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Would Gore have gone to war?
Over at Pajamas Media, Roger Simon argues that had Al Gore won the presidency in 2000, history would not be so different: “… he would be just as knee deep in the War on Terror as George Bush is right now and fighting it in more or less the same manner. He would be in Iraq.”
Yes, you read me correctly. Forget the Nobel Prize and the global warming Oscar, if Al Gore had been elected in ‘00, he’d be burning excess Air Force One fuel, jetting behind the lines to Anbar Province, dealing with an ornery (possibly antiwar) opposition party and doing his best to ignore wretched poll numbers, a hostile media and whacko Code Pink demonstrators (not to mention his quondam allies on the Moveon-Kos end of his party who by now would be calling for his impeachment).
You may not believe me, but I don’t even think it’s much of a stretch, certainly no grand fictional scheme à la Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America in which Lindbergh defeats Roosevelt in the election of 1940 and the U. S. opts out of World War II. The Clinton-Gore administration wasn’t the least bit afraid to use force. Erratic about it – maybe. Insecure about it – maybe. But pacifist? Ask Milosevic.
Continue reading here, and then weigh in: Would Gore have gone to war in Iraq?
back to top38 Comments to “Would Gore have gone to war?”
Unfortunately, we’ll never know. This is the GOP’s war.
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Would Gore have gone into Iraq? Are you kidding me? No…seriously, are you kidding me?
Why would Gore have cooperated with the neo-conservative forces that made the case for the war in Iraq?
This war was made by Zalmay Khalilzad, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and other former members of the Project for the New American Century. A group that authored an open letter condemning the Iraq policies of the Clinton/Gore administration. There is historical evidence that Gore was in opposition to the designers of this war and their policies for Iraq since 1998!
Roger Simon is does not know what he’s talking about, and he’s right; I don’t believe him. You shouldn’t either.
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Hamachi (#1) writes:
“Unfortunately, we’ll never know. This is the GOP’s war.”
No, Hamachi, this is the military’s war. The rest of America is either at the mall, or trying to manipulate the war to regain the White House.
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Gee Michael, thank you for setting me straight
Enjoy the mall.
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Luke – The radicals righties like Teddy K and Gore were bloviating about the threat of Saddaam (and his ties to terror and pursuit of WMDs) right up until we actually did anything about him.
The difference might just have been that we would have roared in – and then fled as soon as anyone got hurt and the poll numbers turned.
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Hamachi (#4),
You’re welcome.
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I read the remainder of the article and didn’t find anything in it to make me believe the author’s thesis. I voted for Bush twice, but I must confess to being bitterly disappointed in him. We can speculate on whether we would now be in Iraq under a President Gore, just as we can debate about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. To what end?
This much is fact: Bush chose to engage us in an optional conflict that has turned out to be (so far) a huge mess. The author states that Bush “gets to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. History plays its tricks.” What? The war in Iraq was not forced on him, he chose to engage us in it. As the decider he has himself to blame for how it has turned out (so far).
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Luke – “There is historical evidence that Gore was in opposition to the designers of this war and their policies for Iraq since 1998!”
Just because I’m curious Luke, would you please provide links/evidence of this “historical evidence.” I don’t remember Algore as being much of a voice for the Clinton administration when it came to foreign policy topics such as Iraq and what to do with/about Saddam. I remember him as more of a second or third level echo for someone else or just a “me too” guy.
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Gore would definitely have invaded Afghanistan, and I think he would have dealt more severely with Pakistan. But I very sincerely doubt that he would have entered the war in Iraq. He simply does not share the neo-cons’ disasterous vision of imposing western-style democracy by force in an unwilling region.
We would be much better off under President Gore.
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Alan (#7) writes:
“The war in Iraq was not forced on him, he chose to engage us in it.”
Not exactly so Alan. The President is not a dictator and this is a republican democracy. He made his arguments for the war and the Congress agreed, including many of those who now try to hide their initial support.
I still agree with the President’s initial arguments and the initial decision. The fact that the conflict has turned out to be difficult does not alter that. The difficulties are great fodder for Monday morning quarterbacks and political opponents. Yet I do not allow them to turn me into a sunshine patriot.
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A Gore administration would not have given Cheney, Khalilzad, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, et all the access to decision making power and the global stage that made this war happen!
Saying Gore would have put us in Iraq is patently idiotic.
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I’ll confess that I did not read the article, and frankly I don’t care to. It sounds completely pointless to hypothesize about what Gore would or would not have done if elected.
Sounds like an attempt to justify Bush’s blunders.
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I agree, Luke.
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Interventionism has been default American foreign policy since Woodrow Wilson’s call to make the world “safe for democracy”. Given that proclivity on the part of those making policy in Washington (Democrats or Republicans) there is plausibility in Simon’s assertion, although mitigated somewhat by the fact that Gore actually spoke against the invasion while many of his colleagues in the Democratic Party were calling for Saddam’s head and a democratic remaking of Iraq
I think the dynamics would have radically differed had Gore been president, since, as mentioned above, many of the longtime advocates for “regime change” in Iraq specifically were a group of neocons who I could envision pressing Gore as president to invade, giving pause to Gore by virtue of strong advocacy from the “right”.
But this is really all very speculative. Neocons are simply big government expansionist liberals when it comes to foreign policy and they do have allies on both sides of the aisle, so who’s to say a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11 (after pounding the Taliban ) might have been initiated from the “left” and been supported in “bi-partisan” spirit by the neocons?
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The author’s claim regarding the militancy of the Clinton-Gore presidency is based on their activity in the Balkans…which of course, despite happening to occur amid the fuss over Monica clearly had absolutely nothing to do with distracting media attention from the President’s indiscretions. And of course the fact that it was a bombing, not invasion, and was carried out by NATO with UN support clearly gives Gore the warmongering history to invade Iraq without NATO support and against the wishes of the UN. Puhlease.
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Stephen – And if they were willing to go off bombing (and then occupying with troops, as has been done to date) as a media distraction – wouldn’t they be willing to do so after an attack on US soil?
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Remember the good old days when Our forces could do just about anything they wanted without our ever knowing?
Thats the good thing about having Dems in charge. Nothing negative ever happens on Earth, and when it does, it is quickly dealt with. (silenced)
Anyone remember when Wesley Clark bombed the Chinese embassy, then tried to blame it on “old maps” heh,heh
The November 28 edition of Britain’s Observer newspaper presented fresh evidence to back up its claim that the May 7 NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was deliberate.
In an article entitled “Truth Behind America’s Raid on Belgrade”, the newspaper stated that far from being a blunder, “the pinpoint accuracy of the attack was in fact a deadly signal to Milosevic: seek outside help in Kosovo at your peril”.
href=”http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/dec1999/c
And that was from a bunch of you Socialist types
And lets not forget how he almost started WWIII by trying to order an attack on the Russian troops that were instumental in bringing that conflict to a close.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/jatras12.html
Ah yes… I remember it well..(dream sequence)
People were marching outside Clinton’s compound in Harlem.
The barrage of MSM slanderings about the lies that led us into the war.
The nightly reports of how Christians were being slaughtered by Albanians, while the NATO looked the other way.
The horrible sight of Christians on the news burning the US flag, while saying that Clinton is more dangerous than…hmm.. I’m having trouble coming up with a famous dictator/terrorist from the 90’s. I know they were there, but I don’t seem to recall any evil people being discussed in the 90s.
Except maybe Milosevic, who got caught throwing the second punch, thus received the yellow flag. (the refs never see what actually started the problem)
Maybe Netanyahoo..yep everybody hated him because he wouldn’t give Israel to self-described “Palestinians”…Oh yeah, everybody still hated Reagan, at that time.
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Well, I’m about 3-for-8 on getting posts through.
I’m becoming fairly disgusted.
I will try this one more time.
Life is too short to waste making observations no one will see.
here it goes.
Remember the good old days when Our forces could do just about anything they wanted without our ever knowing?
Thats the good thing about having Dems in charge. Nothing negative ever happens on Earth, and when it does, it is quickly dealt with. (silenced)
Anyone remember when Wesley Clark bombed the Chinese embassy, then tried to blame it on “old maps” heh,heh
The November 28 edition of Britain’s Observer newspaper presented fresh evidence to back up its claim that the May 7 NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was deliberate.
In an article entitled “Truth Behind America’s Raid on Belgrade”, the newspaper stated that far from being a blunder, “the pinpoint accuracy of the attack was in fact a deadly signal to Milosevic: seek outside help in Kosovo at your peril”.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/dec1999/chin-d01.shtml
And this is from a bunch of you Socialist types
And lets not forget how he almost started WWIII by attacking the Russian troops that were instumental in bringing that conflict to a close.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/jatras12.html
Ah yes… I remember it well..(dream sequence)
People were marching outside Clinton’s compound in Harlem.
The barrage of MSM slanderings about the lies that led us into the war.
The nightly reports of how Christians were being slaughtered by Albanians, while the NATO looked the other way.
The horrible sight of Christians on the news burning the US flag, while saying that Clinton is more dangerous than…hmm.. I’m having trouble coming up with a famous dictator/terrorist from the 90’s. I know they were there, but I don’t seem to recall any evil people being discussed in the 90s.
Except maybe Milosevic, who got caught throwing the second punch, thus received the yellow flag. (the refs never see what actually started the problem)
Maybe Netanyahoo..yep everybody hated him because he wouldn’t give Israel to self-described “Palestinians”…Oh yeah, everybody still hated Reagan, at that time.
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I think Stephen did hit upon the fundamental difference in how Gore would’ve handled Iraq. I think the Clinton/Gore record in the Balkans is enough to grant the premise that there would be an interest in attacking Iraq, but I don’t see Gore doing so without UN support.
But that raises the question of whether or not Gore would’ve done a better job of making the case before the international community of the necessity of military intervention in Iraq. You could say that Bush’s off-putting cowboy persona wouldn’t be a factor, but Gore’s never been much of a glad-hander himself (that was Clinton’s specialty).
Also, Luke: I think the biggest problem with the article is the quick, throwaway association of the (nearly meaningless) “neocon” label with Clinton/Gore. I doubt that Gore would’ve needed Rummy, et al. to come up with a reason to attack Iraq post 9/11.
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President Gore would have connected the dots and stopped 9/11. He wouldn’t have wasted time on star wars while putting Richard Clarke’s terrorism proposals at the bottom of the pile. President Gore would have listened to the briefing reports saying that “OBL determined to attack in the USA.” The CIA Director would not have had to ambush the White House in order to deliver a warning about terrorism. President Gore would not have had to blame President Clinton for his own negligence.
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NATO bombing on a UN sanctioned mission is incomparable to coalition-of-the-willing bombing on an unsanctioned mission, though you’re certainly right that the Clinton-Gore presidency was willing to use military power — that’s a given. But the clever political use of strategic military resources is not what makes one “militant”, a term which I think is appropriately used to describe the Iraq invasion without engaging in political polemics. The article fails to recognize the distinction.
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Are any of you having trouble getting comments through?
I’ve tried three times to comment on this thread with no success.
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Well, I’m about 3-for-8 on getting posts through.
I’m becoming fairly disgusted.
I will try this one more time.
Life is too short to waste making observations no one will see.
here it goes.
Remember the good old days when Our forces could do just about anything they wanted without our ever knowing?
Thats the good thing about having Dems in charge. Nothing negative ever happens on Earth, and when it does, it is quickly dealt with. (silenced)
Anyone remember when Wesley Clark bombed the Chinese embassy, then tried to blame it on “old maps” heh,heh
The November 28 edition of Britain’s Observer newspaper presented fresh evidence to back up its claim that the May 7 NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was deliberate.
In an article entitled “Truth Behind America’s Raid on Belgrade”, the newspaper stated that far from being a blunder, “the pinpoint accuracy of the attack was in fact a deadly signal to Milosevic: seek outside help in Kosovo at your peril”.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/dec 1999/chin-d01.shtml (no space between dec and 1999)
And that was from a bunch of Socialist types
And lets not forget how he almost started WWIII by attacking the Russian troops that were instumental in bringing that conflict to a close.
http://www.anti war.com/orig/jatras12.html (without the space between anti and war)
Ah yes… I remember it well..(dream sequence)
People were marching outside Clinton’s compound in Harlem.
The barrage of MSM slanderings about the lies that led us into the war.
The nightly reports of how Christians were being slaughtered by Albanians, while the NATO looked the other way.
The horrible sight on the news of Christians burning the US flag, while saying that Clinton is more dangerous than…hmm.. I’m having trouble coming up with a famous dictator/terrorist from the 90’s. I know they were there, but I don’t seem to recall any evil people being discussed in the 90s.
Except maybe Milosevic, who got caught throwing the second punch, thus received the yellow flag. (the refs never see what actually started the problem)
Maybe Netanyahoo..yep everybody hated him because he wouldn’t give Israel to self-described “Palestinians”…Anyway,who can forget the global outrage at our president who forced our solution to someone elses conflict. And he didn’t even involve the UN in any decision maker.
Yep, its easy to see why Clinton was the most hated man on the planet.
OK
Back from Bizarro world.
No, I agree with the consensus. We seem to do better with a Dem. CIC.
(Not really..but as long as we remain ignorant, who cares, right?)
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I’m finished.
Fix the site and I’ll come back
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Michael Martin (#10) writes:
Not exactly so Alan. The President is not a dictator and this is a republican democracy. He made his arguments for the war and the Congress agreed, including many of those who now try to hide their initial support.
I agree that the president is not a dictator, but on the other hand he is the most politically powerful person in the free world. Truman said that the buck should stop at the door of the oval office, and this is as it should be. Authority and responsibility should always be proportionate to each other. Thus he shares a very disproportionate share, albeit not all, of the blame for how thing have turned out in Iraq.
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Gore and any other sane president would have gone to war after 911, but only in Afghanistan. They would have prevailed utterly there because they wouldn’t be distracted by W’s hideous oil war.
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[threadjack in progress]
Scroop, that blue elephant sure has a w-i-d-e stance!
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I like the racing stripes on Scroop’s elephant.
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Gore woulda saved the Earth-in-a-Balance and put out a new version of the internet and fixed his tenant’s plumbing and… an’ EVERYTHING!
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The Clinton Gore admin provided some of the harshest anti-Saddam rhetoric around. I think in the early years of Clinton’s first term, all the negative jibes at Saddam were intended to subtly remind voters “Bush left this fiend in power! How dumb is that?” I liken it to the same anti-Chinese rhetoric Clinton-Gore spouted to remind folks of the Tiananmen massacre and Bush I’s “no big deal” attitude about it.
So by the time GW Bush came to the WH, there was an extensive collection of sound bites and printed statemts by the Clintonistas about how evil the Saddam regime was. (In fact, it was a Clintonista who green-lighted the attack with his assinine “slam dunk” remarks to Bush-Cheney).
There is no reason to believe that Gore would not have also swallowed George Tenet’s “analysis” hook, line and sinker as well.
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LOL. Would Gore’s veep have directed the CIA to find the linkages they wanted? Would the CIA have had the discipline to not craft its message to what it thought the bosses wanted? Because that ladies and gents was a part of the problem.
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coyoteblue – Do you think for even a moment that Gore wouldn’t have done those very things?
After listening to the twists and turns and outright fabrications in his Global Warming screeds, it would appear that Gore would have made the job GWB did in making his pitch for the war look down right understated, conservative and accurate.
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Be patient Mr. Meaner…things will eventually get worked out. (Yes, many of us have had the same problem.)
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KRM
You know Gore has a belief on global warming that is not without evidence which has been looked at and reviewed in scientific communities. Making the comparison to the CIA here is a little apples and oranges. I do think a Gore administration might have been privately more skeptical about WMD and likely would not have formed separate high-level intel analysis at the Pentagon (run by a deputy assistant secretary for defense) and probably would have listened to experts who did not think there was a legit Hussein-al Qaida connection. I do think a Gore Administration would probably have capitalized on the opportunity to convert the global sympathy the US got after 9-11 into a real dividend, rather than fritter it away as the Bush Administration did. I do think a Gore Administration would have put more effort into Afghanistan. However, I also think that a Gore Administration would ultimately have been doomed as right wingers would not pull punches in support of the Administration to protect America but would have excoriated Gore and the dems as weak. That is simply how the right wingers play. I also think a Gore Administration would not have created the Gtmo mess.
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You know Gore has a belief on global warming that is not without evidence which has been looked at and reviewed in scientific communities. Making the comparison to the CIA here is a little apples and oranges. I do think a Gore administration might have been privately more skeptical about WMD and likely would not have formed separate high-level intel analysis at the Pentagon (run by a deputy assistant secretary for defense) and probably would have listened to experts who did not think there was a legit Hussein-al Qaida connection. I do think a Gore Administration would probably have capitalized on the opportunity to convert the global sympathy the US got after 9-11 into a real dividend, rather than fritter it away as the Bush Administration did. I do think a Gore Administration would have put more effort into Afghanistan. However, I also think that a Gore Administration would ultimately have been doomed as right wingers would not pull punches in support of the Administration to protect America but would have excoriated Gore and the dems as weak. That is simply how the right wingers play. I also think a Gore Administration would not have created the Gtmo mess.
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KRM
You know Gore has a belief on global warming that is not without evidence which has been looked at and reviewed in scientific communities. Making the comparison to the CIA here is a little apples and oranges. I do think a Gore administration might have been privately more skeptical about WMD and likely would not have formed separate high-level intel analysis at the Pentagon (run by a deputy assistant secretary for defense) and probably would have listened to experts who did not think there was a legit Hussein-al Qaida connection. I do think a Gore Administration would probably have capitalized on the opportunity to convert the global sympathy the US got after 9-11 into a real dividend, rather than fritter it away as the Bush Administration did. I do think a Gore Administration would have put more effort into Afghanistan. However, I also think that a Gore Administration would ultimately have been doomed as right wingers would not pull punches in support of the Administration to protect America but would have excoriated Gore and the dems as weak. That is simply how the right wingers play. I also think a Gore Administration would not have created the Gtmo mess.
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KRM,
I keep trying to answer you, but there seems to be a glitch.
You know Gore has a belief on global warming that is not without evidence which has been looked at and reviewed in scientific communities. Making the comparison to the CIA here is a little apples and oranges. I do think a Gore administration might have been privately more skeptical about WMD and likely would not have formed separate high-level intel analysis at the Pentagon (run by a deputy assistant secretary for defense) and probably would have listened to experts who did not think there was a legit Hussein-al Qaida connection. I do think a Gore Administration would probably have capitalized on the opportunity to convert the global sympathy the US got after 9-11 into a real dividend, rather than fritter it away as the Bush Administration did. I do think a Gore Administration would have put more effort into Afghanistan. However, I also think that a Gore Administration would ultimately have been doomed as right wingers would not pull punches in support of the Administration to protect America but would have excoriated Gore and the dems as weak. That is simply how the right wingers play. I also think a Gore Administration would not have created the Gtmo mess.
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I can’t believe I agree with Mr. Meaner. Uggh.
At least we can post smiley faces.
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