Wired Opinion: Cyberwar Is the New Yellowcake

By Jerry Brito and Tate Watkins – “Today’s cyber criminals have the ability to interrupt life-sustaining services, cause catastrophic economic damage, or severely degrade the networks our defense and intelligence agencies rely on,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said at a hearing last week. “Congress needs to act on comprehensive cybersecurity legislation immediately.”

Yet evidence to sustain such dire warnings is conspicuously absent. In many respects, rhetoric about cyber catastrophe resembles threat inflation we saw in the run-up to the Iraq War. And while Congress’ passing of comprehensive cybersecurity legislation wouldn’t lead to war, it could saddle us with an expensive and overreaching cyber-industrial complex. more> http://is.gd/gDGWQ5

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For Sale, Cheap: The Things You Need to Invade a Nation

By Elizabeth Dwoskin and Gopal Ratnam – As the Army’s logistics chief for the Iraq drawdown, it’s U.S. Army Major General Thomas Richardson’s job to tally all the equipment and supplies the Pentagon has shipped to Iraq over eight years of war, and to make sure none is inadvertently left behind on Dec. 31, the day the U.S. officially clears out. When he took the assignment in September 2010, the Army had identified just over 2 million items at 92 bases that had to be sent back to the U.S., moved to Afghanistan, sold, given away, or destroyed. He estimated it would take about 20,000 truckloads to get all of it.

Richardson’s bigger challenge is finding takers for all the things the military no longer wants. An Alabama school district happily took eight used trombones and clarinets. U.S. towns and counties can petition the Pentagon for some of the leftovers and pay only shipping costs. Cleveland County, Okla., paid $42,000 for a used Caterpillar (CAT) bulldozer that is now clearing roads and public parks. A volunteer fire department in South Dakota bought advanced firefighting equipment it otherwise could not have afforded… more> http://twurl.nl/lgbxv3

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Romney is the Hillary Clinton of 2012

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By Niall Stanage – That may seem an ill portent, given that Clinton lost the nomination. But being Clinton in 2012 might be better than being Clinton in 2008.

Ideologically disparate though the two politicians are, Romney’s candidacy this year shares many of the vulnerabilities exhibited by then-Sen. Clinton four years ago. That is enough to give pause to anyone who sees him as the inevitable Republican nominee.

Clinton entered the campaign having upset the Democratic grassroots with her October 2002 Senate vote authorizing President Bush to use force in Iraq. more> http://tinyurl.com/6lhhbj5

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