These three hang together.
CIA claims it needs more drones
The CIA has asked the White House to increase the number of drones it employs to transform it into a paramilitary force, despite recent statistics that show the majority of drone deaths are civilians.
CIA Director David Petraeus submitted a proposal that could add as many as 10 drones to a program that currently ranges between 30 to 35 of the unmanned aerial vehicles. The increase would allow the agency to continue launching lethal strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, as well as target developing terror threats in other regions of the world, according to a report first acquired by the Washington Post.
Tribes and Terrorism: Myth and Reality
Tribal areas in the Middle East are not administrated by powerful gangs, bandits, or warlords, but by representative local leadership. The authority and power of local sheikhs in Arab tribes are dependent on the consent, respect, and support of their constituents. Tribal leaders are sacked and replaced if they lose the respect of their tribesmen. Unlike the highly centralized and hierarchical Turkic and Central Asian models of tribalism, Arab tribes tend to be relatively egalitarian social organizations. Although political manipulation by the colonial and post-colonial regimes created disparities in wealth and power within and between tribes in the region, tribal sheikhs continue to perceive one another as equals endowed with certain social and material privileges. Unlike hard to reach government officials, a sheikh’s door is open to all.
Pirate Bay and Mega: Treating the State as Damage and Routing Around It
One advantage of network culture is that self-organized networks are much smarter than authoritarian hierarchies. Horizontal networks circumvent censorship faster than vertically organized institutions can impose it.
Last year, as the U.S. House and Senate considered (respectively) SOPA and PIPA legislation that would authorize the federal government to shut down websites — entirely by administrative fiat and without judicial due process — for alleged copyright infringement, the Web quickly responded with countermeasures that preemptively rendered such laws ineffectual.
Phi Beta Iota: As best we can tell, only the poor and what is left of the middle class are paying taxes. Organized crime has never paid taxes; corporations have learned how to not pay taxes; and now we have the financial crime gangs of Wall Street, their crimes legalized and the public treasury emptied to further the fortunes of the few at the expense of the many. As one way put it, there was only one winner in the two presidential debates: the Federal Reserve and the private families for which it is a front.
See Also:
Journal: Reflections on Integrity UPDATED + Integrity RECAP
Matt Taibbi: GRIFTOPIA – RECAP
Michel Bauwens: P2P State Approaches – The Partner State
