another thing i read in the gangster warlords is how intertwined the gangsters and the politicians are, and often the politicians want the gangs to prosper to destabilize the population and keep profits raging, see the drug war, the terror war. it's business. and they actually put the career criminals in with the dissidents in prison, so that the career criminals get a social consciousness along with an endorsement for murder for profit, just like our licensed warlords in the war of terror. it's a wild world, a free market. this book wasn't as brilliant as joshua oppenheimer's film the act of killing, but it highlights the same characters, and the dance of death between politicians and drug warlords. it's the same killing field, the same that spawned obomba in indonesia, but spread to many more markets. including u.s.