I learned of these from a recent Atlantic story. www.WarRug.com appears to be the site of Kevin Sudeith, the trader in the story. It links to pieces like this from a decade ago:

In 1969, the Italian conceptual artist Alghiero Boetti (1940-1994) designed a world map, with each country represented by the patterns of its national flag as if that were its essential identity. Boetti then commissioned weavers in Afghanistan, where he traveled frequently, to embroider the map.

This one, from 2003, has some details of Kevin Sudeith’s business:

Less than 1% of Afghan rugs have war motifs. If a weaver is going to invest six weeks in making a 4-foot-by-7-foot rug, she usually picks a pattern guaranteed to please an average buyer–somebody who doesn’t want to be intellectually challenged by a floor covering.

He has been doing this since 1998 and has yet to meet the weavers of the rugs…

Although Afghan weavers are traditionally women, Western collectors and dealers only deal with intermediaries, so it’s difficult to verify who actually makes the rugs, and under what circumstances. The U.S. Department of Labor, for example, lists those made in Afghanistan and Pakistan among the crafts that may involve child and forced labor. Sudeith himself never met the Afghan family that makes most of his rugs. “The brass ring for war rug people is to speak with weavers and hear their stories and motivations,” he confesses. “So far, it’s been impossible.”

The Obama administration still doesn’t officially acknowledge the CIA’s drone program, a stance that helps shield it from discussing the program’s most controversial elements.

See on propublica.org

Obama Administration?s Drone Death Figures Don?t Add Up – @ProPublica via http://www.propublica.org/article/obama-drone-death-figures-dont-add-up

Global race on to match U.S. drone capabilities

The NYT article dryly noted: “Friday’s attack could further fuel antidrone sentiment among the Pakistani public”

If only the Pakistanis (and the Afghans, and the Yemenis) would learn to stop worrying and love the drone!

Our poor, misunderstood drones!