Salon's latest silly counterfactual: Gore might have invaded Iraq too after 9/11

[Proud Liberal Dem]

http://www.salon.com/news/al_gore/index....ident_iraq

I don't know what the writers (in this case, Steve Kornacki) at Salon.com are smoking but apparently Mr. Kornacki thinks (because-according to a poll he cites apparently a lot of people seem to believe that things wouldn't have been better/different last decade if Gore had been POTUS) that Gore might well have also invaded Iraq just like Dubya did in the wake of 9/11.
:rofl:

I don't know about anybody else but I can't imagine a scenario where a President Gore would have ever ordered an invasion/occupation of Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the wake of 9/11 (that's even presupposing that 9/11 would have actually happened, of course). There is almost no doubt in my mind whatsoever that we would have gone to Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 but there's no reality I can imagine where Gore would've suddenly decided to put the hunt for OBL and his Taliban allies on hold like Bush/Cheney did and instead direct our nation's resources towards inventing a case for going to war against Iraq. Heck, even Powell and Rice, when questioned about Iraq before 9/11, did not believe that Iraq posed the kind of threat that it amazingly became after 9/11 according to Bush/Cheney. Would a Secretary of State and National Security Advisor in a Gore Administration have told him something similar/different?

Sure, Gore, like Clinton, supported the goal of removing Saddam from power but that doesn't mean that they were interested in using military force to overthrow him and his regime. That was a big part of the reason that neocons like Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, et. al were furious with Clinton- that he did not want to go along with their agenda of invading Iraq/overthrowing Saddam. My belief is that Gore would have likely advocated keeping Saddam contained and boxed in by the no-fly zones. To the extent that Gore might have done *something* about Saddam Hussein, he might have pushed to get the Weapons Inspectors back in. However, as we know now, Clinton had already smashed Saddam's WMD program by 1998, so any real threat Saddam Hussein posed to the rest of the world was gone. If Bush, Cheney, et. al had cared to listen to the UN Weapons Inspectors in 2002-2003, they would have learned the same thing and had no real justification to invade.

Salon.com is really going down the tubes.

[MissHoneychurch]

1. I do believe

that with a President Gore we would live in a much friendlier world now.

[TheWraith]

44. I think that that is a staggeringly huge understatement. :)

And yet, some people continue to justify the Nader 2000 disaster, and regurgitate the exact same "No difference between Democrats and Republicans!" mantra that handed the White House over to Bush.

[Fumesucker]

2. Gore would have been impeached within days and removed from office..

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. Yeah

Gore's job approval numbers would have been a frosty -1000 and he'd have been thrown out of office leaving us with President Lieberman to realize the neocon's goals.

[Fumesucker]

6. Which basically means that Iraq would have been invaded if Gore was POTUS on 9/11..

It just would have been President Lieberman who did the deed.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

9. True

just not in the way the article was suggesting.

[DURHAM D]

17. more horse manure

[Fumesucker]

19. You don't think Holy Joe would have invaded Iraq?

Have you heard the story about him in the theater with a war movie playing?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/02/12/070212fa_fact_goldberg

Lieberman likes expressions of American power. A few years ago, I was in a movie theatre in Washington when I noticed Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah, a few seats down. The film was “Behind Enemy Lines,” in which Owen Wilson plays a U.S. pilot shot down in Bosnia. Whenever the American military scored an onscreen hit, Lieberman pumped his fist and said, “Yeah!” and “All right!”

[Uncle Joe]

21. Gore wouldn't have been removed from office through any impeachment.

So the scenario is a major stretch especially after Clinton.

[Fumesucker]

22. Right...

Gore allows the nation to suffer its worst attack since Pearl Harbor and the Republicans don't impeach him.

:eyes:

[Uncle Joe]

27. 1. I don't believe the attack of 9/11 would have occurred under Gore's watch.

2. Even if 9/11 had occurred, Gore would have rallied the nation, just as FDR did after Pearl Harbor, and Bush did after 9/11 but he wouldn't have misdirected our anger and energy against Iraq and squandered the good will directed toward our nation from the rest of Earth.

3. The Republican House wouldn't have impeached during a time of war but even if they had, the Senate wouldn't have convicted.

[Fumesucker]

29. Gore would have rallied the left..

And maybe some of the moderates..

The right would have had a meltdown that would make Fukushima look like a snowflake melting.

[Uncle Joe]

32. The right would have tempered their meltdown, because

the left, moderates and even some conservatives would have rallied around the flag and the radical right would not have bucked that strong political trend for some time, probably until the following election season.

[Fumesucker]

36. And whose side would the M$M be on?

"Some people say that President Gore should be impeached, we bring you a round table discussion between Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson and The Mustache of Understanding.. Right after the break."

[Uncle Joe]

38. The corporate media would have rallied around the flag as well

at least until election season, and I do believe most of the Internet would have supported Gore during such a time as well.

There simply would have been no major driving political force from the executive branch promoting Iraq as a culprit, the CIA would never have been pressured or intimidated to doctor or spin their evidence as was done under Vice-President Cheney coming down to their headquarters to get the pre-determined result that he wanted. That's never been done before.

[Fumesucker]

39. Rally around the flag I agree..

But Gore would already have been seen by the right and by the right enabling M$M as not a legitimate holder of the office, impeaching him for allowing a massive attack on the "homeland" would have been a small step.

Good grief, Obama won in a landslide and he's not seen as legitimate by a big chunk of the population and the M$M or any Republican politicians.

[Uncle Joe]

40. There will always be opponents to any political leader but it all boils down to whether

there would have been enough support to impeach and convict and I don't see that scenario in any way taking place had Gore been in office.

Had Gore been President in office, he would have used the bully pulpit and if the corporate media were so foolish as to attack him during a time of crisis, he would have used the growing Internet to end run them as well.

Gore knew the workings of Washington D.C. having grown up as a Senator's Son, he wasn't the political neophyte that Obama was and I believe Gore would have more effectively used the bully pulpit and executive powers to make his case.

[Fumesucker]

45. I hope you're not one of those who mocks when people mention Obama using "The Bully Pulpit"..

Because I've seen a lot of that going around..

If Gore was such a transcendent politician then perhaps he might have won his home state?

[Uncle Joe]

51. Gore was a transcendent political leader.

He never lost a race in Tennessee prior to 2000, elected four times as a Congressman, twice as a Senator and twice as Vice-President he carried the state.

There are multiple causes for the loss of his home state in 2000.

1. He was carrying Clinton's integrity baggage by association, this meant more in the moderate to conservative states where the margin of error for Democrats is smaller, Clinton never had to run again after he looked the American People in the eye and lied to them. Gore would've been better off had Clinton either told the truth or decided to keep his mouth shut, particularly after Bill had Al stand up for him on the White House Lawn during the height of the crisis.

2. Ultimately Gore's transcendent political leadership cost him in Tennessee as well because he made a powerful enemy in the corporate media, precisely because he did champion opening the Internet for the people. As the Internet grew in power and influence the corporate media came to view it as a threat against their existing top down, one way business model of controlling information, viewing it as threat against their own power and wealth. They didn't want a strong Internet advocate for the people's voice in the White House and thus began their near two year "War Against Gore" swamped with slander and libel, ie: "Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet" etc. etc. instead of actually giving the man credit for his vision and legislative achievements in strengthening the American People's freedom of speech power, like nothing since the First Amendment was adopted over 200 years ago. The corporate media betrayed the American People's best interests using slander and libel against Gore, they would particularly ramp it up when momentum was on his side and he started pulling ahead of Bush.

In short the corporate media; played the enraged Zeus to Gore's Prometheus but they took bites from his credibility, combined with Clinton's integrity scandal this hurt Gore in the moderate to conservative states more than anything else and I believe played a deciding role in his loss of Tennessee. Gore's greatest opponent wasn't Bush, Nader or the Republican controlled Supreme Court, it was the institution known as the corporate media.

I'm not sure what you mean by "mocking the Bully Pulpit?"

I do know Gore never had the Bully Pulpit as President but I'm quite certain had he come to power as President, he would've used it quite effectively especially for the causes he's passionate about, ie global warming climate change and the continued strengthening of the American People's freedom of speech, First Amendment power via the Internet.

[DURHAM D]

16. horse manure

[Fumesucker]

20. Your rebuttal is both eloquent and persuasive..

Your command of rhetoric is nearly equal to your marshaling of facts.

[DURHAM D]

28. You think you are stating facts - really?

Ok - Your "rhetoric" is total horse manure.

[Fumesucker]

34. So you don't think the Republicans would have impeached Gore in a 9/11 situation?

And you furthermore believe that Joe Lieberman as POTUS would not have invaded Iraq.

You have a far higher opinion of Republicans and Joe Lieberman than I do.

[Xipe Totec]

3. If Gore had been president, there would have been no 9/11 nt

[lame54]

4. agreed

[DURHAM D]

18. +1

[stevenleser]

23. That is the point that should be pushed. I agree and for multiple reasons. No 9/11 with Gore

There would not have been a 9/11 with a President Gore.

#1 - Gore would have appointed a National Security Advisor that would have taken Al Qaeda threats seriously, as the Clinton administration did and tried to advise the incoming Bush team to do.

#2 - Gore was the architect of the 1996-1997 recommendations on improving Airline security that was fought tooth and nail by the airline lobby with help from the Republicans. On hearing of threats from Al Qaeda to attack the air travel infrastructure, Gore would no doubt have put some of those in place on an emergency basis. Many of those recommendations were put into place by the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11, without giving any credit to Gore of course.

I have believed for some time that with Gore in the White house there would not have been a 9/11.

[Major Hogwash]

31. Ain't that the truth! And without a 9/11 incident, there would have been no invasion of Iraq.

Your point is well taken.

[deutsey]

49. That's exactly what I thought

:thumbsup:

[Raster]

53. If Albert Gore, the legally and lawfully elected President of the United States...

...had been allowed to take office, there would never have been 9/11. 9/11 NEEDED cheney*/bush* to reach fruition. They were part and parcel of the entire sordid affair.

[aquart]

7. Kornacki?

Just another thing he's completely wrong on based on his utter misunderstanding of people and events?

Not a huge surprise.

[Major Hogwash]

33. Rhymes with "ass cracky".

Where he has his head stored.

[blindpig]

8. Probably so...

Party has got nothing to do with it, the necessities of national capital, everything. The current Administration a case in point.

[Fleshdancer]

10. My brain refuses to process this much crap all at once

The idea that Gore would bomb a completely unrelated country because of 9/11 makes no sense. Without the desire to take out the bad man who went after his papa (or to do what PNAC desires), WTF would be Gore's ultimate motivation for ignoring the people who were responsible for 9/11 and squander lives and resources on Iraq? A country who's leader annoyed us every now and then, but really wasn't much of a threat to us and who was not responsible for the largest act of terrorism in American history? Iraq would not be the priority of the Gore administration the way it was under the Bush admin. Who knows, maybe under a Gore admin, Iraq could have experienced their own revolution like Egypt, Libya, etc?

Second, it's ridiculous to assume 9/11 would have happened under different leadership. We'll never know obviously, but I can't help but wonder about all the things that would have been done differently prior to the terrorists stepping foot on the planes. Maybe Gore would have had the courage to continue to go after al qaeda the way Clinton did when the repubs claimed he was "wagging the dog". Maybe he would have taken the whole "OBL committed to attack inside the US" report seriously? Seriously enough to maybe not take off the entire month of August for example. Unfortunately, we'll never know.

[FormerDittoHead]

11. The question is would Gore have lied and lied about the WMD's??? I think not.

Our invasion of Iraq didn't happen in a vacuum.

Congress had to vote on giving Bush that power, and he (the Cheney administration) got that ONLY by lying about the WMDs and their support of terrorism.

If we had been told the truth as it was known at the time (they didn't have WMDs and weren't an active agent in supporting Al-Qaeda) there is NO WAY the American people would have supported the war.

The war was to PROTECT US from an IMMINENT attack. It wasn't that long ago. I remember the duct tape, the plastic sheeting, etc.

I recall hearing an interview from someone in the CIA how Cheney came in (physically) to Langley and basically took over to coordinate, as the British would later call it, the "fixing" of the intelligence to support the WMD lie.

So... NO FUCKING WAY Gore would have, COULD have done the same thing.

[vi5]

12. Sorry, but I think there's something to that...

We can all agree how great Al Gore is now, and how he was robbed, and how much of a wonderful figurehead he is now.

But the fact is that he (like most if not all electable, national level Democrats) had and has a tendency to try and pre-empt criticism by over compensation. Gore did it on numerous occassions (most notably picking Lieberman as his VP), and Obama does it time and again.

So, no I don't think that it's so far out of the realm to think that it might have been the case. It may not have been for false claims of WMD's, but there's just no way to say that it's ridiculous or out of the realm of possibility.

Clinton wasn't exactly Mr. Peace Maker with Iraq, and look at how Obama has bought into the National Defense State way of thinking.

[gkhouston]

13. Interesting that this is coming up just as Cheney's promoting his book.

I never knew that August is Revisionist History Month.

[Luminous Animal]

14. Iraq "represents a virulent threat in a class by itself

As far as I am concerned, a final reckoning with that government should be on the table. ... The real question is not the principle of the thing, but of making sure that this time we will finish the matter on our own terms." - Al Gore

http://articles.cnn.com/2002-09-23/politics/gore.iraq_1_gore-challenges-military-strike-military-action?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS

[Uncle Joe]

24. I clicked on your link but the quote you attribute to Gore is not there?

But this is.

Re-entering America's foreign policy debate, former Vice President Al Gore warned Monday that President Bush's doctrine allowing for a "pre-emptive" strike against Iraq could create a global "reign of fear."

(snip)

While backing Bush's overall goal of ousting Saddam and eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, Gore questioned the timing of a military strike, as envisioned in the proposed resolution he's sent to Capitol Hill.

"President Bush now asserts that we will take pre-emptive action even if we think the threat we perceive is not imminent. If other nations assert the same right then the rule of law will quickly be replaced by the reign of fear -- any nation that perceives circumstances that could eventually lead to an imminent threat would be justified under this approach in taking military action against another nation," Gore said.

"An unspoken part of this new doctrine appears to be that we claim this right for ourselves -- and only for ourselves," he said.

[Luminous Animal]

37. Page 2 of the article

[stevenleser]

25. Many of us agreed at the time including me. But I would not have gone to war and neither would Gore

Gore WOULD have pushed for the resolutions and the weapons inspectors to go back into the country, and when they didnt find anything, he would not have gone to war. No Democrat would have with the possible exception of Lieberman.

[demwing]

15. Sure, he MIGHT have

but he MIGHT have declared war against Uranus as well

you just can't tell these days!

[Renew Deal]

26. Test

[BeFree]

30. Headline, Aug. 7. 2001: We wish

President Gore today issued an all points bulletin for suspected foreign terrorists who are in this country to use hijacked airplanes as a terror tool.

Having been briefed yesterday by the CIA concerning the terrorists, President Gore has taken immediate steps to round up the foreigners who may be plotting against us.

Repuglycans in the Senate claim he is just fear-mongering.

"A great tragedy has been averted thanks to our prompt action on the intelligence delivered to me toady" said President Al Gore in a special press conference yesterday, on Aug. 7. 2001.

[MadHound]

35. I don't know if Gore would have gone after Iraq like Bush did,

But he would have gone after Iraq in one form or fashion, much like his mentor Clinton did, with sanctions, thrice weekly bombings, and yes, perhaps military invasion.

There was too large a pool of oil at stake.

[Uncle Joe]

43. Gore would have aggressively worked to wean our nation away from oil dependence.

I believe Gore would have supported Saddam Hussein's ouster but not in invading Iraq, there was simply no cause, no preeminent threat from that nation.

Gore understood far better than Bush or Cheney the geo-political complications of the Middle East.

My own gut feeling is that if Gore had been President in Office, the Arab Spring may have taken place sooner than it did.

[MadHound]

50. I don't know about that,

While Gore and his family weren't as oil soaked as Bushco was, there is a lot of oil company money that flows through his family, and flowed into his campaign. He received several million from various oil companies, lobbyists, PACS and individuals, enough money that any plans he had made for going green would have to be severely curtailed.

[Uncle Joe]

52. I'm certain of it.

One can't help to which family they're born into, Gore sold all the Occidental Shares in the trust which his father owned.

Gore was sounding the alarm re: global warming long before and after the selection of 2000.

I believe Gore knows better than any political leader the growing catastrophic threat posed by global warming, climate change and his policies would have aggressively represented his beliefs.

[Xithras]

41. Bill Clintons policies led to the deaths of nearly a million Iraqi's.

Clinton didn't need to invade them to make their lives miserable. He simply deprived them of food, medicine, technology, clean drinking water, and pretty much everything else needed to maintain a modern society. The UN put the death toll of the sanctions at nearly 1 million people, including several hundred thousand children. It's also now public knowledge, and former SoS Madeline Albright has admitted, that the sanctions were only kept in place because of U.S. pressure. In her own words, " I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it."

According to the WHO, the total Iraqi death count due to warfare during the Bush regime was up to 223,000 people.

Al Gore promised to continue Bill Clintons policies. Given the numbers above, many Iraqi's might argue with the premise that they'd have been better off without the invasion. I opposed, and still oppose, the war, but this idea that Clinton/Gore would have treated the Iraqi people better is a rewriting of history. The Clinton policies were a nightmare for average Iraqi's.

[EstimatedProphet]

42. Get serious

Does no one remember the Iraq invasion? It went like this:

9/11
Bush: Iraq did it!
Everyone else on the planet: No, Iraq didn't do it.
Bush: Yes they did! They have weapons of Mass Destruction!
Everyone else on the planet: No, they don't.
Iraq: No, we don't. Look if you don't believe us.
Bush: Yes you do!
Inspectors: Nope, not there.
Bush: Well fuck you inspectors! You're getting out because Iraq has WMDs!
Inspectors: They don't.
Bush: You're fired!
UN Security Council: Iraq is led by a jerk, but they don't have WMDs.
Powell: Iraq does too have WMDs (imlying) and here's proof (imlying) in this satellite photo (imstilllying)
Bush: See!
UN Security Council: Wrong.
Bush: Iraq is trying to build a nuke!
Valerie Plame: No they aren't.
Bush's fixer: Fuck you and your cover.
Bush: See! I told you!

Do you really think Gore would have done this? The thing that sticks out in my mind the most about the whole fiasco was how asinine the rationales became for invading Iraq. The bush administration was acting like a 3 year old trying to wheedle a cookie out of a parent that keeps saying no. Every day they would make up a completely different rationale or bring a different "fact" to light, and every time the conclusion was "We have to invade Iraq now". They would have drawn that conclusion even if Iraq had surrendered before the fact.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

48. +1

Love your post!

[Cleita]

46. I stopped reading some time ago. It's like Ruppert

Murdock is a ghost editor there. There probably would have been no 9-11 under Gore. He probably would have listened to the intelligence stating that bin Laden was planning an attack.

[Overseas]

47. Ridiculous. And I don't think Gore would have ignored the Aug 6 PDB.

nor would he have ignored the other warnings received in 2001.

His national security teams would have continued their vigilant monitoring of OBL.

There are many areas in which a Gore Administration would have proceeded differently.

[stevenleser]

54. Exactly, as I said upthread n/t