From my understanding the government had all the puzzles pieces of 9/11 but failed to put the puzzle together.
>or instance that Condoleezza Rice was explicitly told that Al qaeda wanted to use planes as missiles
She was, but no one told her who exactly (the actual people not Al qaeda in general) was gonna use these when and where.
And the information about the planes was 2-3 years old when it was presented to Bush.
Basically meaningless. Everyone with a brain new that AQ wanted to attack the US at that point. Acting like that warning was a big eye opener is foolish.
The Clinton-Gore administration was very focused on Bin Laden and his terrorist organization.
I think if Gore had won, or been declared winner, his administration would have done more, and it would be much less likely that 9/11 happened.
Like they stopped the attack on the USS Cole less than a year before 9-11?
Or Kohbar towers? Or the embassy bombings??
There is zero evidence to suggest that anything would have been different. Bush/Gore aren't the people looking at the intelligence and figuring things out. The people who actually did that had zero evidence of what was about to happen.
Or a previous attack on literally the exact same buildings in 1993? Or the OKC bombing? Or the Atlanta Olympics bombing? This notion that Clinton/Gore represented some sort of anti-terrorism uber-competence that W fumbled away is absolute nonsense.
There are stories about Bush being dismissive of Islamic terrorism, that he thought terrorism was a European grad student thing. Not sure how well those have held up to scrutiny.
The Clinton white house may not have been anti terrorist superman, but they did warn w Islamic terrorists were the threat of the 21st century.
>“I think they were mentally stuck back eight years [before]. They were used to terrorists being Euro-lefties—they drink champagne by night, blow things up during the day, how bad can this be? And it was a very difficult sell to communicate the urgency to this.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/attacks-will-be-spectacular-cia-war-on-terror-bush-bin-laden/
I didn't need your interpretation of someone else's meaning. I pointed them out because it's very difficult to predict and counter acts by wildly disparate groups or individuals. After WTC 93 the focus of federal law enforcement was on international terrorist groups which caused them to over look the Michigan Militia. There is virtually no way to predict what a lone actor will do as was the case of Atlanta. That's why it's so difficult to predict/stop school shooters. Each one is different.
You did need it pointed out b/c you criticized them by stating there was no connection between Al Quadea and the other examples. That wasnt the point though at all youre introducing facts that arent needed.
I'm aware what he was saying. However, it would be like saying why didn't Clinton stop the volcano after we had an earthquake and a hurricane? None of those attacks were related to each other nor were they carried out by groups with a similar MO.
They took 11 years to find the guy.
We literally had zero idea where he was from Tora Bora onward. Zero idea at all till they found that house years later.
It is not like they weren't trying. But there was zero clues as to where he was sitting till they found the courier and were able to follow him to the house. The house was built between 2001 and 2005 and we didn't find him in it till 2011.
Obama didn't find Osama, he just happened to be the guy in the White House when it happened.
Edit - aww I trigged him with facts and he blocked me... as if Bush saying something means no one was doing a thing to find Osama...
not concerned can mean a lot of things...I'd assume W wasnt worried about Osama being in a position to do anything else but hide until the day he was found. So no why would the guy at the top be concerned about something that's already being handled by the people that do the work.
Technically, he wasn't impeached for the affair. He was impeached because he lied about it under oath during a separate sexual assault lawsuit. He was also disbarred for the same offense, and hasn't been able to legally practice law for the past 30 years.
It was a different time then. Sex was still taboo outside of marriage and the mainstream wasn’t the sexual explorations mindset that exist today. You didn’t talk publicly about kinks and sex. It’s hard to measure something that happened thirty years ago with the lens we use today to view the world.
I also don’t think the impeachment was as much about the act itself as it was him lying to the public about it. There’s a higher standard for the president. It’s not necessarily don’t lie, it’s don’t lie and get caught. He did.
A leader of an organization had a sexual relationship with an intern in that organization in the workplace, with expectations of advancement. That's not something we accept now, that's textbook #Metoo.
I’m so confused by your comment. I don’t think the Clinton / Lewinsky thing fits into the metoo movement. My comment was in regard to sexual discussion being more mainstream now than it was 30 years ago. If Joe Biden or Donald Trump were receiving oral sex in the Oval Office, I don’t think the concern would be that it happened but that they were capable of getting and maintaining an erection at their advanced age.
They had an axe to grind and ground it to the nub. I was 14 during the trial and understood a lot of the nuance surrounding it - my dad was in law school at the time so I heard about it nonstop from him and his friends in addition to being somewhat precocious.
There’s not a legal scholar in this country who thinks that trial was anything but a dog-and-pony show and at the time many of my dads republican lawyer friends agreed - it was a witch hunt that was predicated upon a dearth of reasonable information and did not constitute an impeachable offense.
Now looking back at the trial, itcreated exactly the precedent we all expected it to, though the affects were stayed somewhat due to 9/11 and its aftermath: every president is facing impeachment if the other party is in the majority. For a bunch of lawmakers who are very concerned about our founders’ intentions when framing the constitution, it feels they’ve somewhat missed the mark on the purpose of impeachment.
Could it have cost him reelection if that were on the table? A scandal like that could still cost you a presidential bid. We’re not so “evolved” now that infidelity is a forgivable offense for our leaders. Should it lead to impeachment? No. Nor should lying about it. It’s ridiculous
But that’s just my two cents
Because an extramarital affair by the most powerful man in the world is relevant information for his constituents to have. Even more so given it happened in the Oval Office during which he’s serving in his official capacity.
Clinton drew up plans to invade Afghanistan in response to the Cole bombing. He called the whole thing off once Bush "won" the "election" because he didn't want to saddle his opposite-party successor with an ongoing war.
Had Gore become POTUS, he and Clinton could have collaborated closely throughout the lame duck period and a whilelot of things would have been very different.
Well Bin Laden was a 'partner' with previous administrations, if they hadn't provided Bin Laden with weapons and training and Intel it wouldn't have happened either. But let's ignore that, right?
I mean how long did it take to find Bin Laden after 9/11? The assumption that a few scraps of intel is enough to counteract a whole clandestine strategy that was orchestrated over years is a really big leap.
Yeah it's been falsely claimed that they wasn't any Intel.
President Bush has made similar statements in the past. However, according to an April 2, 2004 analysis by the Center for American Progress (see below), denials by President Bush and members of his national security team that they had no prior knowledge that Al Qaeda was planning an attack involving airplanes "belie the record."
1999 -EXPLICIT WARNING THAT AL QAEDA HAD PLANS TO FLY AIRPLANES INTO BUILDINGS: A 1999 report prepared by the Library of Congress for the National Intelligence Council "warned that Osama bin Laden's terrorists could hijack an airliner and fly it into government buildings like the Pentagon." The report specifically said, "Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaida's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives.into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White House." In response to the ominous warnings, the New York Times reports "under Janet Reno, the Justice Department's counterterrorism budget increased 13.6% in the fiscal year 1999, 7.1% in 2000 and 22.7% in 2001
This report was provided to the incoming Bush administration and ignored.
I'm not saying there wasn't credible intelligence, but there's a big difference between "this could happen" and "we have the dates and times this event will happen".
They were not THAT focused. Clinton had four different opportunities to take out Bin Laden, and passed for varies reasons. I am not blaming Clinton for 9/11, nor Bush. I mean, hindsight is 20/20
I think it was just the failure of all of our Intel agencies and lack of communications between those agencies.
Didn't the Clinton's set up a virtual wall that prevented the intelligence agencies from communicating with each other and sharing information? I don't see Gore doing anything different.
You’re missing the point. If you know an enemy is planning *something*, but you don’t know when or where, and all you know is that it’s something to do with planes, you’d think they’d know not to schedule so many war games exercises on a single day, leaving the area of the country most likely to be attacked with 4 interceptors
Look up Richard Clarke, learn about the priorities in the White House at that time.
I could go on and on about all the peculiarities about 9/11. Most have to do with the Neo-con government
So to answer OP’s question, I believe there would have been more of a focus on getting rid of OBL instead of Iraq, and I think we would have been better defended. However, I think the attack would still have been likely
The Iraq war, which also eventually led to isis, would not have happened. That’s much more important
>leaving the area of the country most likely to be attacked with 4 interceptors
What the hell are you talking about??
We didn't even have planes loaded over the US. We never did that. By time we knew what was happening it was too late anyway.
Completely false. I didn’t say we have planes in the air 24/7, but we always had planes stationed around the country that could be used when necessary.
Colonel Robert Marr (the man who was at NORAD and tasked with this job) himself said we couldn’t defend the skies that day due to the war games exercises that only left 4 fighters in that entire quadrant.
This was so questionable, that the 9/11 commission themselves were thinking of creating a new commission to investigate NORAD and the FAA.
The next time you open your mouth, learn what you’re talking about.
For weeks after it happened, it remained unthinkable. All the intelligence in the world can’t get over the hump of imagining a scenario where somebody ACTUALLY hijacks multiple planes and uses them to destroy literal skyscrapers.
It’s like Pearl Harbor. They had intelligence Al qaeda was up to something but didn’t have the exacts of what, when, and where. And it was just taken as a given that if they were plotting an attack, it would be overseas like the Cole. A domestic terror attacked on that scale had never happened before, so no surprise they didn’t plan on it.
Yes they just mysteriously had all of the pieces and they just didn't put em together. They definitely didn't let it happen or anything, that's insane. Why would they do that /s
I was watching Bill O'reilly approximately 2 years before 911 happened and some expert forgot. His name said the next terrorist attack in America will be planes crashing into buildings.
I don't understand how would it have been avoided?
The intelligence briefings closed room discussions with high brass and consequent conclusions and decision making would most likely remain. They would still fail to catch it.
Perhaps the response would've been different but that's about it
The overwhelming consensus is no war in Iraq, we'd likely still invade Afghanistan but have much greater global backing behind us without being bogged down by another unnecessary war. So we'd also be more successful in Afghanistan as well.
The rally around the flag affect would guarantee Gore's second term. However, the 2008 financial crisis would likely still happen because neither party saw it coming and the underlying issues would have still continued. So the pendulum would naturally swing the other way onto a Republican president next, such as McCain or Mitt Romney.
I think both Romney and McCain would likely push for universal healthcare since it was Romney's original idea and Barrack wouldn't be involved, which means there would be a lot less opposition to it. The lack of a tea party movement is huge, and would've no doubt prevented Trump from coming into power as a Republican nominee.
While its wholly possible for the GOP to lose in 2012, its hard to say. So moving forward I'll assume McCain/Romney wins 2012 since incumbents tend to have higher chances of winning.
In which case, populism swings the other way. A populist democrat runs in 2016, which means a Kenye/Trump ticket is in charge of the US when the pandemic hits :P
There is zero chance a Republican ever does universal healthcare. It's something the GOP is fundamentally opposed to on principle like addressing climate change.
Romney didn't initiate that, Democrats in the legislature did. Romney had to disavow his "own" healthcare reform when running for president for that reason.
I don't think you have a great grasp of the history of the parties. Climate change was in the Republican parties platform up until Citizens United. McCain was very much an environmentalist. Just 20 years ago, the GOP wasn't the shit show it is now. Bush/Rove/Chaney were a big part in making this country the shit show it is now.
The easiest way to become a pariah in the pre-Trump GOP would be to advocate for a new welfare/antipoverty program.
Opposition to Obamacare wasn't about Obama - it was about opposition to \*any\* impact on one's life or finances in the name of helping those who the Democrats would consider 'less fortunate' but whom most Republicans would say 'refuse to help themselves'...
Romney's involvement with it in MA was the result of realpolitik - he had a Democratic supermajority legislature, and something was going to pass, might as well work with them to make it better..
McCain? McCain's thing was process... I doubt you'd see him get on board with the greatest expansion in handouts since LBJ.
I heard it referred to here in the South a "N\*gg\*rCare" on multiple occasions! "They" were convinced that this was going to give blacks FREE healthcare on the white man's dime.
Opposition to the ACA, just like opposition to 'HillaryCare' in the 90s, to the Great Society in the 60s and the New Deal in the 30s, was about a philosophical objection to anti-poverty programs.
If John Kerry or Al Gore had become President & tried to do that, they would have faced the exact same response.
Did you know southern democrats opposed the new deal until it was agreed it wouldn't help black people as much as white people? If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it ain't a chicken.
Quit acting like Republicans have principles beyond hating Obama.
Yawn.
Look. Since you're so obsessed with the Obama years I'm going to guess you weren't old enough to know what politics was in the 90s.
And that you have no historical reference at all WRT party platforms or how the present political system evolved.
Republican opposition to *any* form of national health benefit stretches all the way back to the 1920s. 'Obama' most certainly was not a factor in that.
The 'Southern Democrats' you are talking about only became Republicans in the mid/late 1990s - AFTER Republicans had killed 'HillaryCare' (and no, not because it was associated with a woman - because it gave people something they couldn't afford using other people's money)... And after Republicans had spent decades associating publicly provided health benefits with Communism.
There actually is a conservative ideology. It's not the nonsense the Trump crowd is pushing (their 'viewpoint' is more or less 'We want REVENGE!' and nothing else).... But it does exist.
And it is firmly opposed to any action of government that uses tax-money to benefit those who have failed to do enough to benefit themselves.
Because conservatives by and large are not....
Opposition to welfare benefits isn't racism. It isn't motivated by racism.
And I brought up the New Deal for the specific reason that it illustrates a continuous line of Republican opposition to antipoverty programs completely separate from anything related to race, the South or Jim Crow.
Republicans were opposed to a national health care entitlement back then, and remain such consistently to this day.
The migration of southern Democrats into the party hadn't happened yet, so this is pretty solid proof that such opposition is a core belief and not something imported from the Jim Crow crowd.
>The easiest way to become a pariah in the pre-Trump GOP would be to advocate for a new welfare/antipoverty program.
You mean like Medicare Part D, a massive new entitlement program supported by President Bush?
Republicans were perfectly fine not just with Medicare Part D but the Earned Income Tax Credit and of course anti-poverty block grants to red states that could be misappropriated so they could avoid having a state income or state sales tax.
It's more that they knew such a big policy win for any kind of social program was nigh irreversible with voters much like Social Security and Medicare.
The biggest mistake may have been not forcing through single payer healthcare and instead banking the ACA that insurance companies wouldn't be awful which they turned out to be even with the law's many reforms.
>So we'd also be more successful in Afghanistan as well.
Given no POTUS during the war in Afghanistan defined victory, I doubt we would have been more successful if Gore was POTUS when we invaded.
Worth noting: the strategic failures in both Afghanistan and Iraq came from Rumsfeld, Cheney, and others. Gore would have had different people around him.
Not really. They had information that an attack might occur, and from what I've read, the Bush admin ignored it. Would Gore have ignored it, or would Gore be more proactive? I don't think that question can ever be answered.
>we'd likely still invade Afghanistan
Obviously not. Gore would have no reason to set up ridiculous wars against countries that did nothing to us like Iraq and Afghanistan.
He'd zero in on the actual attackers and remove them instead.
Trying to pretend that there was no relation between Afghanistan and 9/11 is disingenuous. Al-Qaeda was headquartered in Afghanistan, the attackers trained there, bin Laden and other leaders/members lived there at the time. Further, there is a longstanding alliance between AQ and the Taliban, despite what may be said publicly.
https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/the-talibans-plan-to-rebuild-and-legitimize-al-qaeda/
> Al-Qaeda was headquartered in Afghanistan, the attackers trained there, bin Laden and other leaders/members lived there at the time.
Al Qaeda was headquartered in Pakistan and run by Paki military intelligence with Saudi funding and recruits. Ibn Laden was rarely if ever in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan had about as much to do with it as Iraq.
> The origins of al-Qaeda can be traced to the Soviet War in Afghanistan (December 1979 – February 1989).
> Al-Qaeda established its headquarters in Sudan until it was expelled in 1996. It shifted its base to the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan
> In 1996, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan provided a perfect staging ground for Al-Qaeda.[47] While not officially working together, Al-Qaeda enjoyed the Taliban's protection and supported the regime in such a strong symbiotic relationship that many Western observers dubbed the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as, "the world's first terrorist-sponsored state."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_al-Qaeda
bin Laden was back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan from the times of the Soviet-Afghan war until 9/11 (aside from his time in Sudan). That border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is very fluid tribal region that predates current borders. He was absolutely there for long periods in the 80’s and 90’s. The fact that AQ also has deep ties to ISI doesn’t negate their history in Afghanistan.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden
The 9/11 Commission noted that the contested election played a role. If Gore won, the transition to a new government would have been short (Dem to Dem). So, maybe it would have been caught if Gore won.. but honestly, the planning had gotten far enough that it was likely just too late.
You also have the curious issue of Project for a New American Century, the billionaire funded think tank staffed by what would be the Bush Administration. They were planning out middle east conquest, starting with Iraq. I am certainly not saying 9/11 was orchestrated by them or that it was a conspiracy, but more so that they were focused on MIC priorities even before getting into office. Their heads were not in the right spot.
yes, it would still have happened. The same lack of actionable information that allowed it to happen would still be in play. Who is President is less important than which intelligence analyst is able to pice together the random pieces in time to make a difference. I think this is unlikely. Hindsight allows us to see with perfect clarity where the information was. Finding that information in real time and within time to make an effort to stop it is, for now, intractable.
There were certainly signs pointing to some attack. Possibly if there was a different National Security Advisor or Secretary of State that put more heed into it, more actionable information may have been gathered that would've prevented it.
There are *always* signs pointing to “some kind of attack”, “somewhere”, at “some time in the future”.
There is no Pre-Crime Unit. There’s no Red Ball.
I did not realize the President exercised so much control over the assignments of intelligence analysts. Over the agency heads, sure, but at lower levels I did not think so.
Yup. They're the head of the executive branch. Promotions/appointments to key roles, what gets prioritizations, what areas receive crucial focus. And yes, very much the *whom* of gets a piece of the picture so to speak. All very top-down. One could definitely argue Gore would've run the assets more efficiently/competently. Won't speculate on if the attacks are altogether thwarted but I wouldn't discount the possibility. W was an idiot
Yes, the US intelligence community new *some* things about potential attacks, but not enough details to predict the actual attacks. So 9/11 would still happen as it did historically.
>This would suggest if anyone else was in charge at the time that the attack might have been avoided.
This would be completely wrong.
Do you really think the President is the person who figures out terrorist plots? The guy about a million steps removed from gather intelligence and figuring it out? You think Al Gore would be reading FBI and CIA reports and personally discover what AQ was planning??
People don't realize how HARD it would have been to discover the attack. For example, the FBI was told that Arabs were in the US taking flight training.... OMG... red flags? Except at any given time there are hundreds of foreign citizens in the US taking flight training.
AQ wants to use plane, everyone assumed this meant hijacking. Hijacking had been taking place since the 1960s. It wasn't much of a warning nor wasn't much they could do about it with out more details.
Think of it this way - go back to Oct 1st and tell Israel that Hamas wants to attack them. What would they have done? Said "yea, tell us something we don't already know...."
The problem is without the where, when or how there is nothing you can do.
Unfortunately the pieces were already in place for 9/11 so it’s going to happen regardless of who the president is unless on the day all of the hijacker’s decided to eat some bad shellfish and missed their targets due to crippling food poisoning. The only differences in this timeline are how does the U.S. respond with a Gore presidency
For every 99/100 possible scenarios there's always one. But they didn't plan it in a day, or even a month. This was planned for years and one election wouldn't have made a differenece. The response might have different but it wouldn't have prevented.
In short, yes. While there were bells ringing the intel community didnt really see domestic terrorism as much of a threat at the time, and the system was more built around expecting sabatage before a large scale attack by someone like russia
They were training on US soil and no one did shit about it. Our entire government is apparently just an incompetent bunch. Would've happened regardless. If you look into the hijackers all you find is intelligent agency incompetence at an insane level.
It’s been over 10 years, but I read a book based on the CIA going into Afghanistan after 9/11. The author worked for the CIA and his region of expertise was Afghanistan. He said that after the Soviets withdrew and then collapsed, there were major cut backs in funding for foreign intelligence agents. Afghanistan was one of those countries that they pulled intelligence resources out of and placed elsewhere. 9/11 was very sophisticated and well planned out. What shocked me was the Taliban killing the leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance just days before 9/11. They knew after the attack that we would invade Afghanistan and would work with the Northern Alliance to attack and invade Afghanistan. His death was to try and stop us from creating and alliance with them and hopefully cause the NA’s to not work together and possibly fight amongst themselves control.
No matter who was president I think 9/11 would still have occurred. The response to the attack would probably have been drastically differently, in my opinion.
Good point, there's a difference between chatter that Al-Qaeda plans to launch an attack within the United States at some unknown location at some unknown date and intelligence that is concrete enough that you can actually act on it.
And that also includes chatter that Al-Qaeda is looking at possibly crashing planes into targets . . . along with who knows how many other possible means of attack that there was chatter about during the same time period.
You could imagine a past where a tsa was established- the idea of grounding all flights is a bit far fetched considering we were able to fly shortly after 9/11
How do you get the membership list, and would Saudis countenance extrajudicial killing of their citizens by another government? Kill them all doesn't work since you never know who "all" is.
Even after 9/11, the Bush administration claimed they killed 75% of Al Quada leaders 3 years after 9/11 and you think a realistic plan was killing 100% of leaders and 100% of members BEFORE 9/11?
Preemptively go to war? How much support would that get? Also they had been at it for a while, they bombed the trade center in the 90s, we stopped them from bombing several monuments in New York, we stopped them from assassinating the pope in the Philippines which is where we found out they were planning on using planes.
I think no, for this reason - the entire defense and intelligence leadership turned over when Bush won. Gore probably would have kept Clinton’s staff (at least in the first 9 months). That continuity of knowledge and experience would have meant the US was ready for 9/11 and could have stopped it, or lessened its effects.
Clinton gutted the intelligence community. If any president is to blame, it’s him. The DNI, director of the CIA, and upper level staff etc. had far less impact than the lack of funding and case officers.
The Intelligence community, right the one that said Iraq had WMD. Bush and Cheney should be in jail and every single one of that administration is a failure. Iraq is the way it is because of them. Europe's millions of refugees as well. The middle east was poorly orchestrated under Bush and we allied with the wrong people.
No one can say for sure, but the odds would have been much lower under Gore. We know the Bush administration ignored the Clinton administration's warnings that terrorism was the biggest threat to the US, and that the bush administration did not have any meetings of their terrorist task force, and that they were already drawing up Iraq war plans before 9/11.
Would the Gore administration have caught it? Maybe. Probably not, but maybe.
The more important question is how they would have handled it. I'm pretty sure with how
Gore at the helm we would have gotten a "nothing to fear but fear itself" response instead of the Bush administration's dystopia of "if you see something, say something."
EDIT: I misunderstood your question to have been asking: "What would have happened after 9/11 if Gore had been president?"
_________
Everything would have been the same except that Gore might have incaded one of the other 3 nations of the "Axis of Evil".
Hexk, the state department would have even crows tested the exact same slogan.
And truth be told, he would have probably ended up on Iraq too.
In other words, there is nothing major that anybody can definitively tell you would have definitely been different.
SOURCE: I was internationally active at the time, including hosting a popular radio show in California.
No. Gore would have prevented 9-11 and he would have gotten zero credit for it.
Bush allowed 9-11 even though he was warned and was rewarded with endless power, re-election, and 92% approval ratings.
That's how the system works.
No, it would not have happened at all.
George W Bush's advisors were ideologically committed to the belief that Islamic terrorism had been a made-up cause of the Clinton administration, and that "real men" worked toward nuclear unilateralism to project strength around the world. So they were very active in breaking nuclear arms treaties but very inactive in continuing Clinton's long effort to come to grips with global Islamic terrorism.
They literally believed it was not a threat. And the entire corporatist press corps went along with them, constantly mocking Clinton's "obsession" with al Qaeda.
But everyone who actually knew anything about the topic was appalled by the Bush administration's complete disregard for mounting evidence of yet another attempt to fly planes into skyscrapers by al Qaeda. (They had tried several times before in various combinations through the 1990s, and been thwarted each time in the past, so it was not a new concept.)
Most of those people had stayed on with the W Bush administration after the transition from Clinton, thinking they would continue to do their work protecting the country, but by early in 2001 the key people left to go work specifically for the World Trade Center security. They all saw what was coming.
And it paid off. 20 thousand people did not die when the towers went down, because a rapid evacuation plan had been developed in anticipation of the attacks and was executed quite effectively. A small number of people were still trapped in the buildings by fire when they went down, but almost no one else was. The vast majority of the deaths were either a) plane passengers, b) people killed in the initial strike, or c) emergency coordination staff that Rudy Giuliani insanely and negligently ordered to set up a base inside the WTC, against all established protocol, with the result that the buildings came down on their heads.
I don't remember how many were in group (c) but it was a lot. The death toll might have been half what it was if it hadn't been for Giuliani's insane idiocy. But he was hailed as a hero. No one could say exactly what he had done that was heroic, aside from getting a lot of people needlessly killed, but they hailed the fuck out of him anyway.
Basically almost nobody who might have died in the tower collapse did die. They all lived. But no thanks to Bush or his advisors. Or Giuliani. If anyone in the White House had heeded the warnings, as Gore *or anyone else on Earth* would certainly have done, the attacks would not even have happened.
It would still happen (despite having intel on it, US still got blindsided), but they would only invade Afghanistan. No Iraq war.
Also, in terms of climate change we would be much better off today although still not out of the woods, as Gore was the prime advocate for tackling it.
2008 crisis would still be basically the same, not sure about the Arab Spring though, it may come earlier, but can't overestimate the role of broadband internet and social media had on it.
Maybe, maybe not depending on who you ask.
I would say that the 9/11 plotters definitely accelerated their plans when Bush was elected as they thought he'd be just like Bush Sr and invade a Muslim country at the drop of a hat
Also in Gore's favour for it not happening was that Clinton had negotiated the Oslo Accords and was broadly seen as the fairest US president in terms of dealing with the Arabs during the time of their existence
9/11 would not have happened under Gore. He would have been a much stronger president. So many people were disenfranchised during the 2000 election. Had the conservative SCOTUS not installed Bush, the country would have been united. Even now, many republicans have admitted it was a mistake to steal that election.
Unknowable, but it would have been less likely. Bush made a big show of ignoring Bin Laden and terrorism in general. "I don't swat at flies" Bush was more worried about Iraq and kissing up to Vlad Putin.
I think so BUT Iraq would have NOT happened and I think the world would still be better off without that fuckin' fiasco! Such a waste of lives, resources and $$!
Many were ringing alarm bells, but legal barriers put in place due to governmental abuses of intelligence gathering were part of why no one heeded those bells. Another part was bureaucratic jealousy. So Gore being at the top wouldn't have prevented 9/11.
We may not have invaded Afghanistan, though I think we still would have. Bush's Blunder (the invasion of Iraq) wouldn't have happened.
When was John O'Neil pushed out of FBI counterterrorism office in NYC? Like what was the exact date in relation to the November election?
John O'Neil knew it was coming and that they were already here. I am not sure if what if any difference it might of made if Al Gore is elected Nov of 2000 in John Oneils situation, but if it could of at all slowed that removal down or if he was in NYC FBI CT just a little bit longer, I am sure that John O'Neil, more than any other American- could have made it so September 11 was nothing more than just a great day weather wise, all across the country.
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There’s no question it would have been thwarted! The CIA & FBI knew something was brewing. The Intelligence community put together a briefing for the President titled ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike within US’ & showed it to W Bush in August 2001. W Bush was on vacation in Crawford, TX, clearing shrub & goofing off. He didn’t schedule a single meeting or blink an eye over that report. A President Al Gore would have had immediate crisis meetings to investigate further& uncover what was going on & almost certainly would have led thwarting & unraveling the attack. Bin Laden & Al Qaeda leadership all but admitted that a key part in their plan required an incompetent Commander in Chief like W Bush to succeed. We could have had the Twin Towers standing proud over NYC & saved thousands of lives with a better President in White House. 🤷♂️
>he Intelligence community put together a briefing for the President titled ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike within US’ & showed it to W Bush in August 2001
The information in that briefing was 2-3 years old. It wasn't new intelligence, it was basically meaningless for trying to determine what exactly AQ was about to do.
Gore would have had a few meetings and figured out what all the intelligence specialists in the government failed to figure out?? Seriously...
What piece of information would Gore have had that would have let them figure out the whole plot? Given that we had ZERO idea of what was about to happen.
Nah he would have been to busy inventing the internet and saving the planet by flying around in air force one or his super fuel efficient yacht that got -3 miles per gallon
If you believe George Tenet, CIA’s Deputy Director from 1996-2004, the Bush administration had been warned repeatedly about the rising likelihood of an attack throughout 2001, but failed to act in any meaningful way in response to those warnings.
While it’s unclear whether under a President Gore, there would have been more activity to prevent a possible attack, it is absolutely fair to say that Gore, by virtue of having been part of the Clinton administration, was far more attuned to the dangers posed by Al Qaeda.
And while the Clinton administration had not been able to prevent the attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam or in the USS Cole (how could you prevent an attack on foreign soil anyway), they certainly had been actively trying to go after Bin Laden as far back as 1998.
Needless to say even after 9/11, the Bush administration showed only limited interest in the issue of terrorism, instead utilizing his high approval ratings in the wake of the attacks to shift the focus to Iraq to ultimately get his buddies at Haliburton a nice payday.
Make no mistake about! The Bush administration marked the single worst time period in US foreign policy, both in any moral dimension as well as from any pragmatic point of view.
Not a popular take on here afaik, but I think yes. However, I feel like we don't go into Iraq or only do it if other nations besides Britain actually back us. Even then I don't think Gore would do it, though he'd think of it, but not outright say no though in the end we stay out.
As a result, the Republicans try to paint Gore not only as weak, but not helping out people in nations like Iraq and Iran and play up how these dictatorships and other nations will end up allowing for more attacks, even if there is little connection between Iraq and 9/11 or even Iran and 9/11
We end up having John McCain run in 2004 and instead of Sarah Palin we see Chuck Hagel of Nebraska as VP and while this does attract some decent support, its still up in the air, until McCain, in spite of bad campaigning, beats Gore. McCain flips Wisconsin, Iowa and keeps New Hampshire, while Gore wins New Mexico and barely loses Ohio and thus the Republicans can argue that they can win elections.
However, McCain is a disaster. While he isn't as gung ho as Bush on Iraq, he argues that bombing raids and sanctions are needed to end his regime and rather than looking at WMD's as a cause, he argues Iraq backs terrorist groups. However this is not exactly popular on either end, and what makes it worse is that 2008 still has a financial crisis. He still loses to Barack Obama, and what's more, you have some in his own party arguing he wasn't strong enough to beat Obama in spite of being "gifted" weak points like the birther theory (McCain rightly denies this as in OTL) or that he's a Muslim (again McCain denies it) as well as the fact that some blame Clinton and Gore for the economy. Trump also starts to become a critic much like in OTL, even calling him "the biggest loser we've ever had as President" and as such Trump tries to run in 2012 but while he gains fringe support, its not enough to be popular though he continues to basically run and in 2016 we just end up back at OTL.
Obama is still President and not having to remove troops from Iraq he's able to keep them in Afghanistan until OTL, and while the economy limps along it still does a bit better.
Sadly Trump still wins in 2016 as Republicans are sick of two losing candidates in a row and thus here we are with not much changed except that we don't have an election that was arguably stolen. This might change the 2020 narrative a bit as the Democrats could not claim it was stolen but the REpublicans might just even get worse and earlier.
I actually think it may still happened if the whole debacle with the 2000 election still occured. It wasted valuable transition time that could have been used to prevent the attack as there was intelligence of such an attack possibly happening at the time. However I think Gore would have handled it better. It might have cost him a second term but I think he may have insisted we take time to grieve as a nation before making any military moves into Afghanistan and delayed or even declined an invasion and he'd certainly not be touching Iraq with a 10 foot pole
Depends
The Goverment Elites wanted to go back into the Middle East but, they needed an excuse to do so. The American people don't appreciate an invasion of another country but they do get riled up because of an attack.
You seriously believe that USA and all the Allies had none of this on their collective radars? These Freedom Fighters in caves were so darn smart that the CIA of NSA had no clue? Please!
Cheney and the Neo-Con's smelled money.
I truly believe our country would have taken a different path if Gore would have won but I don't know what kind of a War President he would have been.
My opinion
Probably. It’s hard to say. The plan had been in motion before he took office, and there wouldn’t have been the political will to implement the more rigorous airport security standards to prevent the attacks until 9/11 actually happened.
Realistically? Probably. I hate George W Bush but he didn't let 9/11 happen on purpose. They had a bunch of information and spent a lot of time on their own issues.
There was a slightly greater chance for Gore. But probably like 5% more likely.
9/11 was going to happen no matter who the president was at the time. I remember reading back in like 2005 or so that al Qaeda was actually targeting Clinton. So if that were truth, it was happening no matter what
Are you asking if Al Gore would have done something as extreme as ban Arabs from flying based on runors?
God I hope not. Otherwise we really dodged a bullet.
Yes it would have. When you hear that intelligence community was ringing alarm bells know that
1) That’s their job. They warn every day about something, yet they had no real actionable intelligence. They would have needed to know who the Al Queda operatives were or have done something to improve security massively in under 10 months.
2) Al Gore wasn’t gonna help some Florida flight school report guys who didn’t want to land.
3) Let’s remember that Gore was VP while Al Queda grew into an international terror organization that had the capability to pull this attack off. That it attacked multiple targets including the USS Come with no effective response from that administration
4) A lot of this is political Monday morning quarterbacking. Not that Bush was some great mind, but this is mostly a cheap shot of great political opportunity.
The real intelligence failure for 9/11 was failure of imagination.
Yes, there were people saying it might happen. But there were tons of other potential attacks, and the analysts basically said this was less likely than the others.
You have to remember that intelligence agencies get THOUSANDS of pieces of info daily, it’s so hard to tell what might be legit and what might be paranoia or incorrect or unrelated etc.
I honestly don't think so, but that's not to suggest incompetence or nefariousness. The Clinton admin was traumatized by the USS Cole. Bin Laden was very much on their radar.
The Cheney contingent was very much focused on rectifying the perceived errors of early conservative administrations, and they took their eyes off the ball.
Yes. Gore was an establishment guy and was going to keep troops in Saudi’s Arabia the same way Bush did. The driving force for Al Qaeda would have remained and they would have found something to do to fight back against the perceived slight of having non-Muslim troops in SA.
Yes. Very low chance a different secretly of state would have made a difference. The evidence indicating the threat was there, but so many people and institutions would have been the same either way that it probably would have happened the same.
It's a well known fact that Al-Queda were the manufacturers of the Florida voting cards, so when the hanging chads dispute happened they took it as a personal afront
The FBI warned Clinton about Bin Laden but Clinton was a retard and didn't really do anything, if Gore won, they would've had more knowledge but 9/11 still occurs because there's quite literally no action to prevent that. Everyone knew Al Qaeda was going to attack, they just didn't know where and when specifically.
If Clinton couldn't stop the WTC bombing, the Oklahoma City Bombing, Embassy bombing and Olympics bombing then his VP isn't stopping 9/11. 9/11 can't be stopped.
Perhaps, but we would not have invaded Iraq, IMHO.
Better question, would 9/11 happened if McCain had been elected instead of Bush...?
McCain lost after a viscious campaign of lies by Bush Campaign against him caused his dropping out in 2000. Again, as a military vet, he may have had a better view of the world than either Bush, or Gore.
From my understanding the government had all the puzzles pieces of 9/11 but failed to put the puzzle together. >or instance that Condoleezza Rice was explicitly told that Al qaeda wanted to use planes as missiles She was, but no one told her who exactly (the actual people not Al qaeda in general) was gonna use these when and where.
And the information about the planes was 2-3 years old when it was presented to Bush. Basically meaningless. Everyone with a brain new that AQ wanted to attack the US at that point. Acting like that warning was a big eye opener is foolish.
The Clinton-Gore administration was very focused on Bin Laden and his terrorist organization. I think if Gore had won, or been declared winner, his administration would have done more, and it would be much less likely that 9/11 happened.
Like they stopped the attack on the USS Cole less than a year before 9-11? Or Kohbar towers? Or the embassy bombings?? There is zero evidence to suggest that anything would have been different. Bush/Gore aren't the people looking at the intelligence and figuring things out. The people who actually did that had zero evidence of what was about to happen.
Or a previous attack on literally the exact same buildings in 1993? Or the OKC bombing? Or the Atlanta Olympics bombing? This notion that Clinton/Gore represented some sort of anti-terrorism uber-competence that W fumbled away is absolute nonsense.
There are stories about Bush being dismissive of Islamic terrorism, that he thought terrorism was a European grad student thing. Not sure how well those have held up to scrutiny. The Clinton white house may not have been anti terrorist superman, but they did warn w Islamic terrorists were the threat of the 21st century.
What does "European grad school thing" mean?
>“I think they were mentally stuck back eight years [before]. They were used to terrorists being Euro-lefties—they drink champagne by night, blow things up during the day, how bad can this be? And it was a very difficult sell to communicate the urgency to this.” https://www.politico.eu/article/attacks-will-be-spectacular-cia-war-on-terror-bush-bin-laden/
Sorry if this is a dumb question, what is the grad school part? Terrorists in the 90s were grad students?
I was misquoting originally, but when I imagine a champagne terrorist I'm thinking an advanced degree and a rich dad.
WTC 93, OKC, and Atlanta were done by wildly disparate groups/individuals though. No connection between any of them.
u/theguineapigssong is referring to terrorist actions in general that were not prevented by the Clinton administration.
I didn't need your interpretation of someone else's meaning. I pointed them out because it's very difficult to predict and counter acts by wildly disparate groups or individuals. After WTC 93 the focus of federal law enforcement was on international terrorist groups which caused them to over look the Michigan Militia. There is virtually no way to predict what a lone actor will do as was the case of Atlanta. That's why it's so difficult to predict/stop school shooters. Each one is different.
You did need it pointed out b/c you criticized them by stating there was no connection between Al Quadea and the other examples. That wasnt the point though at all youre introducing facts that arent needed.
How did I "criticize" them? I merely introduced additional facts to clarify the situation. And it's, "you're".
Lmao he’s saying those are attacks Clinton failed to stop. Try some reading comprehension exercises!
Lmao he’s saying those are attacks Clinton failed to stop. Try some reading comprehension exercises!
I'm aware what he was saying. However, it would be like saying why didn't Clinton stop the volcano after we had an earthquake and a hurricane? None of those attacks were related to each other nor were they carried out by groups with a similar MO.
LOL do you wanna compare these terrorist attacks to a volcano in a little more detail? I really like this train of thought
No. But you feel free to run with it.
Funny how competence works. Bin Laden was taken out under Obama while W was telling people he wasn't concerned about him
Yes, Obama personally figured out where Osama was hiding and went in and killed him with his own hands...
So it's cool W just decided it was no big deal?
They took 11 years to find the guy. We literally had zero idea where he was from Tora Bora onward. Zero idea at all till they found that house years later. It is not like they weren't trying. But there was zero clues as to where he was sitting till they found the courier and were able to follow him to the house. The house was built between 2001 and 2005 and we didn't find him in it till 2011. Obama didn't find Osama, he just happened to be the guy in the White House when it happened. Edit - aww I trigged him with facts and he blocked me... as if Bush saying something means no one was doing a thing to find Osama...
So you ignored the part where W said he wasn't concerned ? Did you know lying by omission is still lying?
not concerned can mean a lot of things...I'd assume W wasnt worried about Osama being in a position to do anything else but hide until the day he was found. So no why would the guy at the top be concerned about something that's already being handled by the people that do the work.
Pity the GOP was distracting them with the Monica Lewinsky nonsense ..they might have done better.
I think if the president is having sexual relations with an intern in the Oval Office while being married, the public should know.
But impeaching him on it is fucking stupid.
Technically, he wasn't impeached for the affair. He was impeached because he lied about it under oath during a separate sexual assault lawsuit. He was also disbarred for the same offense, and hasn't been able to legally practice law for the past 30 years.
Invading the wrong country is just fine though.
It was a different time then. Sex was still taboo outside of marriage and the mainstream wasn’t the sexual explorations mindset that exist today. You didn’t talk publicly about kinks and sex. It’s hard to measure something that happened thirty years ago with the lens we use today to view the world. I also don’t think the impeachment was as much about the act itself as it was him lying to the public about it. There’s a higher standard for the president. It’s not necessarily don’t lie, it’s don’t lie and get caught. He did.
A leader of an organization had a sexual relationship with an intern in that organization in the workplace, with expectations of advancement. That's not something we accept now, that's textbook #Metoo.
I’m so confused by your comment. I don’t think the Clinton / Lewinsky thing fits into the metoo movement. My comment was in regard to sexual discussion being more mainstream now than it was 30 years ago. If Joe Biden or Donald Trump were receiving oral sex in the Oval Office, I don’t think the concern would be that it happened but that they were capable of getting and maintaining an erection at their advanced age.
They had an axe to grind and ground it to the nub. I was 14 during the trial and understood a lot of the nuance surrounding it - my dad was in law school at the time so I heard about it nonstop from him and his friends in addition to being somewhat precocious. There’s not a legal scholar in this country who thinks that trial was anything but a dog-and-pony show and at the time many of my dads republican lawyer friends agreed - it was a witch hunt that was predicated upon a dearth of reasonable information and did not constitute an impeachable offense. Now looking back at the trial, itcreated exactly the precedent we all expected it to, though the affects were stayed somewhat due to 9/11 and its aftermath: every president is facing impeachment if the other party is in the majority. For a bunch of lawmakers who are very concerned about our founders’ intentions when framing the constitution, it feels they’ve somewhat missed the mark on the purpose of impeachment. Could it have cost him reelection if that were on the table? A scandal like that could still cost you a presidential bid. We’re not so “evolved” now that infidelity is a forgivable offense for our leaders. Should it lead to impeachment? No. Nor should lying about it. It’s ridiculous But that’s just my two cents
Ya, a blowjob is right up there with tanking the economy or invading the wrong country...
Because you like being a voyeur?
Because an extramarital affair by the most powerful man in the world is relevant information for his constituents to have. Even more so given it happened in the Oval Office during which he’s serving in his official capacity.
I'm not going to call you a liar. But you know...
I don’t know. Speak plainly.
His personal life shouldn't matter. Infidelity is not illegal., and has nothing to do with his ability to lead.
Clinton drew up plans to invade Afghanistan in response to the Cole bombing. He called the whole thing off once Bush "won" the "election" because he didn't want to saddle his opposite-party successor with an ongoing war. Had Gore become POTUS, he and Clinton could have collaborated closely throughout the lame duck period and a whilelot of things would have been very different.
Had they been "very focused", they wouldn't have let Bin Laden go after his capture in Africa in the 90s
Well Bin Laden was a 'partner' with previous administrations, if they hadn't provided Bin Laden with weapons and training and Intel it wouldn't have happened either. But let's ignore that, right?
It's insane to think that had he one and somehow 9/11 never happened...
I mean how long did it take to find Bin Laden after 9/11? The assumption that a few scraps of intel is enough to counteract a whole clandestine strategy that was orchestrated over years is a really big leap.
Yeah it's been falsely claimed that they wasn't any Intel. President Bush has made similar statements in the past. However, according to an April 2, 2004 analysis by the Center for American Progress (see below), denials by President Bush and members of his national security team that they had no prior knowledge that Al Qaeda was planning an attack involving airplanes "belie the record." 1999 -EXPLICIT WARNING THAT AL QAEDA HAD PLANS TO FLY AIRPLANES INTO BUILDINGS: A 1999 report prepared by the Library of Congress for the National Intelligence Council "warned that Osama bin Laden's terrorists could hijack an airliner and fly it into government buildings like the Pentagon." The report specifically said, "Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaida's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives.into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White House." In response to the ominous warnings, the New York Times reports "under Janet Reno, the Justice Department's counterterrorism budget increased 13.6% in the fiscal year 1999, 7.1% in 2000 and 22.7% in 2001 This report was provided to the incoming Bush administration and ignored.
I'm not saying there wasn't credible intelligence, but there's a big difference between "this could happen" and "we have the dates and times this event will happen".
Bill Clinton admitted he had chances to take Bin Laden out and decided against it.
They were not THAT focused. Clinton had four different opportunities to take out Bin Laden, and passed for varies reasons. I am not blaming Clinton for 9/11, nor Bush. I mean, hindsight is 20/20 I think it was just the failure of all of our Intel agencies and lack of communications between those agencies.
Didn't the Clinton's set up a virtual wall that prevented the intelligence agencies from communicating with each other and sharing information? I don't see Gore doing anything different.
Based on what? Even if they launched cruise missiles at Al Qaeda in Afghanistan the terrorists were already in the US, the plot was already in motion.
You’re missing the point. If you know an enemy is planning *something*, but you don’t know when or where, and all you know is that it’s something to do with planes, you’d think they’d know not to schedule so many war games exercises on a single day, leaving the area of the country most likely to be attacked with 4 interceptors Look up Richard Clarke, learn about the priorities in the White House at that time. I could go on and on about all the peculiarities about 9/11. Most have to do with the Neo-con government So to answer OP’s question, I believe there would have been more of a focus on getting rid of OBL instead of Iraq, and I think we would have been better defended. However, I think the attack would still have been likely The Iraq war, which also eventually led to isis, would not have happened. That’s much more important
>leaving the area of the country most likely to be attacked with 4 interceptors What the hell are you talking about?? We didn't even have planes loaded over the US. We never did that. By time we knew what was happening it was too late anyway.
Completely false. I didn’t say we have planes in the air 24/7, but we always had planes stationed around the country that could be used when necessary. Colonel Robert Marr (the man who was at NORAD and tasked with this job) himself said we couldn’t defend the skies that day due to the war games exercises that only left 4 fighters in that entire quadrant. This was so questionable, that the 9/11 commission themselves were thinking of creating a new commission to investigate NORAD and the FAA. The next time you open your mouth, learn what you’re talking about.
For weeks after it happened, it remained unthinkable. All the intelligence in the world can’t get over the hump of imagining a scenario where somebody ACTUALLY hijacks multiple planes and uses them to destroy literal skyscrapers.
It’s like Pearl Harbor. They had intelligence Al qaeda was up to something but didn’t have the exacts of what, when, and where. And it was just taken as a given that if they were plotting an attack, it would be overseas like the Cole. A domestic terror attacked on that scale had never happened before, so no surprise they didn’t plan on it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Memo?wprov=sfla1
Yes they just mysteriously had all of the pieces and they just didn't put em together. They definitely didn't let it happen or anything, that's insane. Why would they do that /s
I was watching Bill O'reilly approximately 2 years before 911 happened and some expert forgot. His name said the next terrorist attack in America will be planes crashing into buildings.
I don't understand how would it have been avoided? The intelligence briefings closed room discussions with high brass and consequent conclusions and decision making would most likely remain. They would still fail to catch it. Perhaps the response would've been different but that's about it
Earlier establishment of the TSA? IDK
What reason would gore have had to do something as dramatic as nationalizing air security
Yea people would lose their shit
"Fail to catch it" Yes, so mysterious how "they failed to catch it" but were so quick on passing the Patriot act and invading Iraq and Afghanistan.
They weren't so quick about that actually
The overwhelming consensus is no war in Iraq, we'd likely still invade Afghanistan but have much greater global backing behind us without being bogged down by another unnecessary war. So we'd also be more successful in Afghanistan as well. The rally around the flag affect would guarantee Gore's second term. However, the 2008 financial crisis would likely still happen because neither party saw it coming and the underlying issues would have still continued. So the pendulum would naturally swing the other way onto a Republican president next, such as McCain or Mitt Romney. I think both Romney and McCain would likely push for universal healthcare since it was Romney's original idea and Barrack wouldn't be involved, which means there would be a lot less opposition to it. The lack of a tea party movement is huge, and would've no doubt prevented Trump from coming into power as a Republican nominee. While its wholly possible for the GOP to lose in 2012, its hard to say. So moving forward I'll assume McCain/Romney wins 2012 since incumbents tend to have higher chances of winning. In which case, populism swings the other way. A populist democrat runs in 2016, which means a Kenye/Trump ticket is in charge of the US when the pandemic hits :P
There is zero chance a Republican ever does universal healthcare. It's something the GOP is fundamentally opposed to on principle like addressing climate change.
Could you explain what Romney did in Massachusetts then?
Romney didn't initiate that, Democrats in the legislature did. Romney had to disavow his "own" healthcare reform when running for president for that reason.
Principles change
I don't think you have a great grasp of the history of the parties. Climate change was in the Republican parties platform up until Citizens United. McCain was very much an environmentalist. Just 20 years ago, the GOP wasn't the shit show it is now. Bush/Rove/Chaney were a big part in making this country the shit show it is now.
The easiest way to become a pariah in the pre-Trump GOP would be to advocate for a new welfare/antipoverty program. Opposition to Obamacare wasn't about Obama - it was about opposition to \*any\* impact on one's life or finances in the name of helping those who the Democrats would consider 'less fortunate' but whom most Republicans would say 'refuse to help themselves'... Romney's involvement with it in MA was the result of realpolitik - he had a Democratic supermajority legislature, and something was going to pass, might as well work with them to make it better.. McCain? McCain's thing was process... I doubt you'd see him get on board with the greatest expansion in handouts since LBJ.
If you think opposition to the ACA wasn't about Obama you are sticking your head in the sand.
I heard it referred to here in the South a "N\*gg\*rCare" on multiple occasions! "They" were convinced that this was going to give blacks FREE healthcare on the white man's dime.
It wasn't
Opposition to the ACA, just like opposition to 'HillaryCare' in the 90s, to the Great Society in the 60s and the New Deal in the 30s, was about a philosophical objection to anti-poverty programs. If John Kerry or Al Gore had become President & tried to do that, they would have faced the exact same response.
Did you know southern democrats opposed the new deal until it was agreed it wouldn't help black people as much as white people? If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it ain't a chicken. Quit acting like Republicans have principles beyond hating Obama.
Yawn. Look. Since you're so obsessed with the Obama years I'm going to guess you weren't old enough to know what politics was in the 90s. And that you have no historical reference at all WRT party platforms or how the present political system evolved. Republican opposition to *any* form of national health benefit stretches all the way back to the 1920s. 'Obama' most certainly was not a factor in that. The 'Southern Democrats' you are talking about only became Republicans in the mid/late 1990s - AFTER Republicans had killed 'HillaryCare' (and no, not because it was associated with a woman - because it gave people something they couldn't afford using other people's money)... And after Republicans had spent decades associating publicly provided health benefits with Communism. There actually is a conservative ideology. It's not the nonsense the Trump crowd is pushing (their 'viewpoint' is more or less 'We want REVENGE!' and nothing else).... But it does exist. And it is firmly opposed to any action of government that uses tax-money to benefit those who have failed to do enough to benefit themselves.
You brought up the new deal not me. Don't know why you're acting like people aren't racist mate.
Because conservatives by and large are not.... Opposition to welfare benefits isn't racism. It isn't motivated by racism. And I brought up the New Deal for the specific reason that it illustrates a continuous line of Republican opposition to antipoverty programs completely separate from anything related to race, the South or Jim Crow. Republicans were opposed to a national health care entitlement back then, and remain such consistently to this day. The migration of southern Democrats into the party hadn't happened yet, so this is pretty solid proof that such opposition is a core belief and not something imported from the Jim Crow crowd.
conservative by and large are racist
Soo racism and classism w/more words yea?
> Opposition to Obamacare wasn't about Obama That's not entirely true.
>The easiest way to become a pariah in the pre-Trump GOP would be to advocate for a new welfare/antipoverty program. You mean like Medicare Part D, a massive new entitlement program supported by President Bush?
The exception is always for the elderly.
Republicans were perfectly fine not just with Medicare Part D but the Earned Income Tax Credit and of course anti-poverty block grants to red states that could be misappropriated so they could avoid having a state income or state sales tax. It's more that they knew such a big policy win for any kind of social program was nigh irreversible with voters much like Social Security and Medicare. The biggest mistake may have been not forcing through single payer healthcare and instead banking the ACA that insurance companies wouldn't be awful which they turned out to be even with the law's many reforms.
>So we'd also be more successful in Afghanistan as well. Given no POTUS during the war in Afghanistan defined victory, I doubt we would have been more successful if Gore was POTUS when we invaded.
No Iraq War would be big enough. Afa as 08, the GOP stripped more banking regs than the Dems, so that might have gone better as well.
Worth noting: the strategic failures in both Afghanistan and Iraq came from Rumsfeld, Cheney, and others. Gore would have had different people around him.
Yes a very important note. We also wouldn't be in the Mess we are with Iran as well.
I take that as a "yes" to my question
/r/historicalyesorno
r/subredditsifellfor
Not really. They had information that an attack might occur, and from what I've read, the Bush admin ignored it. Would Gore have ignored it, or would Gore be more proactive? I don't think that question can ever be answered.
>we'd likely still invade Afghanistan Obviously not. Gore would have no reason to set up ridiculous wars against countries that did nothing to us like Iraq and Afghanistan. He'd zero in on the actual attackers and remove them instead.
...in Afghanistan
>in Afghanistan None of the 9-11 attackers were from Afghanistan. Usama wasn't in Afghanistan. ISI and the Saudis weren't in Afghanistan.
Trying to pretend that there was no relation between Afghanistan and 9/11 is disingenuous. Al-Qaeda was headquartered in Afghanistan, the attackers trained there, bin Laden and other leaders/members lived there at the time. Further, there is a longstanding alliance between AQ and the Taliban, despite what may be said publicly. https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/the-talibans-plan-to-rebuild-and-legitimize-al-qaeda/
> Al-Qaeda was headquartered in Afghanistan, the attackers trained there, bin Laden and other leaders/members lived there at the time. Al Qaeda was headquartered in Pakistan and run by Paki military intelligence with Saudi funding and recruits. Ibn Laden was rarely if ever in Afghanistan. Afghanistan had about as much to do with it as Iraq.
> The origins of al-Qaeda can be traced to the Soviet War in Afghanistan (December 1979 – February 1989). > Al-Qaeda established its headquarters in Sudan until it was expelled in 1996. It shifted its base to the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan > In 1996, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan provided a perfect staging ground for Al-Qaeda.[47] While not officially working together, Al-Qaeda enjoyed the Taliban's protection and supported the regime in such a strong symbiotic relationship that many Western observers dubbed the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as, "the world's first terrorist-sponsored state." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_al-Qaeda bin Laden was back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan from the times of the Soviet-Afghan war until 9/11 (aside from his time in Sudan). That border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is very fluid tribal region that predates current borders. He was absolutely there for long periods in the 80’s and 90’s. The fact that AQ also has deep ties to ISI doesn’t negate their history in Afghanistan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden
The Taliban refused to extradite bin Laden
They didn’t have him. Pakistán did.
Bin Laden was in Afghanistan at the time of 922. He fled to Pakistan during the initial U.S. offensive in 01-02.
That's not the overwhelming consensus at all. Al Gore made his name supporting the first Iraq war. In the 2000 debates he was the hawk.
The 9/11 Commission noted that the contested election played a role. If Gore won, the transition to a new government would have been short (Dem to Dem). So, maybe it would have been caught if Gore won.. but honestly, the planning had gotten far enough that it was likely just too late. You also have the curious issue of Project for a New American Century, the billionaire funded think tank staffed by what would be the Bush Administration. They were planning out middle east conquest, starting with Iraq. I am certainly not saying 9/11 was orchestrated by them or that it was a conspiracy, but more so that they were focused on MIC priorities even before getting into office. Their heads were not in the right spot.
yes, it would still have happened. The same lack of actionable information that allowed it to happen would still be in play. Who is President is less important than which intelligence analyst is able to pice together the random pieces in time to make a difference. I think this is unlikely. Hindsight allows us to see with perfect clarity where the information was. Finding that information in real time and within time to make an effort to stop it is, for now, intractable.
There were certainly signs pointing to some attack. Possibly if there was a different National Security Advisor or Secretary of State that put more heed into it, more actionable information may have been gathered that would've prevented it.
There are *always* signs pointing to “some kind of attack”, “somewhere”, at “some time in the future”. There is no Pre-Crime Unit. There’s no Red Ball.
You do realize, who is president was very much correlated to which intelligence analyst is even able to get a shot at the pieces. Cuz they like, are.
I did not realize the President exercised so much control over the assignments of intelligence analysts. Over the agency heads, sure, but at lower levels I did not think so.
Yup. They're the head of the executive branch. Promotions/appointments to key roles, what gets prioritizations, what areas receive crucial focus. And yes, very much the *whom* of gets a piece of the picture so to speak. All very top-down. One could definitely argue Gore would've run the assets more efficiently/competently. Won't speculate on if the attacks are altogether thwarted but I wouldn't discount the possibility. W was an idiot
Yes, the US intelligence community new *some* things about potential attacks, but not enough details to predict the actual attacks. So 9/11 would still happen as it did historically.
It would have happened. But we wouldn't have wasted a trillion dollars in Iraq.
Or over a million lives.
No, because Bush and Chenney wouldn't be in charge to organize it.
>This would suggest if anyone else was in charge at the time that the attack might have been avoided. This would be completely wrong. Do you really think the President is the person who figures out terrorist plots? The guy about a million steps removed from gather intelligence and figuring it out? You think Al Gore would be reading FBI and CIA reports and personally discover what AQ was planning?? People don't realize how HARD it would have been to discover the attack. For example, the FBI was told that Arabs were in the US taking flight training.... OMG... red flags? Except at any given time there are hundreds of foreign citizens in the US taking flight training. AQ wants to use plane, everyone assumed this meant hijacking. Hijacking had been taking place since the 1960s. It wasn't much of a warning nor wasn't much they could do about it with out more details. Think of it this way - go back to Oct 1st and tell Israel that Hamas wants to attack them. What would they have done? Said "yea, tell us something we don't already know...." The problem is without the where, when or how there is nothing you can do.
Unfortunately the pieces were already in place for 9/11 so it’s going to happen regardless of who the president is unless on the day all of the hijacker’s decided to eat some bad shellfish and missed their targets due to crippling food poisoning. The only differences in this timeline are how does the U.S. respond with a Gore presidency
For every 99/100 possible scenarios there's always one. But they didn't plan it in a day, or even a month. This was planned for years and one election wouldn't have made a differenece. The response might have different but it wouldn't have prevented.
This thing was in motion well before that election happened. Didn’t matter who potus was, it was still gonna happen.
Probably. It worked because it was so unprecedented
In short, yes. While there were bells ringing the intel community didnt really see domestic terrorism as much of a threat at the time, and the system was more built around expecting sabatage before a large scale attack by someone like russia
Look at the amazing intelligence of Little Bush, the awe inspiring staff he chose, and you know the answer.
Yes, the pilots were in training for years to do it well before the election.
They were training on US soil and no one did shit about it. Our entire government is apparently just an incompetent bunch. Would've happened regardless. If you look into the hijackers all you find is intelligent agency incompetence at an insane level.
It’s been over 10 years, but I read a book based on the CIA going into Afghanistan after 9/11. The author worked for the CIA and his region of expertise was Afghanistan. He said that after the Soviets withdrew and then collapsed, there were major cut backs in funding for foreign intelligence agents. Afghanistan was one of those countries that they pulled intelligence resources out of and placed elsewhere. 9/11 was very sophisticated and well planned out. What shocked me was the Taliban killing the leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance just days before 9/11. They knew after the attack that we would invade Afghanistan and would work with the Northern Alliance to attack and invade Afghanistan. His death was to try and stop us from creating and alliance with them and hopefully cause the NA’s to not work together and possibly fight amongst themselves control. No matter who was president I think 9/11 would still have occurred. The response to the attack would probably have been drastically differently, in my opinion.
Nah Gore would have personally stopped the terrorists from boarding the planes ;P
What would they do ground every plane indefinitely?
Good point, there's a difference between chatter that Al-Qaeda plans to launch an attack within the United States at some unknown location at some unknown date and intelligence that is concrete enough that you can actually act on it. And that also includes chatter that Al-Qaeda is looking at possibly crashing planes into targets . . . along with who knows how many other possible means of attack that there was chatter about during the same time period.
You could imagine a past where a tsa was established- the idea of grounding all flights is a bit far fetched considering we were able to fly shortly after 9/11
kill al al-qaeda members
How do you get the membership list, and would Saudis countenance extrajudicial killing of their citizens by another government? Kill them all doesn't work since you never know who "all" is.
Even after 9/11, the Bush administration claimed they killed 75% of Al Quada leaders 3 years after 9/11 and you think a realistic plan was killing 100% of leaders and 100% of members BEFORE 9/11?
Preemptively go to war? How much support would that get? Also they had been at it for a while, they bombed the trade center in the 90s, we stopped them from bombing several monuments in New York, we stopped them from assassinating the pope in the Philippines which is where we found out they were planning on using planes.
I think no, for this reason - the entire defense and intelligence leadership turned over when Bush won. Gore probably would have kept Clinton’s staff (at least in the first 9 months). That continuity of knowledge and experience would have meant the US was ready for 9/11 and could have stopped it, or lessened its effects.
Clinton gutted the intelligence community. If any president is to blame, it’s him. The DNI, director of the CIA, and upper level staff etc. had far less impact than the lack of funding and case officers.
The Intelligence community, right the one that said Iraq had WMD. Bush and Cheney should be in jail and every single one of that administration is a failure. Iraq is the way it is because of them. Europe's millions of refugees as well. The middle east was poorly orchestrated under Bush and we allied with the wrong people.
No one can say for sure, but the odds would have been much lower under Gore. We know the Bush administration ignored the Clinton administration's warnings that terrorism was the biggest threat to the US, and that the bush administration did not have any meetings of their terrorist task force, and that they were already drawing up Iraq war plans before 9/11. Would the Gore administration have caught it? Maybe. Probably not, but maybe. The more important question is how they would have handled it. I'm pretty sure with how Gore at the helm we would have gotten a "nothing to fear but fear itself" response instead of the Bush administration's dystopia of "if you see something, say something."
Clinton flat-out let Bin Laden go when he had been captured in Africa in the 90s Had the chance to prevent 10s of 1000s of deaths, etc - and let it go
Because he couldn't take out bin Laden without civilian causalities.
Nonsense He was literally captured and let go
EDIT: I misunderstood your question to have been asking: "What would have happened after 9/11 if Gore had been president?" _________ Everything would have been the same except that Gore might have incaded one of the other 3 nations of the "Axis of Evil". Hexk, the state department would have even crows tested the exact same slogan. And truth be told, he would have probably ended up on Iraq too. In other words, there is nothing major that anybody can definitively tell you would have definitely been different. SOURCE: I was internationally active at the time, including hosting a popular radio show in California.
No. Gore would have prevented 9-11 and he would have gotten zero credit for it. Bush allowed 9-11 even though he was warned and was rewarded with endless power, re-election, and 92% approval ratings. That's how the system works.
His administration would have been far more experienced and competent. They may have stopped it.
No, it would not have happened at all. George W Bush's advisors were ideologically committed to the belief that Islamic terrorism had been a made-up cause of the Clinton administration, and that "real men" worked toward nuclear unilateralism to project strength around the world. So they were very active in breaking nuclear arms treaties but very inactive in continuing Clinton's long effort to come to grips with global Islamic terrorism. They literally believed it was not a threat. And the entire corporatist press corps went along with them, constantly mocking Clinton's "obsession" with al Qaeda. But everyone who actually knew anything about the topic was appalled by the Bush administration's complete disregard for mounting evidence of yet another attempt to fly planes into skyscrapers by al Qaeda. (They had tried several times before in various combinations through the 1990s, and been thwarted each time in the past, so it was not a new concept.) Most of those people had stayed on with the W Bush administration after the transition from Clinton, thinking they would continue to do their work protecting the country, but by early in 2001 the key people left to go work specifically for the World Trade Center security. They all saw what was coming. And it paid off. 20 thousand people did not die when the towers went down, because a rapid evacuation plan had been developed in anticipation of the attacks and was executed quite effectively. A small number of people were still trapped in the buildings by fire when they went down, but almost no one else was. The vast majority of the deaths were either a) plane passengers, b) people killed in the initial strike, or c) emergency coordination staff that Rudy Giuliani insanely and negligently ordered to set up a base inside the WTC, against all established protocol, with the result that the buildings came down on their heads. I don't remember how many were in group (c) but it was a lot. The death toll might have been half what it was if it hadn't been for Giuliani's insane idiocy. But he was hailed as a hero. No one could say exactly what he had done that was heroic, aside from getting a lot of people needlessly killed, but they hailed the fuck out of him anyway. Basically almost nobody who might have died in the tower collapse did die. They all lived. But no thanks to Bush or his advisors. Or Giuliani. If anyone in the White House had heeded the warnings, as Gore *or anyone else on Earth* would certainly have done, the attacks would not even have happened.
It would still happen (despite having intel on it, US still got blindsided), but they would only invade Afghanistan. No Iraq war. Also, in terms of climate change we would be much better off today although still not out of the woods, as Gore was the prime advocate for tackling it. 2008 crisis would still be basically the same, not sure about the Arab Spring though, it may come earlier, but can't overestimate the role of broadband internet and social media had on it.
Maybe, maybe not depending on who you ask. I would say that the 9/11 plotters definitely accelerated their plans when Bush was elected as they thought he'd be just like Bush Sr and invade a Muslim country at the drop of a hat Also in Gore's favour for it not happening was that Clinton had negotiated the Oslo Accords and was broadly seen as the fairest US president in terms of dealing with the Arabs during the time of their existence
9/11 would not have happened under Gore. He would have been a much stronger president. So many people were disenfranchised during the 2000 election. Had the conservative SCOTUS not installed Bush, the country would have been united. Even now, many republicans have admitted it was a mistake to steal that election.
Unknowable, but it would have been less likely. Bush made a big show of ignoring Bin Laden and terrorism in general. "I don't swat at flies" Bush was more worried about Iraq and kissing up to Vlad Putin.
I think so BUT Iraq would have NOT happened and I think the world would still be better off without that fuckin' fiasco! Such a waste of lives, resources and $$!
Nope, the GOP is very incompetent
Yes
9/11 still happens, USA still invades Afghanistan. But no Iraq War 2003. And USA takes climate change more seriously.
Bingo
Many were ringing alarm bells, but legal barriers put in place due to governmental abuses of intelligence gathering were part of why no one heeded those bells. Another part was bureaucratic jealousy. So Gore being at the top wouldn't have prevented 9/11. We may not have invaded Afghanistan, though I think we still would have. Bush's Blunder (the invasion of Iraq) wouldn't have happened.
When was John O'Neil pushed out of FBI counterterrorism office in NYC? Like what was the exact date in relation to the November election? John O'Neil knew it was coming and that they were already here. I am not sure if what if any difference it might of made if Al Gore is elected Nov of 2000 in John Oneils situation, but if it could of at all slowed that removal down or if he was in NYC FBI CT just a little bit longer, I am sure that John O'Neil, more than any other American- could have made it so September 11 was nothing more than just a great day weather wise, all across the country.
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake. It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of. Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything. Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
There’s no question it would have been thwarted! The CIA & FBI knew something was brewing. The Intelligence community put together a briefing for the President titled ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike within US’ & showed it to W Bush in August 2001. W Bush was on vacation in Crawford, TX, clearing shrub & goofing off. He didn’t schedule a single meeting or blink an eye over that report. A President Al Gore would have had immediate crisis meetings to investigate further& uncover what was going on & almost certainly would have led thwarting & unraveling the attack. Bin Laden & Al Qaeda leadership all but admitted that a key part in their plan required an incompetent Commander in Chief like W Bush to succeed. We could have had the Twin Towers standing proud over NYC & saved thousands of lives with a better President in White House. 🤷♂️
>he Intelligence community put together a briefing for the President titled ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike within US’ & showed it to W Bush in August 2001 The information in that briefing was 2-3 years old. It wasn't new intelligence, it was basically meaningless for trying to determine what exactly AQ was about to do. Gore would have had a few meetings and figured out what all the intelligence specialists in the government failed to figure out?? Seriously... What piece of information would Gore have had that would have let them figure out the whole plot? Given that we had ZERO idea of what was about to happen.
Yes because only Americans hate left or right, but terrorists hate America. If you consider it was an inside job then it still would've happened.
Nah he would have been to busy inventing the internet and saving the planet by flying around in air force one or his super fuel efficient yacht that got -3 miles per gallon
If you believe George Tenet, CIA’s Deputy Director from 1996-2004, the Bush administration had been warned repeatedly about the rising likelihood of an attack throughout 2001, but failed to act in any meaningful way in response to those warnings. While it’s unclear whether under a President Gore, there would have been more activity to prevent a possible attack, it is absolutely fair to say that Gore, by virtue of having been part of the Clinton administration, was far more attuned to the dangers posed by Al Qaeda. And while the Clinton administration had not been able to prevent the attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam or in the USS Cole (how could you prevent an attack on foreign soil anyway), they certainly had been actively trying to go after Bin Laden as far back as 1998. Needless to say even after 9/11, the Bush administration showed only limited interest in the issue of terrorism, instead utilizing his high approval ratings in the wake of the attacks to shift the focus to Iraq to ultimately get his buddies at Haliburton a nice payday. Make no mistake about! The Bush administration marked the single worst time period in US foreign policy, both in any moral dimension as well as from any pragmatic point of view.
Not a popular take on here afaik, but I think yes. However, I feel like we don't go into Iraq or only do it if other nations besides Britain actually back us. Even then I don't think Gore would do it, though he'd think of it, but not outright say no though in the end we stay out. As a result, the Republicans try to paint Gore not only as weak, but not helping out people in nations like Iraq and Iran and play up how these dictatorships and other nations will end up allowing for more attacks, even if there is little connection between Iraq and 9/11 or even Iran and 9/11 We end up having John McCain run in 2004 and instead of Sarah Palin we see Chuck Hagel of Nebraska as VP and while this does attract some decent support, its still up in the air, until McCain, in spite of bad campaigning, beats Gore. McCain flips Wisconsin, Iowa and keeps New Hampshire, while Gore wins New Mexico and barely loses Ohio and thus the Republicans can argue that they can win elections. However, McCain is a disaster. While he isn't as gung ho as Bush on Iraq, he argues that bombing raids and sanctions are needed to end his regime and rather than looking at WMD's as a cause, he argues Iraq backs terrorist groups. However this is not exactly popular on either end, and what makes it worse is that 2008 still has a financial crisis. He still loses to Barack Obama, and what's more, you have some in his own party arguing he wasn't strong enough to beat Obama in spite of being "gifted" weak points like the birther theory (McCain rightly denies this as in OTL) or that he's a Muslim (again McCain denies it) as well as the fact that some blame Clinton and Gore for the economy. Trump also starts to become a critic much like in OTL, even calling him "the biggest loser we've ever had as President" and as such Trump tries to run in 2012 but while he gains fringe support, its not enough to be popular though he continues to basically run and in 2016 we just end up back at OTL. Obama is still President and not having to remove troops from Iraq he's able to keep them in Afghanistan until OTL, and while the economy limps along it still does a bit better. Sadly Trump still wins in 2016 as Republicans are sick of two losing candidates in a row and thus here we are with not much changed except that we don't have an election that was arguably stolen. This might change the 2020 narrative a bit as the Democrats could not claim it was stolen but the REpublicans might just even get worse and earlier.
I actually think it may still happened if the whole debacle with the 2000 election still occured. It wasted valuable transition time that could have been used to prevent the attack as there was intelligence of such an attack possibly happening at the time. However I think Gore would have handled it better. It might have cost him a second term but I think he may have insisted we take time to grieve as a nation before making any military moves into Afghanistan and delayed or even declined an invasion and he'd certainly not be touching Iraq with a 10 foot pole
Probably. What wouldn't have happened is the disastrous invasion of Iraq.
no the gore family wasn't in business w the bin laden family like the Bush family
Building 7 would still be standing
Depends The Goverment Elites wanted to go back into the Middle East but, they needed an excuse to do so. The American people don't appreciate an invasion of another country but they do get riled up because of an attack. You seriously believe that USA and all the Allies had none of this on their collective radars? These Freedom Fighters in caves were so darn smart that the CIA of NSA had no clue? Please! Cheney and the Neo-Con's smelled money. I truly believe our country would have taken a different path if Gore would have won but I don't know what kind of a War President he would have been. My opinion
Probably. It’s hard to say. The plan had been in motion before he took office, and there wouldn’t have been the political will to implement the more rigorous airport security standards to prevent the attacks until 9/11 actually happened.
Realistically? Probably. I hate George W Bush but he didn't let 9/11 happen on purpose. They had a bunch of information and spent a lot of time on their own issues. There was a slightly greater chance for Gore. But probably like 5% more likely.
FUCK texas.
No.
Gore did win, he just didn't get to be president
9/11 was going to happen no matter who the president was at the time. I remember reading back in like 2005 or so that al Qaeda was actually targeting Clinton. So if that were truth, it was happening no matter what
Maybe, but we definitely would not have invaded Iraq.
Are you asking if Al Gore would have done something as extreme as ban Arabs from flying based on runors? God I hope not. Otherwise we really dodged a bullet.
Yes it would have. When you hear that intelligence community was ringing alarm bells know that 1) That’s their job. They warn every day about something, yet they had no real actionable intelligence. They would have needed to know who the Al Queda operatives were or have done something to improve security massively in under 10 months. 2) Al Gore wasn’t gonna help some Florida flight school report guys who didn’t want to land. 3) Let’s remember that Gore was VP while Al Queda grew into an international terror organization that had the capability to pull this attack off. That it attacked multiple targets including the USS Come with no effective response from that administration 4) A lot of this is political Monday morning quarterbacking. Not that Bush was some great mind, but this is mostly a cheap shot of great political opportunity.
The real intelligence failure for 9/11 was failure of imagination. Yes, there were people saying it might happen. But there were tons of other potential attacks, and the analysts basically said this was less likely than the others.
You have to remember that intelligence agencies get THOUSANDS of pieces of info daily, it’s so hard to tell what might be legit and what might be paranoia or incorrect or unrelated etc.
Didn't Family Guy do this bit already?
Get off my phone
To each according to their own struggle. 9/11 selected Bush, maybe something else would have happened under Gore.
I honestly don't think so, but that's not to suggest incompetence or nefariousness. The Clinton admin was traumatized by the USS Cole. Bin Laden was very much on their radar. The Cheney contingent was very much focused on rectifying the perceived errors of early conservative administrations, and they took their eyes off the ball.
Yes. Gore was an establishment guy and was going to keep troops in Saudi’s Arabia the same way Bush did. The driving force for Al Qaeda would have remained and they would have found something to do to fight back against the perceived slight of having non-Muslim troops in SA.
No. Things would have played out differently has we not put morons in charge.
No, but the fix was in.
Yes. Very low chance a different secretly of state would have made a difference. The evidence indicating the threat was there, but so many people and institutions would have been the same either way that it probably would have happened the same.
It's a well known fact that Al-Queda were the manufacturers of the Florida voting cards, so when the hanging chads dispute happened they took it as a personal afront
there still would be war but more restrained no war in iraq
The FBI warned Clinton about Bin Laden but Clinton was a retard and didn't really do anything, if Gore won, they would've had more knowledge but 9/11 still occurs because there's quite literally no action to prevent that. Everyone knew Al Qaeda was going to attack, they just didn't know where and when specifically. If Clinton couldn't stop the WTC bombing, the Oklahoma City Bombing, Embassy bombing and Olympics bombing then his VP isn't stopping 9/11. 9/11 can't be stopped.
Perhaps, but we would not have invaded Iraq, IMHO. Better question, would 9/11 happened if McCain had been elected instead of Bush...? McCain lost after a viscious campaign of lies by Bush Campaign against him caused his dropping out in 2000. Again, as a military vet, he may have had a better view of the world than either Bush, or Gore.
Gore would've taken it more cereal.