isn't it chilling to think if Gore won in 2000

[dontlookdown]

there would be over 900 families in this country that didn't suffer the loss of a son or a husband or father.


amazing and so sad to think the potential that this country could have lived up to had we had a different president in the White House.

[diamondsnake]

Or things could have ended up even worse. Who's to say what would have happened had we had Gore instead of Bush?

[Merf]

Originally Posted by diamondsnake

Or things could have ended up even worse. Who's to say what would have happened had we had Gore instead of Bush?

Who's to say if Florida knew how to count ballots? Or who's to say what would have happened if Dubya's brother wasn't the governor of your state?

[Keith]

and sadly, there are many more soldiers who have lost their lives because of Iraq. The media tends to report those who were killed after major combat operations in Iraq have ended.

I think those who died before major combat operations ended are just as important, as those soldiers who were initially wounded than died.

Every soldier who died because of this war should be counted. Anything less is disrespect, imho..

I agree that we don't really know where we would be if Gore had been elected, but I can't imagine things being much worse than they are now.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by dontlookdown

there would be over 900 families in this country that didn't suffer the loss of a son or a husband or father.


amazing and so sad to think the potential that this country could have lived up to had we had a different president in the White House.

I am not so sure that would have happened. I know it is not popular to think it, but the Clinton/Gore Administration was set on removing SH from power and had exercised military might to make SH comply with the UN resolutions. Moreover, Clinton and Kerry have supported W's reasons for the invasion of Iraq - they just argued against the timing of it. They say, albeit somewhat after the fact, they would have waited for the inspectors to conclude the inspections and, perhaps, have gotten more world support. Gore is also on record as thinking SH had WMD. So, while I do not think Gore would have pursued the removal of SH with the zeal that W did, I am not so sure he would not have also acted to remove him after 9/11 made it imprudent to do nothing about his non-compliance with the UN resolutions. The UN was on beard with this post 9/11 thinking with Res. 1441. Everyone recognized SH had nothing to do with 9/11. The thought process was he had WMD (which turned out to be wrong) and he could make WMD - which has mostly turned out to be correct - he could transform certain facilities in little time according to Kay. So, I fully agree the way W went about the war in Iraq was a bad thing and he should be called out for it. However, I am unsure the shared reasoning behind the basic premise for the invasion - SH refused to account for his previously admitted WMD and SH was a terrorist with, according to the 9/11 report, ties to terrorist groups including Al-Q (these were slight prior ties, but ties nonetheless, and he aided and abetted a Al-Q refugee during the Afgan. conflict). So, while again, Gore may not have rushed to war, I think it is unfair to conclude he never would have done it at all or in any manner.

Note: I make no comment on the veracity of the intelligence prior to the war. I comment only on al of our political leaders' willingness and the UN's willingness in 1441 to accept it as true. It is that somewhat bilnd reliance on faulty data that I base my conclusion that like W, Gore would have had no choice to persue some type of action against SH after 9/11 to cure the unknown and potentially highly dangerous variable security threat SH respresented and would do little to dispell. That is all I am saying. I agree the intelligence was flawed. I agree W rushed to war by strectching the truth and preying on the fears of a teriified and Muslimphobic Amercia. We agree on all of that.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by dontlookdown

there would be over 900 families in this country that didn't suffer the loss of a son or a husband or father.
amazing and so sad to think the potential that this country could have lived up to had we had a different president in the White House.

Don't forget the lives of Iraqi citizens whose lives are so unimportant to the Bush administration that they've stopped counting them.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by diamondsnake

Or things could have ended up even worse. Who's to say what would have happened had we had Gore instead of Bush?

How do you figure?

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

I am not so sure that would have happened. I know it is not popular to think it, but the Clinton/Gore Administration was set on removing SH from power and had exercised military might to make SH comply with the UN resolutions. Moreover, Clinton and Kerry have supported W's reasons for the invasion of Iraq - they just argued against the timing of it. They say, albeit somewhat after the fact, they would have waited for the inspectors to conclude the inspections and, perhaps, have gotten more world support. Gore is also on record as thinking SH had WMD. So, while I do not think Gore would have pursued the removal of SH with the zeal that W did, I am not so sure he would not have also acted to remove him after 9/11 made it imprudent to do nothing about his non-compliance with the UN resolutions. The UN was on beard with this post 9/11 thinking with Res. 1441. Everyone recognized SH had nothing to do with 9/11. The thought process was he had WMD (which turned out to be wrong) and he could make WMD - which has mostly turned out to be correct - he could transform certain facilities in little time according to Kay. So, I fully agree the way W went about the war in Iraq was a bad thing and he should be called out for it. However, I am unsure the shared reasoning behind the basic premise for the invasion - SH refused to account for his previously admitted WMD and SH was a terrorist with, according to the 9/11 report, ties to terrorist groups including Al-Q (these were slight prior ties, but ties nonetheless, and he aided and abetted a Al-Q refugee during the Afgan. conflict). So, while again, Gore may not have rushed to war, I think it is unfair to conclude he never would have done it at all or in any manner.

Note: I make no comment on the veracity of the intelligence prior to the war. I comment only on al of our political leaders' willingness and the UN's willingness in 1441 to accept it as true. It is that somewhat bilnd reliance on faulty data that I base my conclusion that like W, Gore would have had no choice to persue some type of action against SH after 9/11 to cure the unknown and potentially highly dangerous variable security threat SH respresented and would do little to dispell. That is all I am saying. I agree the intelligence was flawed. I agree W rushed to war by strectching the truth and preying on the fears of a teriified and Muslimphobic Amercia. We agree on all of that.

I think the more important question to ask is Would 9/11 have even happened under Gore?

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

I think the more important question to ask is Would 9/11 have even happened under Gore?

I was wondering when you were going to bring that up!!!

Who can say. The Clinton administration of which Gore was No. 2 did not get OBL when they had the chance if the alleged story is to be believed. Much of the planning went on during Clinton's watch and they did not get catch them. Also, there is the evid. that the planew attacks were to have happened in April (I think - maybe May) but they got post-poned. Finally, Clinton/Gore never stopped any other OBL attack, except possibly the Y2K border stop, but I am unsure if that was OBL So, who can say for sure.

I do think, however, Gore would have kept much of the same team as Clinton and that team specifically warned W's new team that OBL/AQ was the biggest problem. Yet, W's team, while still concerned about Al-Q and OBL - persued America's policy of the removal of SH apparently with more vigor than trying to catch OBL, who, unlike SH, had directly attacked America two or three times prior to 9/11. In the end, I do not think without a lucky break anyone from either side could have stopped OBL and 9/11 because there was never any chance to connect the remotely located dots, etc. But, all we can do is speculate - so I say it probably would have happened - sadly.

[Jason T.]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

Don't forget the lives of Iraqi citizens whose lives are so unimportant to the Bush administration that they've stopped counting them.

I find it amazing how those lives don't seem to matter to some people. What a troubled world we live in.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

I was wondering when you were going to bring that up!!!

Who can say. The Clinton administration of which Gore was No. 2 did not get OBL when they had the chance if the alleged story is to be believed.

Debunked and debunked again. I've posted all of that here. Use the search function if you wish. If you still don't believe me, ask yourself this: Why wouldn't he get Bin Laden? It certainly wouldn't taken some of the heat off of him.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

Debunked and debunked again. I've posted all of that here. Use the search function if you wish. If you still don't believe me, ask yourself this: Why wouldn't he get Bin Laden? It certainly wouldn't taken some of the heat off of him.

Spin - period. There is no concrete evcidence that the US knew OBL was going to fly four airplanes on a suicide mission on the morning of 9/11/01. If there is, let's see it. There were memos saying OBL wanted to use planes as weapons or something like that and that he wanted to attack the US. Well, who did not know that even without those memos - the US gets thousands of threats a day. But, to argue W knew it was going to happen that day at that time and did nothing about it is just not supported by any facts I have ever read and I assert I have read most of them

I think OBL got away. There is no concrete proof it was anything other than that. So, the rest is just speculation. I mean despite the popular OBL will be "captured" on late oct. of 2004 just in time for the election, but that theory if flawed in that W's reelection would be pretty much guaranteed by "capturing" OBL at anytime Again, to argue that W let OBL get away in Afgan. makes for good conspiracy theory, but there are no facts (and I am talking facts ) to support that. If there were such facts, don't you think MM would have SCREAMED them in F-9/11

In any event, until you or anyone else can show me the memo. that said OBL was going to blow up building by ramming airplanes into them on 9/11/01 - I am standing by my conclusion that W did not know about 9/11 and did nothing about it. True, the US was caught with its pants down and out intelligence system was flawed and tainted with territorialism all of which caused the US not to be able to connect the dots that may and I mean MAY have prevented that horrible day, much like we were during all of the other OBL terrorist attacks none of which were prevented - but to flat out say it could have been prevented and W knew this but did nothing about it and then let OBL get away for out of some loyalty to the bin Laden family is just flat out unspported by any facts I have ever read, which includes, Lord love ya, all of your prior posts

But, I still love ya anyway!!!

AND - it does not excuse the Bush Admin. for not capturing OBL - that was a failure. It also does not excuse the Bush admin. for rushing to war with Iraq, using the National Guard that was not properly trained (prison scandal is a good example), by preying on the scared out of their wits Americans. We have spent billions on billions of $$$$$ when apparently waiting a few more months perhaps could have thwarted the need for the war or at least an all out war. Again, if I had an employee who did that on some corp. scale, I would fire them immediately - who wouldn't

EDIT: I am unsure if my response actually responded to your response. On second reading, I think you meant the debunked theory about Clinton having access to OBL and not going after him. So . . . . my response was not in response to you. But, I'll let it stay for posterity sake, etc.

I agree though, the man who provided info. about OBL location was suspect as was the whole incident. But, there were other times, when we had a good bet on where he was but chose not to go after him because of the fear of violating another nation's sov. In hindsight, which is always 20/20, I wish we had

[diamondsnake]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

How do you figure?

Just because you guys like the democrat guys better does not mean that they would have done any better with all this terrorist stuff going on today. I don't have much of an opinion on politics, but it is certainly not a fact that 900 people would not have died in war had there been a different president. For all we know 9,000 people could have died had there been different leadership.

We'll never really know.

[diamondsnake]

Originally Posted by Merf

Who's to say if Florida knew how to count ballots? Or who's to say what would have happened if Dubya's brother wasn't the governor of your state?

No one.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by diamondsnake

Just because you guys like the democrat guys better does not mean that they would have done any better with all this terrorist stuff going on today. I don't have much of an opinion on politics, but it is certainly not a fact that 900 people would not have died in war had there been a different president. For all we know 9,000 people could have died had there been different leadership.

We'll never really know.

Exactly. It is all speculation. The one thing I do think is close to the truth as we can get in the speculation is Gore probably would not have rushed to war with Iraq like W did. In my opinion, his hisotry did not support that he would rush to war. But, that is speculation and that is all it will ever be