High Altitude Surveillance Aircraft

What if you had an aircraft that flew at 100,000 foot altitude and could stay aloft for months at a time? Unmanned of course. What could you do with it?

Several aircraft designs of this sort are being developed right now.

The projected uses include

• Weather tracking
• Telecommunications
• Spying, "Homeland defense", and other military uses

At 100,000 feet altitude the aircraft is in a "near space" environment, and in fact humans are considered to be "astronauts" if they have flown above the 100,000 foot altitude. An aircraft at that altitude would essentially be a geostationary satellite, launched far more cheaply than a satellite, and retrievable or deployable at will.

How would this look? Try this cheesy diagram on for size.

The red dots are some kind of high altitude aircraft. At 100,000 feet they're well above the regular air traffic (35-40,000 foot ceiling) and well above the weather. There is a lot of wind, and they will need propulsion of some kind to keep them in place. The mission they perform is limited and determined by the equipment mounted on the aircraft. Want a surveillance vehicle? Mount cameras and point-point communications gear, for example.

The green and pink dots are the current sort of satellites. They are launched with rockets or the space shuttle, and fly either close to the earth or in distant geostationary orbits. The low orbit satellites move around the planet constantly, while the geostationary ones stay fixed over a single location. The geostationary satellites are at a high enough altitude that there is a significant time lag on communications relayed through the satellite.

The lines in the drawing show a potential communications network built using satellites and high altitude aircraft. This may not be a feasible design. What's obvious is that the high altitude aircraft can effectively serve as a communications link over a local area more readily than satellites. To communicate through a satellite requires careful aiming of a satellite dish antenna, and a strong enough signal to reach the geostationary satellite. Which just makes the equipment bulky and difficult to set up. Communicating through high altitude aircraft would be just like cell phone systems of today, with relatively low power transmissions and no need to aim a dish antenna.

In use as a surveillance mode, high altitude aircraft are are a much lower altitude than any satellite. This means the pictures are much clearer with these vehicles than from satellite, hence easier to interpret.

An interesting factoid. Tech Sphere Systems (see chart below) says that at 20 km altitude (65000 feet) communications gear have a 73000 square mile coverage radius. That's equal to the land area of Virginia, Maryland, Washington DC and West Virginia.

Organization	Web site	Discussion
Tech Sphere Systems	http://www.techspheresystems.com/index.html	A spherical baloon with "thrusters" that let it move about in any direction it desires. The company discusses mosly missions related to military use.
Proxity Digital Systems	http://www.proxity.com/	Developer of communications gear and other security related technology. In partnership with Tech Sphere Systems.
New Mexico State University's Physical Science Laboratory	http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=8091 http://www.psl.nmsu.edu/ http://www.psl.nmsu.edu/aas/	University laboratory with many projects under development. Many of these have to do with high altitude aircraft designs for the Military.
Aerovironment & Sky Tower Global	Aerovironment and http://www.skytowerglobal.com/	Aerovironment is a high-technogy R&D corporation that has developed many interesting products (such as GM's EV-1). The Helios aircraft is merely the latest. It is a flying wing containing several propellers powered by electric motors. The aircraft uses solar panels and fuel cells to create a vehicle that can stay aloft for 6 months at a time without refueling.

References: 

Aerovironment

References: 

Aerovironment tests a hydrogen powered airplane

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High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) - 'Eternal Planes' to watch over us

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What is Fascism, and where is it now?

"Fascism" is, at times, a popular label to throw around as a smearing technique in political stand-making. But, like I noted on the Conservatism page, the true meaning of the word "Fascism" has been lost in the process. Do you know what it means? I sure don't. I just know that Hitler's and Mussolini's regimes were said to be Fascist, but my High School History teacher didn't bother to tell me what it meant.

Let's first start with a Salon Book Review of "The Anatomy of Fascism" by Robert O. Paxton [April 19, 2004; Salon.COM; Laura Miller; http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2004/04/19/fascism/]. The book appears to be a scholarly study of Fascism, and the review attempts to be a short tutorial on what Fascism is drawing lessons from the book. At this moment I haven't read the book, only this review.

The review starts by noting that "even those who have devoted themselves to studying fascism can't quite agree on what it is", referring to the professional political scientists. So perhaps I should feel better about not knowing what Fascism is if even the professionals can't describe it very well. The book in question, "The Anatomy of Fascism", is Robert O. Paxton's attempt.

Another resource is Living Under Fascism by Davidson Loehr First UU Church of Austin (Unitarian Universalist).

The working definition of Fascism, quoted from "The Anatomy of Fascism":

"... a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."

Note that the definition doesn't include the specific acts of Hitler or Mussolini (such as building concentration camps). And it's interesting to think of the Bush family, whom some label as Fascist, yet they are the very epitome of the traditional elites. This says to me that when Hitler was receiving funding from Prescott Bush, that this was likely an example of the "uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites", and that the powerful people whom Prescott Bush represented were aiming to achieve some goal through using Hitler.

The review describes how Paxton believes Fascism, as a political system, has very high hurdles to jump in order to become the dominant system in a country. Witness the Ku Klux Klan type activities in the South and how they failed to become dominant. What allowed it to become dominant in Europe in the 1910's-1920's was this combination of events:

Take one nation demoralized and economically devastated by a massive war. Add two political forces that have failed to offer a solution to this mess: conservatism and liberalism. (Paxton uses the classic definition of "liberalism," meaning an outlook favoring a free-market economy and a vision of citizenship based on individual rights with minimal state interference in most aspects of life.) Add to that the threat of revolution from the left. "It is essential to recall how real the possibility of communist revolution seemed in Italy in 1921 and German in 1932," Paxton writes. The mostly liberal parliamentary governments running Europe at the time seemed impotent in the face of the Red Menace, and the conservatives, believers in old-fashioned hierarchies, didn't have the constituency to fight back.

Into this situation introduce a white-hot political party that can mobilize lots of people from all classes and that fiercely opposes communism. Fill it with young, angry men more than willing to show up and bust a few heads if necessary. Conservatives didn't like a lot of things about the coarse, violent, riffraffish fascists, but if teaming up with Hitler or Mussolini was the only way to protect their property and station in life from the Bolsheviks, they were willing to cut a deal or two. Plus, they believed they could control their wild-eyed new friends, who had so little savoir faire and experience in the subtle arts of governance. This, to put it mildly, was a big mistake.

This still doesn't tell us much about what Fascism is, but instead the strategy for getting into power. But then, later in the review they point out that Fascists tend to discard the rhetoric they use to get into power, and once into power concentrate on using that power. In any case, what we see here is how the traditional elites were scared by the rise of Communism, and allied with the Fascists to drive off the "Red Menace". Which is instructive into why Prescott Bush was involved with funding Hitler, then.

The book review then gets into some uses by Paxton of his definition as a yardstick to measure whether certain leaders or political movements were, or were not, Fascist. Speaking for myself, in some of his examples I think he's being too rigid in the definition.

Slobodan Milosevic: Even though his rule was brutal, involved cleansing of undesirables, nationalistic fervor and expansion of boundaries, Milosevic was the sitting President. As the sitting President he could not be a Fascist, and instead "'adopted expansionist nationalism as a device to consolidate an already existing personal rule'".

Islamist militancy: We have been told by our government leaders that the rise of militant fundamentalist Islam, with their screwy interpretation of the Koran, is Fascist. For what it's worth, Dave Emory says the same thing, pointing to historical connections between Hitlers regime and the Islamic factions some of whom are still in power today. However these groups fail to meet Paxton's yardstick because Fascist governments only rise to power in failed democracies. This is one place where I disagree, and feel he's using the definition too rigidly.

George W. Bush and his regime: Nope, not fascists, because America today doesn't resemble Germany of the 1920's. Hmm? Say what? Paxton points out that Bush's regime is encroaching on civil liberties and the like, but that doesn't complete the requirements to truly be Fascist. Sure, that's a good point. But Paxton has an example of just two governments he can call Fascist, and from that small an example he's going to define the totality of what Fascism is or can be? Where I would agree with him is that George W completely is an example of the traditional elite, and that George W cannot be a Fascist because of that, however in the campaign that elected George W as president he appealed directly to the "angry white male" voter in a way that's evocative of this observation in the review:

The first modern campaigners, fascists realized that for the less educated and attentive classes, politics was a matter of feeling not ideas. So, as Paxton writes, "Fascism was an affair of the gut more than the brain."

What does the word mean?

One avenue to understanding is to look at the word and where it comes from (from Living Under Fascism):

The word comes from the Latin word “Fasces,” denoting a bundle of sticks tied together. The individual sticks represented citizens, and the bundle represented the state. The message of this metaphor was that it was the bundle that was significant, not the individual sticks. If it sounds un-American, it’s worth knowing that the Roman Fasces appear on the wall behind the Speaker’s podium in the chamber of the US House of Representatives.

The "neo-Conservatives" or neocons

More than anything the administrations of the George's (George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush) are defined by their work with the Neo-Conservative factions. These are hard-core ideologues who have been hanging out with one another for decades holding positions of power and pushing their hard-core dreams through those positions of power.

One of their pet projects was creating a think tank called The Project for a New American Century. Through this thinktank they pushed a hardline megalomaniacial plan to, basically, use America's power to take over the world. In my thinking these people are dangerous, and will only lead America into more wars.

The second Gulf War is simply one example. Especially as it is precisely the war which they had been preaching during the Clinton presidency. That it would be the first stage in a plan (this is the public face of the agenda) to establish moderate democracy in the Middle East. Further their plan required following the toppling of Iraq with the toppling of either Syria or Iran's governments (or both). As the worlds sole remaining superpower, their theory is that "we" have the responsibility to put our stamp on the world, molding the world in the shape of our beautiful precident of open democracy.

What sheer megalomania! First, how can you force democracy on others? Isn't democracy something which a society chooses of its own accord? Then secondly, what right do we have to make decisions for other societies in how they govern themselves?

Apparently something else is at play. It wouldn't have anything to do with the stockpile of critical raw materials (e.g. Oil) that are located in the Middle East? And what of the "Earth Island" concept, namely that if you look at where the bulk of the worlds land mass is, it is in Central Asia. If you control Central Asia, you then would control the world, through having the bulk of the worlds resources.

Books

The Rise of the Vulcans: [April 8, 2004; reviewed at Salon.COM; Martin Sieff; http://www.salon.com/books/review/2004/04/08/vulcans/index.html]: Vice President Dick Cheney; Secretary of State Colin Powell; National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. What kind of people are they, these viceroys of American foreign policy who serve at the behest of the Emperor George III, second ruler of the Bush Dynasty? James Mann tries to answer that question in his ambitious new book "Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet." Yet for all its obvious high-minded seriousness -- indeed, largely because of it -- this is a frustrating though valuable read.

... It is important to note, as Mann does, that Bush's "Vulcans," named after the Roman god of heavy industry and weapons of war, are all still Cold Warriors in the recesses of their souls. The bulk of Mann's book deliberately does not deal with the changed world of 9/11 and what resulted from it. Some 80 percent of his text is devoted to the rise and shaping of his protagonists in the 35 years that preceded recent dire events.

... There is no hint here of the Wolfowitz of reality as documented already two years ago by Bob Woodward in "Bush at War," the Wolfowitz who within 48 hours of 9/11, while the hellish flames were still burning at ground zero and the death clouds had not yet dissipated over Manhattan, was already urging the president to focus on invading Iraq rather than hunting down al-Qaida for no better reason than it would be easier to do.

Proposal: Impeachment, G.W. Bush

As discussed elsewhere on this site (The Second Gulf War) it is my belief, backed up by facts, that a great disservice has been done to the U.S. by President G.W. Bush and the people in his administration. That truth has been hijacked to serve a megalomaniacal agenda. That whole nations are being trampled in a zeal for expressing political might. That the U.S. image in the world is being smeared by the very people who are leading this country. That their actions are unconstitutional, immoral, and criminal. In short, they deserve worse than being voted out of office, they deserve to be impeached and many ought to be in jail.

If lying about sex is impeachable, lying to create a war is 1000 times more impeachable.

On this page I'll go across bits of evidence and writings surrounding this view.

Justification for impeachment:

• Several lies were told by the administration to justify the war:
  • Iraq was seeking Uranium - FALSE
  • Iraq was harboring al-Qaida members - FALSE, while an al Qaeda group had established itself in Northern Iraq, they were located in the "no-fly zone" area of Northern Iraq which the U.S. was patrolling and protecting, and in which the Iraqi government had little sway. Of course since the war al Qaeda may have sent many people there to take advantage of the chaos, but that's after the U.S. created that chaos under false pretenses.
  • Iraq had gassed its civilians and was an imminent threat to its neighbors - TRUE/FALSE, while the actions Iraq had taken in the past were true, it was not an imminent threat nor did its neighbors believe it to be an imminent threat
  • Iraq had extensive chemical and biological weapons programs in operation and being hidden from the eye of U.N. inspectors - FALSE
• The launching of pre-emptive war is morally unjust, and completely unfit for a country such as the U.S.
• Launching war in Iraq increased, rather than decreased, danger to the U.S. by splitting our forces from the active and present danger
• Launching war in Iraq, while facing grave opposition by the world, greatly damages U.S. prestige and image around the world
• Launching war in Iraq has only increased the anger in some quarters against the U.S., and that it was launched under false pretenses only plays into their hand.
• Launching the war in Iraq distracted the U.S. from the real danger, al Qaeda, giving the al Qaeda operation time to reform itself. Further the war only served to justify the claims of al Qaeda and has served more as a recruitment boon for al Qaeda.
• Making so many blatant lies has hurt U.S. credibility
• Created the conditions at the Abu Ghraib (and other) prisons which led to massive abuses and torture of the prisoners. This torture is absolutely against the nature of America, and has done more than tarnish America's image around the world.
• Politicized the intelligence gathering system, bypassing the professional intelligence organizations and substituting its own organization so that the administration could better fuel its political agenda.
• Relied on information sources, such as Ahmed Chalabi, who are known thieves and liars, and whom the Administration has since had to cut off ties. The lies from these sources were used as the justification, now known to be false, for the war.

Since there is only a short time before the election, and the Congress is proving to be lax in standing up to the transgressions of President Bush, it is probably more effective to work for his defeat in this election.

Articles

Al Gore was a long-time Senator from Tennessee and one of the things he did as Senator I'm most happy for is pushing the legislation and funding that created a large expansion of the Internet (specifically, he pushed for NREN, the National Research and Education Network, in the mid-80's, which greatly expanded the Internet). He also served as Vice President under Bill Clinton, and due to a Supreme Court ruling was denied the Presidency. In late May 2004 he gave a speech blasting the Bush Administration for its ineptitude, mishandling of the war and terrorism situation, the politicization of the decision making machine, and moral degradation.

What we saw in Al Gore when the Supreme Court ruled in December 2000 was high moral behavior and adhering to the Rule of Law. What we see in this speech is the same measure of morality applied to the Bush administration, and as a result finding the Bush administration woefully lacking and behaving with outrageous amorality.

[May 26, 2004; Salon.COM; Al Gore; salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/05/26/gore_speech/index.html; also see http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/05/26/gore.iraq/index.html]

George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world.

He promised to "restore honor and integrity to the White House." Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest president since Richard Nixon.

Honor? He decided not to honor the Geneva Convention. Just as he would not honor the United Nations, international treaties, the opinions of our allies, the role of Congress and the courts, or what Jefferson described as "a decent respect for the opinion of mankind." He did not honor the advice, experience and judgment of our military leaders in designing his invasion of Iraq. And now he will not honor our fallen dead by attending any funerals or even by permitting photos of their flag-draped coffins.

... The unpleasant truth is that President Bush's utter incompetence has made the world a far more dangerous place and dramatically increased the threat of terrorism against the United States. Just yesterday, the International Institute of Strategic Studies reported that the Iraq conflict "has arguably focused the energies and resources of al-Qaida and its followers while diluting those of the global counterterrorism coalition." The ISS said that in the wake of the war in Iraq al-Qaida now has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq is swelling its ranks.

The war plan was incompetent in its rejection of the advice from military professionals, and the analysis of the intelligence was incompetent in its conclusion that our soldiers would be welcomed with garlands of flowers and cheering crowds. Thus we would not need to respect the so-called Powell doctrine of overwhelming force.

There was also in Rumsfeld's planning a failure to provide security for nuclear materials, and to prevent widespread lawlessness and looting.

...Gen. Joseph Hoar, the former head of the Marine Corps, said, "I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss."

...Retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, who headed Central Command before becoming President Bush's personal emissary to the Middle East, said recently that our nation's current course is "headed over Niagara Falls."

...Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki told Congress in February that the occupation could require "several hundred thousand troops." But because Rumsfeld and Bush did not want to hear disagreement with their view that Iraq could be invaded at a much lower cost, Shinseki was hushed and then forced out.

...It is now clear that their obscene abuses of the truth and their unforgivable abuse of the trust placed in them after 9/11 by the American people led directly to the abuses of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison and, we are now learning, in many other similar facilities constructed as part of Bush's Gulag, in which, according to the Red Cross, 70 to 90 percent of the victims are totally innocent of any wrongdoing.

Another speech by Al Gore, to the American Constitution Society at Georgetown University on June 24. In it he details the broad sweep of lies by the administration, that the administration knew very well they were lying, that the intelligence agencies had released report after report in 2001/2002 denying any connection between Iraq and al Qaeda, and that in general the administration is running roughshod over the American Constitution. The picture that Gore paints is nothing short of a constitutional crisis, that the administration in power is doing everything in its power to stay in power and exercise even more power, and that Congress is failing in its duty to stand up to the repeated abuses of power. Worse, Congress is cooperating with these repeated abuses of power, and the court system is more and more being politicized.

[June 24, 2004; Salon.COM; Al Gore; salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/06/24/gore_speech/index.html]

"Democracy itself is in grave danger"

... It is an extraordinary blessing to live in a nation so carefully designed to protect individual liberty and safeguard self-governance and free communication. But if George Washington could see the current state of his generation's handiwork and assess the quality of our generation's stewardship at the beginning of this 21st century, what do you suppose he would think about the proposition that our current president claims the unilateral right to arrest and imprison American citizens indefinitely without giving them the right to see a lawyer or inform their families of their whereabouts, and without the necessity of even charging them with any crime. All that is necessary, according to our new president is that he -- the president -- label any citizen an "unlawful enemy combatant," and that will be sufficient to justify taking away that citizen's liberty -- even for the rest of his life, if the president so chooses. And there is no appeal.

... Even though we are now attuned to orange alerts and the potential for terrorist attacks, our founders would almost certainly caution us that the biggest threat to the future of the America we love is still the endemic challenge that democracies have always faced whenever they have appeared in history -- a challenge rooted in the inherent difficulty of self-governance and the vulnerability to fear that is part of human nature. Again, specifically, the biggest threat to America is that we Americans will acquiesce in the slow and steady accumulation of too much power in the hands of one person.

... They were greatly influenced -- far more than we can imagine -- by a careful reading of the history and human dramas surrounding the democracies of ancient Greece and the Roman republic. They knew, for example, that democracy disappeared in Rome when Caesar crossed the Rubicon in violation of the Senate's long prohibition against a returning general entering the city while still in command of military forces. Though the Senate lingered in form and was humored for decades, when Caesar impoliticly combined his military commander role with his chief executive role, the Senate -- and with it the Republic -- withered away. And then for all intents and purposes, the great dream of democracy disappeared from the face of the Earth for 17 centuries, until its rebirth in our land.

... I am convinced that our founders would counsel us today that the greatest challenge facing our republic is not terrorism but how we react to terrorism, and not war, but how we manage our fears and achieve security without losing our freedom. I am also convinced that they would warn us that democracy itself is in grave danger if we allow any president to use his role as commander in chief to rupture the careful balance between the executive, the legislative and the judicial branches of government. Our current president has gone to war and has come back into "the city" and declared that our nation is now in a permanent state of war, which he says justifies his reinterpretation of the Constitution in ways that increase his personal power at the expense of Congress, the courts, and every individual citizen.

...Thus, for all these reasons, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have decided to fight to the rhetorical death over whether or not there's a meaningful connection between Iraq and al-Qaida. They think that if they lose that argument and people see the truth, then they'll not only lose support for the controversial decision to go to war, but also lose some of the new power they've picked up from the Congress and the courts, and face harsh political consequences at the hands of the American people. As a result, President Bush is now intentionally misleading the American people by continuing to aggressively and brazenly assert a linkage between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein.

Richard Clarke was a long time national security advisor, including working for both President Clinton and G.W.Bush on the National Security Council as the counter-terrorism czar. Over the past month he has single-handedly unleashed a firestorm against the Bush Presidency over the issues raised on this page. In his case he was actively warning of threats of terrorist attacks on the U.S., of the sort that happened, but the Bush administration ignored his warnings. A series of salon.com articles capture the thrust of this story.

[April 2, 2004; Salon.COM; Richard Clarke; salon.com/books/feature/2004/04/02/clarke/]

Could we have stopped 9/11? [excerpting his book "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror" or Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror]

Al-Qaida planned attacks years in advance, inserted sleeper cells, did reconnaissance. They took the long view, believing that their struggle would take decades, perhaps generations. America worked on a four-year electoral cycle and at the end of 2000, a new cycle was beginning. In the presidential campaign, terrorism had not been discussed. George Bush and Dick Cheney had mentioned the Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Russia. They had also talked about Iraq.

I met Condi Rice wandering the halls of the Executive Office Building looking for my office. She said that she had fond memories of working in the old building on the White House grounds. I escorted her to my office and gave her the same briefing on al-Qaida that I had been using with the others. ... Now Condi Rice was in charge. She appeared to have a closer relationship with the second President Bush than any of her predecessors had with the presidents they reported to. That should have given her some maneuver room, some margin for shaping the agenda. ... As I briefed Rice on al-Qaida, her facial expression gave me the impression that she had never heard the term before, so I added, "Most people think of it as Osama bin Laden's group, but it's much more than that. It's a network of affiliated terrorist organizations with cells in over 50 countries, including the U.S."

Rice looked skeptical. She focused on the fact that my office staff was large by NSC standards (12 people) and did operational things, including domestic security issues. She said, "The NSC looks just as it did when I worked here a few years ago, except for your operation. It's all new. It does domestic things and it is not just doing policy, it seems to be worrying about operational issues. I'm not sure we will want to keep all of this in the NSC."

Rice viewed the NSC as a "foreign policy" coordination mechanism and not some place where issues such as terrorism in the U.S., or domestic preparedness for weapons of mass destruction, or computer network security should be addressed. I realized that Rice, and her deputy, Steve Hadley, were still operating with the old Cold War paradigm from when they had worked on the NSC. ... Rice decided that the position of National Coordinator for Counterterrorism would also be downgraded. No longer would the Coordinator be a member of the Principals Committee. No longer would the CSG report to the Principals, but instead to a committee of Deputy Secretaries. ... Within a week of the inauguration I wrote to Rice and Hadley asking "urgently" for a Principals, or Cabinet-level, meeting to review the imminent al-Qaida threat. Rice told me that the Principals Committee, which had been the first venue for terrorism policy discussions in the Clinton administration, would not address the issue until it had been "framed" by the Deputies. I assumed that meant an opportunity for the Deputies to review the agenda. Instead, it meant months of delay.

[March 24, 2004; Salon.com; Joe Conason; http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/24/clarke/index.html]

Richard Clarke terrorizes the White House

After more than 30 years of dedicated service, including stints as the National Security Council's counterterrorism chief under Presidents Clinton and Bush, Richard A. Clarke has delivered a scathing assessment of Bush administration policy and personnel in his new memoir, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror." Clarke portrays the president and his top aides as arrogant, insular and uninformed about the changed world they faced when they entered the White House in January 2001. They did little about the growing peril from al-Qaida, despite urgent briefings from the outgoing Clinton national security team, and remained willfully ignorant despite repeated, even obsessive warnings from Clarke and CIA director George Tenet.

For almost nine months, according to Clarke, he sought approval from top Bush officials for an aggressive strategy against Osama bin Laden. Clarke writes that he could not convince National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to schedule meetings to advance an action plan against al-Qaida. Instead, George W. Bush and his most powerful officials -- Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz -- pursued an obsession with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. When the Sept. 11 attacks took place, their first instinct was to bomb Iraq -- even though Clarke and other experts had long assured them that there was no intelligence connecting Iraq to any recent acts of terrorism against the United States. On Sept. 12, Bush pulled Clarke aside to demand that he search for evidence of Saddam's involvement, which never existed.

John Dean was the White House counsel during the Nixon administration. You may have heard of him before, as the scandal that revolved around that administration was quite shocking. In the current environment we have John Dean warning in his new book, '"Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush," Dean warns the country that the Bush administration is even more secretive and authoritarian than Nixon's -- in fact, he writes, it's "the most secretive presidency of my lifetime."'.

[March 31, 2004; Salon.com; David Talbot; http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/31/dean/index.html]

Nixon became a secretive president, as his presidency proceeded, while Bush and Cheney were secretive from the outset. Nixon actually tried to reduce the excessive national security classification of documents (through a panel headed by the man who is now chief justice of the United States), while Bush and Cheney have tried to increase classification (and 9/11 does not hold up as the reason for much of it). Nixon only abused executive privilege (the power of a president to withhold information from his constitutional co-equals) after Watergate, while Bush and Cheney have sought to abuse the privilege from the outset. Nixon was never taken to court by the General Accounting Office for refusing to provide information about executive activities, while Bush and Cheney forced GAO to go to court (where GAO lost under a recently appointed Bush judge). Nixon believed presidential papers should be available for historians, but Bush has undermined the laws to make such records available to the public.

While Nixon's presidency gave currency to the term "stonewalling," Bush and Cheney have made stonewalling their standard procedure, far in excess of Nixon. In short, in every area one looks, Bush and Cheney are more secretive than Nixon ever imagined being. I have mentioned but a few.

Joe Wilson, is a former U.S. ambassador who was sent to Nigeria by the G.W. Bush administration to check stories that Iraq was trying to buy Uranium in order to make bombs. The story turned out to be false, which he told the administration. However the administration later used that same, now disproved, story as part of the justification for launching war against Iraq.

[March 16, 2004; Salon.COM; Joe Wilson; http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/03/16/wilson_iraq/index.html]

The Pinocchio presidency

... We have been in two wars over the past four years. One, against al-Qaida and the Taliban government of Afghanistan, was perfectly legitimate. It was supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people and our allies. The other, against Iraq, still provokes legitimate debate over war aims and goals, and the consequences to our national security of having opened an unnecessary second front in the war on terrorism. Our country remains under threat of terrorist attack, a threat that has likely increased as a consequence of the international anger at our attack and ongoing occupation of Iraq. Yet with the activation of our National Guardsmen and reserve forces for service overseas, many of our first responders are now over there instead of here protecting the homeland. In the meantime, the government's budget is hemorrhaging red ink with annual budget deficits in the $500 billion range, and we are piling on national debt less than a decade before the baby boomers retire and begin drawing Social Security. ...

Karen Kwiatkowski was a high ranking military officer with expertise with intelligence analysis in the field. Her last posting was in the Pentagon staffing the Office of Special Plans where much of the propoganda used to justify the war in Iraq was concocted. The mistruths she witnessed, as you will see from reading the article, made her sick and angry.

[March 10, 2004; Salon.COM; Karen Kwiatkowski; http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/03/10/osp/index.html]

The new Pentagon Papers

In July of last year, after just over 20 years of service, I retired as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force. I had served as a communications officer in the field and in acquisition programs, as a speechwriter for the National Security Agency director, and on the Headquarters Air Force and the office of the secretary of defense staffs covering African affairs. I had completed Air Command and Staff College and Navy War College seminar programs, two master's degrees, and everything but my Ph.D. dissertation in world politics at Catholic University. I regarded my military vocation as interesting, rewarding and apolitical. My career started in 1978 with the smooth seduction of a full four-year ROTC scholarship. It ended with 10 months of duty in a strange new country, observing up close and personal a process of decision making for war not sanctioned by the Constitution we had all sworn to uphold. Ben Franklin's comment that the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia had delivered "a republic, madam, if you can keep it" would come to have special meaning.

... From May 2002 until February 2003, I observed firsthand the formation of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and watched the latter stages of the neoconservative capture of the policy-intelligence nexus in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. This seizure of the reins of U.S. Middle East policy was directly visible to many of us working in the Near East South Asia policy office, and yet there seemed to be little any of us could do about it.

...Staff officers would always request OSP's most current Iraq, WMD and terrorism talking points. On occasion, these weren't available in an approved form and awaited Shulsky's approval. The talking points were a series of bulleted statements,... Saddam Hussein had gassed his neighbors, abused his people, and was continuing in that mode, becoming an imminently dangerous threat to his neighbors and to us -- except that none of his neighbors or Israel felt this was the case. Saddam Hussein had harbored al-Qaida operatives and offered and probably provided them with training facilities -- without mentioning that the suspected facilities were in the U.S./Kurdish-controlled part of Iraq. Saddam Hussein was pursuing and had WMD of the type that could be used by him, in conjunction with al-Qaida and other terrorists, to attack and damage American interests, Americans and America -- except the intelligence didn't really say that. Saddam Hussein had not been seriously weakened by war and sanctions and weekly bombings over the past 12 years, and in fact was plotting to hurt America and support anti-American activities, in part through his carrying on with terrorists -- although here the intelligence said the opposite. His support for the Palestinians and Arafat proved his terrorist connections, and basically, the time to act was now. This was the gist of the talking points, and it remained on message throughout the time I watched the points evolve.

... Will Americans hold U.S. policymakers accountable? Will we return to our roots as a republic, constrained and deliberate, respectful of others? My experience in the Pentagon leading up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq tells me, as Ben Franklin warned, we may have already failed. But if Americans at home are willing to fight -- tenaciously and courageously -- to preserve our republic, we might be able to keep it.

Re-examining September 11, 2001

The attacks on September 11, 2001 clearly is the defining moment shaping the world events that followed, and shaped the lives we followed after that day. This is just like previous attacks such as December 7, 1941 that shaped the events of those years.

Since this attack was clearly so significant an event, and provided justification for the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, it is worth re-examining that day.

In summary, it's clear from the following discussion that the publicly told story about this attack is not what really happened. We may never know what really happened because the truth is buried behind Top Secret classifications and Oaths of Secrecy by U.S. government personnell. Clearly the attacks of that day have greatly affected the following events and are being used as justification for even more acts. The acts taken with September 11 justification are not, apparently, in the best interest of the U.S. citizens, so in whose interest are they?

In the vacuum of not knowing, the mind wants to substitute many possibilities. Browsing through the Internet for related information, you see any number of theories proposed. The truth is that we don't know the truth, and that the Administration is actively lying to us. We can't leap to conclusions because we have limited knowledge, but the knowledge we do have shows the lie is happening every day. The lie is being allowed to continue through the apathy of the American citizenry in not demanding the truth.

By way of example, it's clear the publicly told story of President Kennedy's assassination is a fairy tale (lone gunman, lone bullet, my ass), and the truth is suppressed behind Top Secret classifications. And what of the broad range of theories have been concocted to explain what really happened on that day? The same is happening now as we try to unravel the truth of September 11, 2001.

See books & videos below

Timeline of events (FTW article)

The party line: Mohammed Atta and crew

We all know the official story of that day, because we lived through it and have been subjected to tellings and retellings of the official versions of events. The outline is something like this:

• Terrorist cells were actively pursuing flight training for several years.
• These cells ultimately included the 19 hijackers on the four aircraft, with Mohammed Atta being anointed with the role of leadership in this plan.
• They lived for a time in Hamburg Germany, and for other times in Florida.
• They were associated with al Qaeda, an organization led by Osama bin Laden and being hosted in Afghanistan by the Taliban.
• Both organizations had been part of the effort to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan during the 1980's.
• These organizations follow a fundamentalist and violent form of Islam.
• The named hijackers are largely from Saudi Arabia.
• The airplanes used in the attacks were Boeing 767 and 757's, commercial passenger airliners.
• The airplanes were flown into their targets (the World Trade Center and the Pentagon) by the hijackers. The flight training they had sought presumably was meant to give them skills necessary to fly airliners into buildings.
• Numerous cell-phone calls are attributed to passengers aboard these aircraft.
• In one aircraft the passengers staged a revolt and managed to prevent the airplane from reaching an unknown target in Washington DC (presumably the White House?), and instead crashing in rural Pennsylvania.
• The September 11, 2001 attack was part of a series of attacks that included the World Trade Center bombing conducted in the early 1990's, attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa, and the attack on the S.S. Cole.

Political fallout & resulting wars

The events since that day have been most alarming. They include

• Launching a war in Afghanistan, supposedly with the main purpose to find Osama bin Laden.
• The toppling of the Taliban and al Qaeda regime in Afghanistan.
• Mysterious anthrax attacks that have never been publicly solved and are no longer mentioned.
• A foisting upon the people of a so-called PATRIOT Act, whose provisions were approved in a closed door meeting, and which Congress did not know the details at the time they voted on the bill. This bill contains provisions which greatly erodes personal freedoms.
• A declaration by Congress which effectively gave the President a blank check to do anything he desired for as long as he wanted to do it. One of the costs is an $87 billion requisition to pay for the war in Iraq.
• Former Governor Ridge becoming the Secretary of Homeland Defense, a new department put into place by a President who promised to trim government but instead has overseen a huge increase in government size.
• Nationalizing the airport security industry, by a President who promised to trim government.
• Several mysterious security warnings and raised terror alert levels.
• A year of building up Iraq as a serious threat, leading to a war to topple the Iraq government. This despite Iraq having nothing to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks.
• A national forgetting of the status of Afghanistan, and the apparent resurgence of Taliban effective control over Afghanistan, due in part to being distracted by Iraq.
• A huge number of lies put forth to justify the Iraq threat and therefore justify the war.
• The Iraq war was the first unilateral act of war the U.S. has ever perpetrated. Why?

Clearly, given these events, this is a time of great importance. The attack on September 11, 2001 proved to be great grounds of justification for the Administration to take a number of acts on the minds of neo-conservatives for over a decade. Acts which the typical person on the street would not have found agreeable but for the threat of danger as demonstrated by the September 11, 2001 attack.

This danger is purported to be from "terrorists". Given the lies which the Administration is known to have said, how can anything they say be trusted. These mysterious terrorist warnings which occur from time to time, can we trust that the government is telling us the truth? By raising the terror alert level they interrupt our lives, but for what? Is it more lies, or is it credible warnings of imminent danger?

The word "terrorist" is used to broadly label a certain class of activists, but not used to label the same type of activities when its done by others. One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter, yes? Terrorism is merely an act of war, because all acts of war involve creating terror in the being of your opponent. Are the IRA or the Palestinians terrorists or freedom fighters? Depends on who you ask, doesn't it? And what about the times the CIA has used car bombs against civilian targets? Doesn't that make the U.S. a terrorist state?

Did the attack really happen as we've been told?

It may seem ludicrous to ask this question. After all, some kind of attacks did happen on the day of September 11, 2001. I, myself, witnessed the results of that attack when I visited New York City during October 2001. And there are the millions of eyewitnesses who watched the events live, either in person, or on television, as they took place on that highly eventful day.

On that day I arose and, as is usual, turned on the morning NPR news (Morning Edition; broadcast over KQED). It took quite awhile for the words to sink in, since it was so strange to hear the reporters talking of the World Trade Center having collapsed, and other buildings being in danger of collapsing. Collapse? Say what? This comes from entering a story halfway through (the attacks having occurred while I was still asleep at 6:00 AM pacific time). Needless to say, once it sank in there was a definite sinking feeling in my stomach as I realized the importance.

It cannot, therefore, be questioned whether the attacks occurred. It was live on television, and the World Trade Center is definitely missing in action.

It turns out, though, that the actual story has some holes. The holes then raise doubts as to the truth of the official story. And, in the vaccuum of lacking a reasonable explanation, all sorts of theories crop up as to what could possibly have happened. This is analagous to the abundance of theories about what really happened when President Kennedy was assassinated, another case where the official party line is false (lone gunman my ass).

What are the holes?

Cell phone calls from hijacked airplanes: We were told that many passengers on the hijacked airplanes made cell phone calls. For example, a stewardess who called into the office giving an accounting of the hijacking, ending with screams of "OHMYGOD" as she realized they were flying in low over New York City. Others called home and left messages on answering machines. The most example is the passengers of the jet which crashed in Pennsylvania, that they called home, learned of the other attacks which had already happened on the World Trade Center, realized their airplane was going to be used in another attack, and decided to take matters into their own hands apparently diverting the airplane into the ground.

The problem is that cell phones can't connect to the cell phone system from the altitude airliners fly at.

Consider a few facts of physics. Cell phone towers broadcast for a 5 mile diameter (or thereabouts). You don't notice this in the city because there are so many of the towers, and they overlap pretty well to create the illusion of seamless service. But get outside of the built-up areas and coverage drops off pretty quick, doesn't it? This happens in the upward direction just as rapidly as it does in the horizontal direction. That is, an airplane cruising at 35,000 feet is at a 6-7 mile altitude, yes? Cell phone tower transmissions don't reach that far, which means the cell phones could not have been used from the hijacked airplanes.

For experimental proof, look here:

http://physics911.org/net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6

I'll point out in passing one flaw in the reasoning those researchers follow. Most airplanes nowadays have telephone service built into most seatbacks. Not that it gets used very often, but it's there. Those telephones work from airliner altitude, presumably via some other means than cell phone towers (sattelites?). It is very possible that those telephones are the ones used to make the telephone calls, and the press is just being confused when they call it "cell phone calls".

The damage to the Pentagon too small for a 757 airplane: Basically, the hole in the Pentagon was not large enough to fit a 757 aircraft. Yet, there was no debris lying around outside the Pentagon, so if a 757 did hit the building then the debris must have somehow went fully into the building. But if the hole isn't large enough to fit the airplane, then how could the debris have gone fully into the building? Further, only one engine was found inside the building, while a 757 carries two engines, and that one engine is smaller than 757 engines.

Hmmm, you say? These two articles go over the details

http://physics911.org/net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3

http://physics911.org/net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=13

"It is alleged that on Sept 11, 2001 a hijacked Boeing 757, American Airlines Flight 77, hit the Pentagon. It is not in dispute that something hit the Pentagon wall and damaged it. Neither is it in dispute that AA 77 is missing. But was AA 77 involved in the Pentagon incident? This article presents an analysis of the physical aspects of the incident, and concludes with a brief examination of the issue of eyewitnesses."

A 757 aircraft has a 125 foot wingspan. However the hole in the Pentagon was about 65 feet wide. And that 65 foot hole was after collapse of a section of the Pentagon. As seen clearly in the photo's, the initial hole was much smaller, and the fire caused collapse widening the hole.

Therefore, what happened to the wings? Why weren't there many solid pieces found? The above two pages refer to many pictures of airliner crashes, most of which have relatively intact debris. Airplanes generally do not vaporise when they crash, instead there are lots of debris strewn about. One would expect the Pentagon crash, then, to also have a lot of debris, but it isn't to be found.

Strange pattern of debris in the Pennsylvania crash site: Normally when airplanes crash, the debris are localized to the crash site pretty well. However, the Pennsylvania crash site had debris, including human remains, scattered over many miles.

Details: http://www.911review.org/Wiki/Flight93.shtml

My take of the details presented is that it was shot down by the air force, but the government doesn't want to admit having done so.

Where were the Washington DC air defenses: Washington DC is (or should definitely be) one of the most heavily guarded pieces of airspace in the country. How could an airplane be, after two were already used against the World Trade Center, allowed to fly into that airspace and be used to attack the Pentagon? Further, why wasn't the squadron at Andrews Air Force base scrambled? Why was the squadron scrambled located in southern Virginia?

Details: http://www.911review.org/Wiki/AirForceStanddown.shtml

How could they identify the hijackers so quickly: Within a couple days we were told lists of names. How was this found? Simply by going through boarding manifests and listing anybody with an arabic name? Were the hijackers stupid enough to go by their real names? Wouldn't they have the means to have an alias name to go by? How is it that Mohammed Atta's passport was found in the World Trade Center wreckage, when it would have been in one of the airplanes, hence in the core of a fire which was hot enough (supposedly) to melt the support girders causing the buildings to collapse.

Details: http://www.911review.org/Wiki/HijackersAliveAndWell.shtml

As noted, many of the people named by the FBI were still alive and living in Saudi Arabia. In one case, the named person had died in Florida a year before in a small airplane accident.

So much is being made over Moussaoui being potentially the "20th hijacker" when, according to the details referenced above, even the FBI Director Meuller has admitted doubt over the accuracy of the hijacker list.

How could they pin the blame on Osama bin Laden so quickly: Ditto. Especially interesting is that Osama bin Laden and his group had previously been in the employ of the CIA, during the Mujahedin war to oust Russia from Afghanistan.

Consider this press release from the U.S. Senate Republican Committee:

http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1997/iran.htm (cached)

Under the heading "Three Key Issues for Examination" we see this statement:

2. The Militant Islamic Network (page 5): Along with the weapons, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and VEVAK intelligence operatives entered Bosnia in large numbers, along with thousands of mujahedin ("holy warriors") from across the Muslim world. Also engaged in the effort were several other Muslim countries (including Brunei, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Turkey) and a number of radical Muslim organizations. For example, the role of one Sudan-based "humanitarian organization," called the Third World Relief Agency, has been well-documented. The Clinton Administration's "hands-on" involvement with the Islamic network's arms pipeline included inspections of missiles from Iran by U.S. government officials.

The Third World Relief Agency in question is an earlier name for Osama bin Laden's operations. As late as 1995 the mujahedin, including Osama bin Laden, was heavily involved with U.S. secret services. Note the countries said to be involved are the same ones which, today, the U.S. is actively hunting the evil terrorist threat. Could it be that the U.S. knows where to hunt because we, the U.S., previously created these groups?

Some thoughts on war tax resistance

In early 2003 when the U.S. was being railroaded into fighting another war in Iraq, I was seriously looking at how I might protest this war. I did not agree with the war, because it was a distraction from the real problem (Al Qaeda) and didn't have good, to my eyes, justification. Since it was also tax season that's where my thoughts went. Could I protest the war by withdrawing my monetary support for the government? Could I become a tax resister, by engaging in tax resistance to protest the war?

Going to the local bookstore I did find a few books on the subject, and brought one home.

War Tax Resistance: A Guide to Withholding Your Support from the Military

War Tax Resistance: A Guide to Withholding Your Support from the Military

This book gives a very good history of tax protests over various taxes, and the legal successes and nightmares of those who attempted to do so. It sure gave me pause for reflection about the legitimacy of war tax protesting, the utility of doing so, and gave me a different route to my war protest.

First, you will run afoul of U.S. law if you neglect to pay your taxes. Consider the actual action you will have to take. If you simply do not pay your taxes, how is this to be an effective protest? Isn't effective protest when it draws peoples attention? The act of not paying your taxes isn't very visible, unless you make a big splash of it. But the more of a splash you make, the more likely you will gain the attention of law officials who will arrest and prosecute you for failure to pay taxes. Speaking for myself, my purpose does not involve being in jail.

There might be a moral high ground to take to refuse to pay taxes to support a war you find disagreeable, but if the result is jail time and nobody knowing you've taken your stand or the cost you're paying, then what's the use of taking the stand? Aren't there more effective ways to protest stupid illegal wars?

The next point of consideration is, what are taxes about? What's the purpose of taxes? For me taxes do lots more than fund the military. I wouldn't be doing this as an excuse to not pay taxes. The purpose would have been to protest the war. I agree with most of the functions of government. In agreeing with the functions of government, should I not also pay for them? Hence, should I agree to being taxed? Well, yes. Taxation is a common and relatively effective way to pay for government.

The book does cover this distinction. Many war tax protesters calculate how much of their taxes go to supporting war, and deduct that portion from their taxes. They still end up liable for paying the taxes, and there is still the question of whether it's an effective protest. The protest act of not paying taxes is private between non-tax-payer and the IRS, unless they make it public.

What I chose, in the end, is more direct. I participated in peace marches, and I began writing this web site.

I also increased my charitable donation schedule. The reasoning is that I would rather directly determine what my money is going to support, over giving it to the government, and charitable donations are a way to do this. Giving money to charity withholds it from the government, funneling it to causes I care about. Unfortunately this is an inefficient route because only around 30% (depending on your tax rate) of the money you donate to charity is returned to you in tax reduction. To totally erase your tax bill through charitable donation would bankrupt anybody.

Other resources

War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund: [http://www.nonviolence.org/issues/wtrpf/] War tax resisters in the United States have a long history of witness against war. Just as conscientious objectors have resisted military service, war tax resisters have refused to pay for war as far back as colonial times. Henry David Thoreau spent a night in jail for refusing to pay taxes for the Mexican-American War. More recently, thousands of American taxpayers have refused to pay part or all of their income taxes to protest the military priorities of our government.

War Resisters League

Tax Resistance: Whiskey Rebellion, Rate-Capping Rebellion, Tax Protester Statutory Arguments, Tax Protester Constitutional Arguments: Chapters: Whiskey Rebellion, Rate-capping rebellion, Tax protester statutory arguments, Tea Party movement, Tax protester constitutional arguments, History of tax resistance, Tax avoidance and tax evasion, Edward and Elaine Brown, Tax protester history, Farmers' movements in India, Bath School disaster, Salt Satyagraha, Boston Tea Party, Render unto Caesar..., Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments, 1669 Jat uprising, Sricity, War of the Regulation, We the People Foundation

Tax Resistance: High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Tax resistance is the refusal to willingly pay a tax because of opposition to the institution that is imposing the tax, or to some of that institution's policies. Tax resistance can be a form of conscientious objection (for example, some pacifists refuse to pay taxes that pay for war). Tax resistance can also be a variety of protest, or a technique of nonviolent resistance (for example, in India's campaign for independence led by Mahatma Gandhi)

American Quaker War Tax Resistance --and-- American Quaker War Tax Resistance

The 2000 US Presidential Election

The U.S. presidential election results were unprecidented, not just in U.S. history but likely world history. Let me give this capsule summary as follows:

• The former president, Bill Clinton, was term-limited and unable to run for election. He had been impeached but not removed from power, over a somewhat "small" issue (lying about who he had sex with and where). There was a concerted effort by the "conservatives" (now called neo-conservatives) to "get" him, and especially to elect a Republican to replace him.
• The chosen Republican, George W Bush, is the son of the president prior to Clinton (George H.W. Bush). His selection as the party candidate was a shoe-in before the primary season got underway, and was largely determined by the huge campaign donations and not the will of the voters.
• On election night the race was too close to call, with several states reporting extremely close results between Bush and the then-current Vice President, Al Gore.
• Though close in many states, only in Florida was the results close enough to be an issue. Hence, for the following month tense events happened in Florida to determine who the winner was.
• The governor of Florida is George W. Bush's brother Jeb Bush.
• George W. Bush's campaign secretary in Florida was also the Florida Secretary of State, the official in charge of ensuring a fair counting of the vote.
• There was a questionable purging in the voter rolls of convicted felons who, under Florida law, are not allowed to vote. The purging, though, was done in a slipshod manner which appears to have disenfranchised people who had never been convicted of anything.
• Convicted felons have a high probability of being Negro, and Negro's have a high probability of voting with the Democratic party, therefore a case can be made that being overly broad in purging felons from voter rolls you are unfairly impinging Democrats from voting. Indeed, of those purged, most were in counties which vote heavily for the Democratic party.
• A lot of the angst about the close election fell on the punch card ballots and their hanging chads. Indeed, in trying to determine the actual vote the election officials had to look at those punch card ballots very closely. HOWEVER, the number of felons purged from the rolls dwarfed the number of ballots having hanging chad problems, so therefore any reasonable error rate in the purged felons also would dwarf the number of ballots with hanging chad problems.