4 ms·

> Ralph Nader is also a pretty compelling guy, on paper. In practice, he turns out to be the reason we invaded Iraq. Or, possibly, the reason we didn't nuke Af

by zeveb 11y ago

> Ralph Nader is also a pretty compelling guy, on paper. In practice, he turns out to be the reason we invaded Iraq. Or, possibly, the reason we didn't nuke Afghanistan. Remember, prior to the actual invasion Clinton sent more missiles into Iraq than the Bushes put together; JFK started and LBJ escalated the Vietnam Wars: who knows what Gore would have done, presented with the attacks on 11 September 2001?

tptacek 11y ago
There are a total of zero serious observers who believe Al Gore would have "nuked Afghanistan", but there's a nonzero number who believe 9/11 might not have happened had he been elected. Al Gore is not a particularly great human being, but in addition to the banal malevolence George Bush shares with Al Gore and every other politician, and the additional evil he shares with the Neoconservative political movement he belonged to, Bush was also, as it turns out, alarmingly incompetent.
- pen2l 11y ago
  I think when in the hot seat most actors gravitate toward a status quo equilibrium. The left presidents will lean a little more right, the right will lean a little more left. Obama took us to Syria, would you have guessed he would do that when he was campaigning? I think Gore would have been walked into Iraq warring and more by his advisers.
  - jfb 11y ago
    I'm no fan of Gore's, but I don't see a Gore administration using the opportunity that 9/11 presented to work out both a commitment to a new way of warfighting and a hyper-muscular American foreign policy by attacking what was well understood at the time to be an unrelated sovereign power.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    This perspective totally ignores the history of the Iraq war, and the distinctive influence of Bush's idiosyncratic cabinet and vice president, all of whom had outsized influence due to Bush's own weakness. The idea that Gore would have invaded Iraq in response to an attack from Afghanistan is not well supported by evidence, and not common among historians. Just making this argument is a kind of "tell" that the arguer refuses to entertain the idea that third-party candidacies can harm the country by splitting the vote. I guess there are intellectually consistent ways to make that argument, but "Gore would have invaded Iraq" is not one of them.
    - aetherson 11y ago
      Yeah, Gore clearly wouldn't have invaded Iraq. Now, is there a colorable argument that Gore would have invaded Afghanistan and embroiled the US in costly military adventurism abroad? Sure. But somehow making 9/11 be about Iraq, which it patently was not, is a pathology unique to Bush.

by zeveb 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago

There are a total of zero serious observers who believe Al Gore would have "nuked Afghanistan", but there's a nonzero number who believe 9/11 might not have happened had he been elected. Al Gore is not a particularly great human being, but in addition to the banal malevolence George Bush shares with Al Gore and every other politician, and the additional evil he shares with the Neoconservative political movement he belonged to, Bush was also, as it turns out, alarmingly incompetent.

pen2l 11y ago
I think when in the hot seat most actors gravitate toward a status quo equilibrium. The left presidents will lean a little more right, the right will lean a little more left. Obama took us to Syria, would you have guessed he would do that when he was campaigning? I think Gore would have been walked into Iraq warring and more by his advisers.
- jfb 11y ago
  I'm no fan of Gore's, but I don't see a Gore administration using the opportunity that 9/11 presented to work out both a commitment to a new way of warfighting and a hyper-muscular American foreign policy by attacking what was well understood at the time to be an unrelated sovereign power.
- tptacek 11y ago
  This perspective totally ignores the history of the Iraq war, and the distinctive influence of Bush's idiosyncratic cabinet and vice president, all of whom had outsized influence due to Bush's own weakness. The idea that Gore would have invaded Iraq in response to an attack from Afghanistan is not well supported by evidence, and not common among historians. Just making this argument is a kind of "tell" that the arguer refuses to entertain the idea that third-party candidacies can harm the country by splitting the vote. I guess there are intellectually consistent ways to make that argument, but "Gore would have invaded Iraq" is not one of them.
  - aetherson 11y ago
    Yeah, Gore clearly wouldn't have invaded Iraq. Now, is there a colorable argument that Gore would have invaded Afghanistan and embroiled the US in costly military adventurism abroad? Sure. But somehow making 9/11 be about Iraq, which it patently was not, is a pathology unique to Bush.