Communities of Practice – Page 910 – Public Intelligence Blog

Mafia States:Organized Crime Takes Office

Foreign Affairs, May/June 2012

SUMMARY: Around the world, criminal organizations and governments are fusing to an unprecedented degree, blurring the distinction between national interests and what suits the gangsters. Mafia states enjoy the unhealthy advantages of their hybrid status: they're as nimble as gangs and as well protected as governments, and thus more dangerous than either.

MOISES NAIM is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats Are Hijacking the Global Economy.

The global economic crisis has been a boon for transnational criminals. Thanks to the weak economy, cash-rich criminal organizations can acquire financially distressed but potentially valuable companies at bargain prices. Fiscal austerity is forcing governments everywhere to cut the budgets of law enforcement agencies and court systems. Millions of people have been laid off and are thus more easily tempted to break the law. Large numbers of unemployed experts in finance, accounting, information technology, law, and logistics have boosted the supply of world-class talent available to criminal cartels. Meanwhile, philanthropists all over the world have curtailed their giving, creating funding shortfalls in the arts, education, health care, and other areas, which criminals are all too happy to fill in exchange for political access, social legitimacy, and popular support. International criminals could hardly ask for a more favorable business environment. Their activities are typically high margin and cash-based, which means they often enjoy a high degree of liquidity — not a bad position to be in during a global credit crunch.

But emboldened adversaries and dwindling resources are not the only problems confronting police departments, prosecutors, and judges. In recent years, a new threat has emerged: the mafia state. Across the globe, criminals have penetrated governments to an unprecedented degree. The reverse has also happened: rather than stamping out powerful gangs, some governments have instead taken over their illegal operations. In mafia states, government officials enrich themselves and their families and friends while exploiting the money, muscle, political influence, and global connections of criminal syndicates to cement and expand their own power. Indeed, top positions in some of the world's most profitable illicit enterprises are no longer filled only by professional criminals; they now include senior government officials, legislators, spy chiefs, heads of police departments, military officers, and, in some extreme cases, even heads of state or their family members.

Read full article (registration required).

Measuring the Mafia-State Menace: Are Government-Backed Gangs a Grave New Threat?

By Peter Andreas; Moisés Naím

Foreign Affairs,July/August 2012

Read rebuttal commentary (Peter Andreas) and response (Moises Naim) — no registration required.

Continue reading “Moises Naim: Mafia States Robert Steele Graphic”

2013/01/06

SchwartzReport: 2012 Summary of Mainstream Media Malpractice and Self-Censorship

Corruption, Media

2012: Another Year in Mainstream Media Malpractice

amerigus Monday December 31, 2012

As we ring in 2013, it’s time to recognize how the major media buries the issues most important to Americans. With newsrooms focusing so much right now on the fiscal cliff and gun rights, it’s instructive to see nobody looking at the heart of either issue.

But even bigger issues face us, now in the fifth year of prolonged recession and the second decade of a debt-fueled war on terror. It’s more evident each year how “professional” journalists are unable or unwilling to report on reality-based news, making them ever more feeble.

The major media is not useless to you just because of billionaire ownership, it’s also the non-disclosure clauses in contracts that prevent anchors or reporters from telling the story behind the story. Final editorial control over what goes out over the air causes major behind-the-scenes conflict. Even when marquee names try to blow the whistle, the contractual gags always hold in the end.

List Only (Commentary for Each in Article):
The Fiscal Cliff
Gun Control
Obama's Non-Prosecution of Fraud
Industry Ads Trump Science in Hydrofracking Debate
FCC Unaware of Federal Communications Law
Top Media Covers Up for the “ACORN Pimp”
Ignoring the Bigger Picture: Our Constitution Under Attack
The Sixth Amendment
The First Amendment
The Fourth Amendment
“Sons of Citizens United” Creeping in Every Direction

I Said It Last Year And I’ll Say It Again This Year
I’m not sure what you saw, read or wrote that was under-reported in media this year, but feel free to share it in the comments below.

I’ll bet however, that regardless what your foremost burning issue is, whether it’s war, income disparity, health care, energy, the environment, education, civil liberties, corporate personhood, food safety, human rights, LGBT equality or anything else, I guarantee the problem stems from the bigger issue of money in politics and cannot be fixed until our elections are fixed first.

Read full article.

2013/01/052013/01/05

Berto Jongman: Informed Comment on US Drone Strikes

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, Corruption, Government, Military, Officers Call

Being read in Europe and Asia.

The Secret History of US Drone Strikes in 2012 (Woods et al.)

Chris Woods, Jack Serle and Alice K. Ross write at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism:

EXTRACTS

PAKISTAN

Drone strikes in Pakistan are now at their lowest level in five years, as Islamabad protests almost every attack. The CIA also appears to have abandoned ‘signature strikes’ on suspected militants fitting certain patterns of behaviour – at least for the present. Almost all attacks in recent months have been against named al Qaeda and other militant leaders.

As drone strikes fell in Pakistan they rose steeply in Yemen, as US forces aided a major military campaign to oust al Qaeda and other Islamists from southern cities. A parallel CIA targeted killing programme killed numerous alleged militants, many of them named individuals. Yet US officials took more than three months to confirm that American planes or drones had killed 12 civilians.

. . . . . . . .

One reason for a decline in Pakistani strikes may have been growing hostility. Some 74% of polled citizens said they viewed the US as an enemy, and uniquely Pakistan bucked a global trend to register as the only nation favouring Mitt Romney for president. In contrast, the American public appears to staunchly support covert drones – in one poll 83% of respondents were in favour of the strikes.

The British High Court was called on in April to look into US covert drone strikes and possible British co-operation, which some lawyers in the UK insist is illegal. Days before the end of the year the High Court declined to investigate. After years of inactivity, US and Pakistani courts also began to consider legal questions surrounding the campaign.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Informed Comment on US Drone Strikes”

2013/01/05

Donald Rumsfeld Supports Chuck Hagel

Corruption, Ineptitude, Military

Priceless video, one day before 9/11 — military cannot account for 25% of what it already spends.

Phi Beta Iota: We suspect–lacking direct knowledge–that a considerable portion of the “unaccounted for” funds actually went to pay for underground cities in the continuity of operations / elite fallback bunkers. This is different from the 41% documented waste in weapons systems contracts that is properly documented.

2013/01/042016/03/26

Reflections on Reform 2.3 Numbers for 30% DoD Cut over 2-4 Years

Advanced Cyber/IO, All Reflections & Story Boards, Budgets & Funding, Ethics, Government, Officers Call, Policies, Serious Games, Strategy, Threats, True Cost

It never occurred to me, when I lost the first bureaucratic battle on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) in 1992, that my innate sense of integrity [do the right thing] would lead me to resign from the Marine Corps civil service in 1993 as a very young GM-14, and spend not five, not ten, but twenty years wandering in the wilderness helping over 66 governments and over 7,500 mid-career officers get a grip on sources and methods the traditional secret services refused to consider and the traditional consumers of intelligence did not know how to do. Of all my student bodies, the USA was the worst, remaining ignorant at the leadership level, helpless at the follower level–butts in seats, no brain required. Hence, as we approach a historic turning point, the possibility that we might have a Secretary of State and a Secretary of Defense that can actually get a grip on reality together, I thought it might be useful to offer up three things I have learned during my 20-year walk-about:

Continue reading “Reflections on Reform 2.3 Numbers for 30% DoD Cut over 2-4 Years”

2013/01/042013/01/04

Gold Transformer: Mother, Should I Trust the Government?

Commerce, Corruption, Government

Mother, Should I Trust the Government?

James Quinn

Financial Sense, 01/02/2013

EXTRACT 1:

The white collared psychopathic criminals on Wall Street reaped billions in profits, paid themselves millions in bonuses, and cost taxpayers trillions when it all blew up in 2008. The ruling elite have added $6 trillion to our national debt and their central banker has added another $2 trillion to our ultimate tab, while providing free money to their Wall Street bank owners. They realize their efforts to restart the exponential growth engine have failed. They gutted our productive manufacturing based economic system by shipping the blue collar jobs overseas to Chinese slave labor facilities, replaced workers with machines, stimulated consumption with unlimited distribution of high interest debt, and allowed conglomerates to drive small business owners out of business with their cheap foreign sourced goods, all in the name of capitalism. The plan worked so well that real wages haven’t risen in 40 years, inflation has destroyed the purchasing power of the middle class, 47.7 million people are dependent on food stamps to survive, and the masses can’t even afford the cheap slave labor produced trinkets anymore. There is too little cash, too few jobs, too much debt, too many takers, too few makers, too many bankers, too much delusion, and too few resources to sustain the unsustainable. We have entered the end stages of a ravenous locust swarm. The fields have been stripped barren.

EXTRACT 2:

Kyle Bass recently revealed a fact about our government leaders:

“They’re not going to tell you that a collapse is coming. You’re going to have to see it for yourself. The government’s never going to tell you that it’s going to happen.These guys are never going to tell you the truth, because they can’t tell you the truth. Their job is to promote confidence, not to tell you the truth.”

We need more people to respond to Roger Waters’ question, “Mother, should I trust the government?” with this answer before we can begin to tear down the wall that seemed too high.

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” – George Orwell

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: A long, informed, graphic-illustrated review of the past fifty years.

2013/01/042013/01/04

David Isenberg: Greg Treverton on Intelligence Reform in the USA — Garbage In, Garbage Out

Corruption, Government

Intelligence Gathering and Reform: The Case of the United States

According to Gregory Treverton, US intelligence reform remains a work in progress. While reorienting the FBI and creating the National Counterterrorism Center represent progress, establishing the Department of Homeland Security and the position of Director of National Intelligence do not.

By Gregory Treverton for the ISN

Reshaping the FBI
NCTC
Creating the DNI
DHS and “Information Sharing”

Real full article.

Phi Beta Iota: The article is a sad mix of fluff and repressed criticism. There has been no substantive improvement in US intelligence, only a doubling of the budget and a doubling of the number of useless senior executives who have no idea how to actually “do” decision support in the public interest. The day will come when the US cannot afford to be without intelligence and integrity. Until that day comes, the US IC will remain 96% fraud, waste, and abuse.