War With Gore?
I wrote here earlier that it was arguably true that we might not have invaded Iraq had Al Gore won the presidency back during that disputed election. Reason magazine seems to make a good argument against me in an article that starts out describing efforts by the Democrats to discredit LP candidate Gary Johnson.
More specifically, pointing to the Gore/Bush election to show how voting third party can lead to war. I'm glad Reason staff recall Gore's warlike history, which isn't unlike Clinton's. He voted to invade Iraq and has a history of threatening Iraq:
"In September of 2002, Al Gore, then still a possible Democratic presidential contender, warned of the perils of acting unilaterally against Iraq. He urged Bush to take his case to the Security Council and ask for a resolution demanding "prompt, unconditional compliance by Iraq within a definite period of time." And if the Security Council failed? "Other choices"—Gore meant force—"remain open." After all, "Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
In other words, Bush did pretty much what Gore recommended in seeking a Security Council resolution and used Gore's "other choices" after the resolutions failed.
Al Gore, as well as Democrats in general, have proven to be anything but dovish in world affairs.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 2:28 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Except that Saddam did comply with UN requirements and allow UN inspectors into all the places he had been keeping them out of.
Mostly his palaces/residences.
Didn't matter to Bush that Saddam did comply. He ordered the inspectors out and launched his illegal war.
To suggest Gore would have invaded after Saddam had complied and even offered to leave the country, is to engage in some very unsavory behavior.
That's not how I remember it but, of course we have no way of knowing what Gore might have done either way. And our news reports were generally one- sided, most likely coming from the Pentagon or White House.
I know I was in Saudi Arabia when Hussein supposedly was "holding the U.N. inspectors hostage" after the war, or so we were told, even in the military. Bush sent a patriot missile battery to Saudi as one response.
Turns out that wasn't what had happened. I found out later the U.N. inspectors felt the Iraqis were hampering their work and they weren't allowed to do it right so went to their hotels and stayed there in protest, but CNN continued the "hostage" story while we were in Saudi Arabia.
"Less than a month before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein signaled that he was willing to go into exile as long as he could take with him $1 billion and information on weapons of mass destruction, according to a report of a Feb. 22, 2003, meeting between President Bush and his Spanish counterpart published by a Spanish newspaper yesterday."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/26/AR2007092602414.html
Bush refused to negotiate and sent in troops. We are now faced with trillions of dollars in resulting debt, thousands of dead Americans, hundreds of thousands dead Iraqis, and ISIS along with all the other extremist groups which developed out of the turmoil Bust created.
Human history seems to show instant hatred for those 'messengers' who bring truth.
2000 was our turning point.
We chose darkness.
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