," he said.
Lethal lessons: Past killings
1974: December 30 New York, Olean, Olean High School – three killed
1986: December 4 Montana, Lewistown, Fergus High School – one killed
1987: March 2 Missouri, DeKalb, DeKalb High School – two killed
1992: May 1 California, Olivehurst, Lindhurst High School – four killed
1992: December 14 Massachusetts, Great Barrington, Bard College – two killed
1994: May 26 Kentucky, Union, Ryle High School – four killed
1994: October 12 North Carolina, Greensboro, Grimsley High School – one killed
1996: February 2 Washington, Moses Lake, Frontier Junior High School – three killed
1997: February 19 Alaska, Bethel, Bethel Regional High School – two killed
1997: October 1 Mississippi, Pearl, Pearl High School – three killed
1997: December 1 Kentucky, Paducah, Heath High School – three killed
1998: March 24 Arkansas, Jonesboro, Westside Middle School – five killed
1999: April 20 Colorado, Jefferson County, Littleton, Columbine High School – 15 killed
2005: March 21 Minnesota, Red Lake Native American Reservation, Red Lake High School – 10 killed
2007: April 16 Virginia, Blacksburg, Virginia Tech – 33 killed
2008: February 14 Illinois, DeKalb, Northern Illinois University – six killed
RemixedP: Question - Canada has the same guns, same kind of laws. Less population density maybe. But they're right next door, and basically another version of the same society, right? So why is it like this in the United States, but not Canada?
Other News, various:
Time Running Out for Sustainable Future: Report | Common Dreams
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/04/03-5
Haven't we forgotten something? Wasn't their something in the cooking? Oh, the environment... successfully repressed, apparently.
Time Running Out for Sustainable Future: Report
Worldwatch maps sustainable 'good life', warns great changes must be made before it's too late
The planet will not be able to sustain levels of consumption typical of today's 'consumer class' without irreparable consequences to the globe, according to the just released Worldwatch Institute in State of the World 2012: Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity. They have proposed a redefinition of 'the good life' as one that aligns with sustainable practices and have mapped out a hopeful plan leading up to this year's Rio+20; however, the plan's window of opportunity is quickly closing.
"The aspirations of the original 1992 meeting in Rio collided with a set of painfully sobering developments, including unfriendly politics, orthodox economics, and a dominant culture of consumerism. The 20 years since then have made it clear that necessary change is not merely technical, but encompasses changes in lifestyle, culture, and politics," states Worldwatch.
"There won't be much point in revisiting the Rio+20 conference in another 20 years to try to figure out what went wrong," says Worldwatch President Robert Engelman. "We know enough right now about the state of the world to see clearly that we have to change the way we live and the way we do business. Working out new paths towards true sustainability will take much more than a conference of governments, though such a gathering can help. The task begins with the recognition that perpetual economic and demographic growth aren't possible on a finite planet. We can work with the hope that ecological stability is possible, along with a good life based on health, literacy, strong communities, and access to 'enough' rather than ever more."
Please read the full article at http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/04/03-5
Haven't we forgotten something? Wasn't their something in the cooking? Oh, the environment... successfully repressed, apparently.
Time Running Out for Sustainable Future: Report
Worldwatch maps sustainable 'good life', warns great changes must be made before it's too late
The planet will not be able to sustain levels of consumption typical of today's 'consumer class' without irreparable consequences to the globe, according to the just released Worldwatch Institute in State of the World 2012: Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity. They have proposed a redefinition of 'the good life' as one that aligns with sustainable practices and have mapped out a hopeful plan leading up to this year's Rio+20; however, the plan's window of opportunity is quickly closing.
"The aspirations of the original 1992 meeting in Rio collided with a set of painfully sobering developments, including unfriendly politics, orthodox economics, and a dominant culture of consumerism. The 20 years since then have made it clear that necessary change is not merely technical, but encompasses changes in lifestyle, culture, and politics," states Worldwatch.
"There won't be much point in revisiting the Rio+20 conference in another 20 years to try to figure out what went wrong," says Worldwatch President Robert Engelman. "We know enough right now about the state of the world to see clearly that we have to change the way we live and the way we do business. Working out new paths towards true sustainability will take much more than a conference of governments, though such a gathering can help. The task begins with the recognition that perpetual economic and demographic growth aren't possible on a finite planet. We can work with the hope that ecological stability is possible, along with a good life based on health, literacy, strong communities, and access to 'enough' rather than ever more."
Please read the full article at http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/04/03-5
Dienstag, 3. April 2012
Mafia Family Charts and Leadership – 2011
http://mafiatoday.com/mafia-families-gangs-gangsters/mafia-family-charts-and-leadership-2011/
The inspiration for countless movies and games, has perhaps the image of the 'Mafia' crime family, in particular those of Sicily and Italian America, become a little too glamourised?
'Mafia' seems to be a 'cool' word in much popular culture... B.U.G. Mafia, Swedish House Mafia, Mafia Wars... but it's not cool to be a murderous profit-motivated thug, is it? Or a drug dealer, or arms trafficker?
Some of us might refer to the 1% as 'Mafia', certainly I think of European royalty in those terms... it conveys some kind of leech-like criminality.
Does the code of honour and fraternity portrayed in 'The Godfather' really make being a crime family any better?
Found this link, with charts of the present Italian families. Would be interested to know more about others... the Catholic church's relations with Italy's Mafia; Ukrainian and Russian; Yakuza; Chinese Triads, South American drug cartels? A gang like Jamaica's 'Yardies' probably wouldn't qualify... but that's what I mean. Are the more well known gangsters of Brando, Pacino, DeNiro et al really any different, just because they're movie stars?
The inspiration for countless movies and games, has perhaps the image of the 'Mafia' crime family, in particular those of Sicily and Italian America, become a little too glamourised?
'Mafia' seems to be a 'cool' word in much popular culture... B.U.G. Mafia, Swedish House Mafia, Mafia Wars... but it's not cool to be a murderous profit-motivated thug, is it? Or a drug dealer, or arms trafficker?
Some of us might refer to the 1% as 'Mafia', certainly I think of European royalty in those terms... it conveys some kind of leech-like criminality.
Does the code of honour and fraternity portrayed in 'The Godfather' really make being a crime family any better?
Found this link, with charts of the present Italian families. Would be interested to know more about others... the Catholic church's relations with Italy's Mafia; Ukrainian and Russian; Yakuza; Chinese Triads, South American drug cartels? A gang like Jamaica's 'Yardies' probably wouldn't qualify... but that's what I mean. Are the more well known gangsters of Brando, Pacino, DeNiro et al really any different, just because they're movie stars?
Montag, 2. April 2012
Kiev-Berlin Negotiations: Ukraine May Release Tymoshenko for Care in Germany - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,825217,00.html#ref=rss?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Ukraine may be prepared to release Yulia Tymoshenko, the imprisoned former prime minister, for urgently needed medical care in Berlin. The country's current president, Viktor Yanukovych, is interested in defusing international pressure, but some in his party are refusing to back down.
Ukraine may be prepared to release Yulia Tymoshenko, the imprisoned former prime minister, for urgently needed medical care in Berlin. The country's current president, Viktor Yanukovych, is interested in defusing international pressure, but some in his party are refusing to back down.
Russia Issues International Arrest Warrant For George Soros | OccupyWallSt.org
http://occupywallst.org/forum/vladimir-putin-russia-issues-international-arrest-/
Miss this one? I nearly spat coffee all over the laptop when I first saw this, last week...
Apparently, Putin has just paid off Russia's Rothschild debt, too.
Miss this one? I nearly spat coffee all over the laptop when I first saw this, last week...
Apparently, Putin has just paid off Russia's Rothschild debt, too.
Geopolitics of illegal drugs in Asia
http://geopium.org/
re: Myanmar regime and control of Asian drug traffic, this looks like it might be a mighty useful site...
re: Myanmar regime and control of Asian drug traffic, this looks like it might be a mighty useful site...
Sonntag, 1. April 2012
Burma / Myanmar
I am an alien, I have just landed here from the Pleiades.
What is this 'Burma' I see on your television news?
This 'Suu Kyi' - who?
What do I need to know?
Is Aung Sun Suu Kyi the new Nelson Mandela, or more like the Dalai Lama? (I read about them)
Does the existing regime get on with China? India? What is a 'Karen' rebel?
What are the ethnic or tribal elements of any conflict in the region? Religion - Buddhist? Muslim? History?
Why is it sometimes called Burma, and other times Myanmar - I sense British meddling again! Who sells them arms?
Who, traditionally, are their friends, enemies?
What is the economy like, is it influential? Do they have oil or resources that foreign corporations want to own?
And so on... thought, instead of Links post, we could all contribute something...?
I'm really in the dark here, like Nepal a few weeks back, or Kashmir the week after that. Please educate me where you can?
I can read plenty... but we have a great many Asian members who I often see reading the posts. This one's where you can step up and inform the rest of us...
Abonnieren
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