User 463088
Banned
Considering that's not what pigeon said whatsoever......
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PoliGAF 2016 |OT10| Jill Stein Inflatable Love Doll
- Thread starter Aaron Strife
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Considering that's not what pigeon said whatsoever......
You addressed it, and then completely dismissed it as the driving force for invading Iraq, instead wasting your time with some alternate reality based on fantasy, not fact.
I woke up today, browsed the thread and thought it was 2006 again.
I'm sorry Crab, but whilst your analysis is a perfectly valid hypothesis, it is just that - one of numerous different versions of events that could have happened. I honestly disagree that the USa would have gone into Iraq under Gore, and I think you are dramatically underestimating the impact the presidential pulpit had and the co-opting of the intelligence services by the neocons. There was no demand for the Iraq war prior to 9/11 from the general public, and without the machinery of the presidency and the intelligence services I cannot see it happening.
You cannot prove that your version is right, and there's a huge amount of evidence that suggests it wouldn't have happened. Given that we know the Bush administration started planning the invasion of Iraq from day 1 ion the oval office, and we know gore wouldn't have been doing that, that fact alone changes the entire future events.
EDIT : (You also are coming across really badly right now, which is unusual for you?)
You cannot prove that your version is right, and there's a huge amount of evidence that suggests it wouldn't have happened. Given that we know the Bush administration started planning the invasion of Iraq from day 1 ion the oval office, and we know gore wouldn't have been doing that, that fact alone changes the entire future events.
EDIT : (You also are coming across really badly right now, which is unusual for you?)
This conversation is already ongoing, but I remember being in high school at the start of the Iraq War and noting even then how much pressure the administration was placing on the public to view invasion of Iraq as a logical "next step" in the war on terror. It wasn't a natural course at all.
I think it's hard to make the case that a D president would have made the same decision to go into Iraq based purely on public sentiment without discounting all the overtime the Bush administration put in to make it a palpable proposition in the first place. And even at the time, the invasion was still incredibly unpopular to the voices Democrats often listen to.
I think it's hard to make the case that a D president would have made the same decision to go into Iraq based purely on public sentiment without discounting all the overtime the Bush administration put in to make it a palpable proposition in the first place. And even at the time, the invasion was still incredibly unpopular to the voices Democrats often listen to.
AntraxSuicide
Banned
Your actual argument is buried here by a really bad assumption, which completely ignores the point that the poster was making. The US honestly doesn't give a shit about Iraq. Like, at all. It's kind of part of being an American that we rarely ever think about other countries at all.
Iraq only got on the public radar because Bush (and PNAC) had vendettas against the country long before 9/11. They were pushing it within his administration before 9/11, and they were responsible for the intel that they had cherry-picked.
But here, you just totally hand-wave that as "Fox News would still randomly fixate on Iraq, and would come up with a ton of evidence on their own to push for a massive war," which is honestly one of the worst things I've seen you argue (hell, it's not even argued, it's just stated with a terrible "if you think they couldn't do it, you must be young" attack).
Americans only wanted blood for 9/11, and that was coming from Afghanistan. Under a Gore presidency (or Clinton to add to your weird fixation as a jilted Bernie fan), we would've likely turned up the heat there instead of going to Iraq. Saddam never tried to kill Hillary's dad, so there was nothing personal there. Nothing about Saddam made him any different to Americans at the time than Kim Jong Il. Only Bush and his ilk cared since they took the Gulf War personally.
As for the dramatis jab, it's honestly just showing your ass, in Southern parlance.
Personally, I knew many people that flipped support after Powell and the UN speech (which is why it was so bad in retrospect, my support in him dropped after the stuff showing it was all lies came out)
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I mean, no, it's obviously not something we can prove, but I've provided a pretty plausible sequence of events. I think the problem facing anyone in this thread is this: suppose Gore is elected, and the Twin Towers happens. What do the Republican (still full of neoconservatives) run on 2002? Genuinely interested to hear what you think it'd have looked like, because I personally don't think there is a single credible world where they don't run on Gore is weak, Gore let down America. From there, not invading Iraq comes down to how much confidence you have in Gore to make himself a martyr.
Except we still would have invaded Afghanistan, probably with more actual American assets on the ground than the token force Bush initially sent. We might have actually captured or killed Bin Laden during the battle of Tora Bora with more boots on the ground. The GOP could have attacked Gore on national security, but they'd have faced the same problem Democrats did running against a war President.
That was my experience as well. Anecdotal and all, and I was only in high school at the time, but I remember a noticeable shift in the way the adults around me talked about Iraq after that speech.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Being accused of being a rightwing apologist and receiving posts that can be summed up as "I haven't read any of your post but feel like I can comment regardless" tends to do that to one, yes. Apologies.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
You've been saying Michigan will turn red for years.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
France's president might get primaried.
That's an impressive level of disdain.
That's an impressive level of disdain.
IggyChooChoo
Member
It also depends on how Gore's probable invasion of Afghanistan would have played out. Maybe he would have caught Bin Laden early. Who knows? Anyway, declaring that Gore would have been able to be bullied into an invasion by Congressional Republicans and Fox News seems extremely far-fetched, especially given that the evidence was not on their side.
Edit: What Crisco said.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Re-read those posts. I've been saying it will eventually turn red and "sooner than people think." Not this year. Probably not 2020. After that, though? It's very possible.
All you have to do is look at demographics in the population change there to see it is a very viable possibility.
Avon Barksdale
Member
I think it's fun to say but the presidential race is not over.
Well, it's still August.
User 463088
Banned
But, you haven't, and you're failing to listen to those of us who lived through these events bro. There was no public outcry to invade Iraq in the wake of 9/11. Prior to 9/11, Gallup surveyed and asked people if they supported going into Iraq to remove Saddam. It was at 52/42. There was a spike immediately after 9/11, But, it quickly fell back into the normal range. In January 2003, it was 52/43.
The administration made the case, and they used the bully pulpit of the presidency to do it.
Here is a speech, from Al Gore, before the war in Iraq laying out what he thought.
https://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/gore/gore092302sp.html
and, yes, Gore admitted there could be a rational reason for going into Iraq, but it was not based on the argument Bush was laying out. Powell's UN speech did a fuck ton of work i getting people on board. It was based on lies, which we now know to be the case. That wouldn't have happened in a Gore administration because he wasn't looking for war.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
This is a more interesting response. I agree Afghanistan is invaded either way, particularly as Gore was one of the pro-interventionist members of the Clinton cabinet as seen in Somalia and Bosnia. I agree that a much more successful Afghanistan could have given Gore a lot of leeway. The question is whether he actually pulls it off. Failing to send in sufficient assets is a mistake that essentially every single executive in the history of ever does, because intervention is really expensive and people always try to minimize the costs. Gore actually already has a history of this: see American undercommitment in Somalia. The question is whether he makes the same mistake twice. I'm struggling to find specific contemporary comments by Gore after the 2000 election and before significant commitment in Afghanistan to see what Gore made of Bush's plans, but (for obvious reasons, given he just lost) he was pretty quiet.
BlastProcessing
Member
Wait, you bring Katrina-Pierson-level arguments like "so the difference was the degree of commitment" and you feel the need to call out a poster for low quality responses?
You are obviously a very smart poster, but you are out over your skis here.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
My concern is not whatever "tightening" is going on but that if it's within 5 points and Trump benefits from lowered expectations in the debate then there's not much of a cushion to absorb the blow.
Is invading Iraq the answer to charges of weakness though? Going to war and hoping for an outcome that's not only successful militarily but successful in the eyes of the public, all in time for the 2004 election is a huge gamble.
The safer bet is to just make sure Afghanistan was a huge success and to sell that hard to the public.
nature boy
Member
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Lowered expectations are not a cure all, people view him as a buffoon, loudmouth and asshole among other descriptors. He needs to subvert those expectations, and that won't happen without a teleprompter.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
I think Kennedy/Nixon, Carter/Ford, Bush/Dukakis and Bush/Clinton all have debate moments that were considered pretty important. Bush and Clinton probably win without them still, but Ford's comment about how the Soviet Union were not subjugating Eastern Europe and Kennedy's "win" over Nixon in the first debate (which had much higher viewership due to it being the first of its kind) are both big moments in very close races.
The other two examples are of how Bush and Dukakis in their lost elections basically had a chance to crush the attacks on them, with Dukakis giving a technical answer about the death penalty and Bush seeming uncomfortable and unempathetic at the town hall. It's hard to say how much these matter because they were more about cementing narratives that already existed about the candidates rather than affecting the perception of them, but they were both whiffed chances to regain ground that probably could have been successful.
Not sure who that says more about
Veritigo_X
Member
Kinda funny seeing Stein so desperate she has to resort to official dank memes straight from her campaign. And people give Hillary shit.
Box of Kittens
Banned
Bill Clinton's approval ratings were consistently in the 60s throughout 1998. His personal favorability took a hit due to the scandal and impeachment but he was a consistently popular president throughout his second term.
Dominican Power
Member
I like how this lady in this focus group asks how can Trump call Hillary a bigot and then she says maybe she is, she doesn't know. The cognitive dissonance.
I understand/understood your points, but I will happily continue to indulge.
Re: 1 - scale matters, dimensionality matters. Politicians happily bow to public sentiments on small things, but often refuse to on big ones, even with their careers on the line. They may squirm about it, or hedge. But you're talking about a fullthroated endorsement, not hedging.
Many politicians knew the public didn't want gay marriage, but squirmed around when they could have had higher approval by fighting it. Maybe this is quibbling over the definition of an "idealogue", but that's an aggressive word to use. Some things just aren't cool to politicians and they suck it up.
Even then, issue salience is important. People can like things, but politicians will respond based how whether voters vote on it, rather than how voters feel. There are a lot of issues to balance. Politicians care, about, say, not wasting american lives, not wasting american money, not wasting american power, and not torturing people. More to the point, voters care about these things too. The scale matters because Desert Fox does not damage those other elements to the same degree as an invasion. Some might look at the balance and weigh in favor of Iraq, other might look at the balance and weigh in favor of not being stupid.
You understand that not all politicians have use the same preference set, right? And that they respond differently to different interest groups?
I think you also understand that I've been hard-rejecting 3, so I guess I don't understand why this bullet exercise is necessary?
So I can't respond to all of this, because I would be typing all day, but I mean, you know that you just wrote a fanfiction, right? One can't game out every last detail of what would have happened. There are any number of reasons your assumptions can fall apart.
1) The towers don't necessarily have to happen, which undercuts all of this.
2) I forget, what happened to Bush's approvals after 9-11?
3) Why are the american people so dissatisfied by Afghanistan?
4) Why is Fox etc. still supportive of Iraq regardless of what Gore does?
5) Why doesn't the reversal of the presidential bully pulpit make any difference in the scenario?
I understand enough to know not to accept my fanfiction as an ironclad counterfactual. I understand enough to recognize the opposition as organized and effective but lacking any super powers that always help them get their way in all states of the world, regardless of institutional power.
I mean, do you think institutional power matters?
In your last few posts, you've pushed the "bad intelligence" myth, you've doubled down on this "Iraq war was inevitable" business, and you've conflated the administration's guilt with other actors. The Desert Fox comparison is absolutely awful right wing Whataboutism which trivializes the seriousness of the Iraq war. When you say "anyone would have done it" you abstract from the very real, very direct responsibilities for the actions which actually happened. Fanfics about a hapless Gore don't really take away from the seriousness of this. I don't understand why you can't even acknowledge the weaker claim that such a war would be less likely under a Gore presidency? Because from that point it's just a matter of degrees.
Anyway, "both parties do it"ism is really dangerous when you're talking about one of the most horrible events of the last few decades. Saying Bush is bad but everyone else would have been bad so nothing matters doesn't cut it.
I've been reading your posts carefully. I think the problem is that you are in so much of a rush to slam Hillary and to defend your bad claims that you don't realize the toxicity of what is in them. I know that you're not a right winger, which is why it's disappointing and frustrating to see this.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
Dr. Jill Stein continues to have (bad) thoughts about wi-fi:
http://www.jill2016.com/jill_stein_answers_science_questions
Q for Dr. Jill Stein: If Wi-Fi gives us autism and cancer, can't we just use crystals to reverse the process?
http://www.jill2016.com/jill_stein_answers_science_questions
Q for Dr. Jill Stein: If Wi-Fi gives us autism and cancer, can't we just use crystals to reverse the process?
Manmademan
Member
to put this into context:
Clinton at that point was the most popular president in modern history. Only Eisenhower was close, and Clinton left office beating even him. Clinton "Struggling" in his second term and being vulnerable to right wing pressure is bad fanfiction that has nothing to do with actual events, and this is a VERY strange hill to die on
to put this into context:
Clinton at that point was the most popular president in modern history. Only Eisenhower was close, and Clinton left office beating even him. Clinton "Struggling" in his second term and being vulnerable to right wing pressure is bad fanfiction that has nothing to do with actual events, and this is a VERY strange hill to die on
Which makes Gore running from him even stupider. He should have embraced Bill as hard as he could have, just like Hillary has been doing with Obama.
Supposedly neither Bill nor Hillary have ever forgiven him for fucking that up and Hillary swore to never make the same mistake.
I figured if I set out a bunch of responses you would just accuse me of getting distracted and then go back to reducing your argument to a simplistic syllogism again, like you just did! So I felt it made more sense to point out that your syllogism fails because the steps in it fail.
Don't take this the wrong way, but this isn't an argument, this is a mediocre Harry Turtledove pitch. You have made a huge host of wild simplifications and assumptions to create this narrative. Let's count a few:
1. The GOP's unification around the goal of invading Iraq is not separable from the fact that W. got elected and he had a preexisting interest in invading Iraq due to family history. Without W. there's no assurance they settle on the same goal, since, as is obvious, even if you want to start a war somewhere there's no particular reason to invade Iraq.
2. If the GOP lose in 2000 they've lost three elections in a row. This is the kind of thing that changes party decisions and directions. There's no guarantee that neocons even maintain the center of gravity in the party if the Republican national security message proves to be unsuccessful at winning the presidency.
3. As noted, it's difficult to explore, but under a different administration with different officials it's not assured that 9/11 happens at all.
4. The Republican case for war relied on Republican control of the military and intelligence apparatuses, allowing them to control the messaging. With a Democrat in charge of both of those, their ability to make this argument with regards to Iraq is much weaker. Gore can easily advance those voices in the Pentagon that think an invasion of Iraq is a pointless, dangerous idea. They were very present at the time, just ignored by the administration.
5. Your assumption about the 2002 elections is pretty silly. Republicans won those because of the rallying effect caused by the terrorist attack. Arguably you should expect Democrats to win seats if Gore is the president under attack!
6. You're also making strong assumptions about the direction of messaging and party affiliation that rely on things that happened in this universe. Those assumptions aren't particularly safe in the world where the Democrats are in charge when 9/11 happens.
7. Frankly, your assumption that Gore would not be willing to lose the White House to avoid a doomed invasion seems totally incorrect to me. Gore was willing to cede the White House to avoid a partisan fight over vote counting! A Democratic invasion of Iraq would destroy the Democratic Party the same way that the Republicans have been crippled by it. The GOP did it anyway because of their strong ideological priors about American military power, not for political benefit. Since the Dems lack those priors, the case that they would do it purely to avoid political damage is seriously unlikely to me.
You clearly know a lot about politics. But you really, seriously don't seem to know much about early 2000s American politics, and you'll notice the people who were actually there are pretty sure you're crazy.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
Regardless of whether or not we had gotten involved in Iraq, specifically, I think there is a pretty good chance that Gore, and probably most mainstream Dem politicians of the time, would have gotten us embroiled in A pointless war of some kind, because the right wing media would have goaded them into it by drumming up a case against this or that country in the wake of 9/11 and smeared the Dems as "weak on national defense". The Right has set the media narrative for decades, and until recently, they were very good at backing Dems into corners and forcing them to be on the defensive.
I WAS there in the early 2000s, and I remember a strong undercurrent of distrust toward basically the entire Middle East among large swaths of the populace. Had somebody made a case that, say, Iran or Pakistan were somehow related toward 9/11, or that another 9/11 was fomenting there, and used a large media apparatus to propagate the evidence, talked Republican Senators into using government funds to conduct investigations and manufacture evidence, and just generally played up the "we are not safe" message, I do not think the Dems - and especially not Gore, who was notably pretty spineless and mushy - would have withstood mounting public pressure. It might not have been the massive disaster that Iraq turned out to be, but it's hard to say. I certainly remember a potent private appetite for war amongst the Americans I knew in the Midwest following the 9/11 attacks.
I WAS there in the early 2000s, and I remember a strong undercurrent of distrust toward basically the entire Middle East among large swaths of the populace. Had somebody made a case that, say, Iran or Pakistan were somehow related toward 9/11, or that another 9/11 was fomenting there, and used a large media apparatus to propagate the evidence, talked Republican Senators into using government funds to conduct investigations and manufacture evidence, and just generally played up the "we are not safe" message, I do not think the Dems - and especially not Gore, who was notably pretty spineless and mushy - would have withstood mounting public pressure. It might not have been the massive disaster that Iraq turned out to be, but it's hard to say. I certainly remember a potent private appetite for war amongst the Americans I knew in the Midwest following the 9/11 attacks.
You can dislike a guy personally but still think he's doing a good job. When you're in the job what generally matters is how you're doing. Gore ran from a guy who the American people thought was doing a very good job, there's no world where that isn't a mistake.
Afghanistan would have happened no matter what, so long as 9/11 happened. Anything other than that we'll have to disagree.
He's an alternative history writer. Stuff like what would have happened had the South won the Civil War.
I can totally buy the argument that we would have gotten bogged down in Afghanistan, but then I could also buy the argument that sans Iraq, Afghanistan actually moves in a healthy direction.
eBay Huckster
Member
or if aliens landed on earth in the middle of the second world war (and promptly joined in)
Sure, they did this to Clinton, and so he bombed a bunch of Middle Eastern countries during Ramadan. If you want to argue that Gore would have bombed some people, or allied with some bad people, or something, that's fine. Invasion is very clearly a politically dumb move in recent American history, so I don't believe that political pressure can convince people who don't already want to invade countries to do it.
User 463088
Banned
Hey, I saw that episode of Enterprise.
Manmademan
Member
The problem with this narrative is that there's no need to "drum up" a case against "this or that" country in the wake of 9/11.
The evidence for the primary actors for that being in Afghanistan was fairly clear, and the hijackers themselves were all Saudi.
There was no evidence anywhere that pointed to Iraq as any kind of contributor, which is why the Bush administration had to actively fabricate it. We know that the administration had a prior interest in invading Iraq long before 9/11, and used 9/11 as an excuse to launch this agenda.
Being republicans, they coordinated a messaging strategy using (fabricated) intelligence and official talking points with right wing media to deliberately confuse the public about Iraq's role in the 9/11 attacks.
Gore and his administration had no prior interest in an Iraq invasion. The public had long since ceased to care about a middle eastern boogeyman that hadnt been heard of since GWB's administration. Gore and his administration would have had no interest or ability to coordinate with right wing media who would have been hostile to him anyway for ideological reasons, and a left wing media of the same scope and scale did not and does not exist.
JesseEwiak
Member
Just go to the alternatehistory.com forums instead. There's much better writers there writing up awesome timelines than Turtledove.
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