Stories from 2003-07-24

" 'A 15-year-old computer enthusiast could make these counterfeit cards in a garage and sell them,' Rubin said. 'Then even an ordinary voter, without knowing anything about computer code, could cast more than one vote for a candidate at a polling place that uses this electronic voting system.' " [more]

"The Solomon Islands government is nearly broke and issued an appeal to its neighbors this month to help rein in armed militants and criminals who are killing at will, taking hostages and extorting money." [more]

"Secretary of State Colin Powell said Bush was examining the options and was still considering sending combat troops. But the Pentagon was believed to be reluctant to commit soldiers." [more]

"Among the things Wolfowitz says the U.S. guessed incorrectly was the assumption that some Iraqi Army units would switch sides; that the Iraqi Police would help maintain security; that regime remnants would not resort to guerrilla tactics ... [and he] says it also had no idea how badly Iraq's infrastructure had been neglected over the past three decades." [more]

"With more than 60 percent of the Army's active-duty combat force deployed in Iraq, Army planners were forced to abandon six-month tours for most overseas deployments in favor of year-long assignments to sustain a force of that size. The last time the Army used year-long deployments was Vietnam, except for one peacekeeping rotation in the Balkans in 1995." [more]

"Naomi Klein expressed concern about the focus on anti-imperialist discourse, because 'it's no longer about the US building empire in a traditional sense, but rather a multinational imperialism. Europe is laughing at empire discourse because it lets them off the hook. They enjoy the idea that they're a counter-power — Chirac playing the hero of the oppressed — when what Europe is doing on the international stage is 90 percent the same as the US. What we need is an analysis of empire that understands that the forces are genuinely transnational. They can't be tied to the nation-state, and the class of global managers within the developing world are part of the same class as their northern counterparts.' " [more]