NationStates Jolt Archive

I have noticed that many people on NS are strongly anti-bush and pro-kerry. The past is irrevocable. I have heard many people who say Kerry could do better, but I am yet to see anyone who honestly thinks Gore could have done better than Bush, though Gore would have gone through the same thing.

Just an observation.

Also, try to justify your vote in the poll. Thanks.

I voted for Gore because I feel he would have given us a level-headed response and do not believe he would have displayed the current administration's lack of goodwill towards the wishes of other nations regarding the Iraq war.

I could be wrong, but that's what I feel. We'll never know, though.

I think Gore would have done a far better job than Bush for many reasons--if Gore were President, we wouldn't be running half a trillion dollar deficits each year. We wouldn't be in Iraq. We wouldn't have John effing Ashcroft as Attorney General. We wouldn't have bent seniors over the table and handed their wallets to Big Pharma. We wouldn't continually give tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent while simultaneously screwing working families.

Downside--Joe Lieberman would be VP. But he's still better than Cheney.

#$@%&@ server! WHy do the polls in my topics keep getting deleted? Hang on, I'll put it back.

Sorry about this. It's the second time today. You're going to have to re-vote.

Reminiscent of the 2000 election.

Reminiscent of the 2000 election.In that its completely loaded?

Gore could even define what foreign policy meant.. so I'm going to have to go with Gore.

Taking into consideration how badly Bush has responded to the 9-11 terrorist attacks and everything that followed, and no one can convince me that invading and occupying Iraq was a smart move, not to mention how badly Afghanistan was handled, it's easy to believe that the average teenager would have done a far better job. And than I won't even mention anything about tax-cuts, lack of uncensored communication with the press, a military budget that one would normally associate with "extremism", for example the extremism that is the hallmark of a dictatorship, the Kyoto treaty, nor anything about the cowardly way he has been trying to keep everything behind closed doors, only offering partial disclosure when standing with his back against the wall, the behaviour of someone who clearly has something unpleasant to hide. So yeah, my vote goes to Gore.

National security should not be more important than the civil liberties America was founded on and of which we like to boast so very much. Bush did a terrible job balancing the two. Gore would have at least cared about the people who were shafted by all of the security policies.

Reminiscent of the 2000 election.In that its completely loaded?

LOL :lol:

I voted for Bush. If Gore was in office I have a feeling that we would be an Al-Quaida stronghold right now. Living under the influence of Osama and Saddam

Not the easiest one to vote for, people will say Gore because he never had to prove himself under pressure.

Gore wouldve HEEDED the millions of warnings about 911 cause Gore didnt need any excuses to invent for a war for oil in Iraq--he woulda stopped it just like Clinton stopped the millenial bombings

Gore wouldve HEEDED the millions of warnings about 911 cause Gore didnt need any excuses to invent for a war for oil in Iraq--he woulda stopped it just like Clinton stopped the millenial bombings

Slight exaggeration, and you can't say that because he may not have.

One thought, if someone came up to you, in the days when the US thought it was invincible, and said a plane was going to crash into the World Trade Center, would you have believed them?

Gore wouldve HEEDED the millions of warnings about 911 cause Gore didnt need any excuses to invent for a war for oil in Iraq--he woulda stopped it just like Clinton stopped the millenial bombings

Slight exaggeration, and you can't say that because he may not have.

One thought, if someone came up to you, in the days when the US thought it was invincible, and said a plane was going to crash into the World Trade Center, would you have believed them?if I had access to the kinda intel Bush had at his disposal yes I wouldve--there was also some meeting in Italy where planes used in an attack was detailed

Gore wouldve HEEDED the millions of warnings about 911 cause Gore didnt need any excuses to invent for a war for oil in Iraq--he woulda stopped it just like Clinton stopped the millenial bombings

Slight exaggeration, and you can't say that because he may not have.

One thought, if someone came up to you, in the days when the US thought it was invincible, and said a plane was going to crash into the World Trade Center, would you have believed them?

If someone came up to me and said, Look, I'm a member of the FBI and I've got hard evidence including names, that Al Qaida members are training to fly airplanes at this specific flight school in the United States and have been spotted on international and national flights then I would most certainly look into it.

Not the easiest one to vote for, people will say Gore because he never had to prove himself under pressure.

I don't know, seems to me Clinton/Gore ran America rather well for 8 years..

I'm not going to vote in this one. I *know* that Bush did a crappy job on handling foreign policy, basically trying to sacrifice civil rights in the name of freedom (now does that *really* make sense to anyone?) and disregarding anyone in the world who disagreed with him as anti-American (nothing new there). However, I never much cared for Gore either, so I don't know what he would've done.

Now, if this were simply a question of which would've made a better president - at this point I'd probably go for Gore, because being a partisan policy Democrat, he never would've done a lot of the things Bush has that I am against. Of course, I'd much rather have politicians that think for themselves, but I don't think I've seen an election since I've been paying attention where there was any such candidate.

you have to give Bush/Cheney credit for being extremely consistent tho--on 99.9% of every conceivable issue under the sun hes taken a very toxic and recklessy destructive course of action--never has a more pure example of unwavering evil ever existed since the times of Adolf Hitler

Gore could even define what foreign policy meant.. so I'm going to have to go with Gore.
No question Gore, especially with 8 years experience.

Even though George. W. Bush can be a bit of a tosser at times he stands up for his rights and is a strong fighter agaisnt terrorism.

Even though George. W. Bush can be a bit of a tosser at times he stands up for his rights and is a strong fighter agaisnt terrorism.

Even though George. W. Bush can be a bit of a tosser at times he stands up for his rights and is a strong fighter agaisnt terrorism.Bush is currently the most powerful terrorist in the world today and his threat is equal to if not greater then Osama himself--Osama only has legitimacy with Bush in power afterall

Even though George. W. Bush can be a bit of a tosser at times he stands up for his rights and is a strong fighter agaisnt terrorism.

Yes, I agree that Bush is quite resolved and stubborn in his policy.. Only problem is, his policy is wrong.. and according to him, he doesn't make mistakes. That's scary.

Gore wouldve HEEDED the millions of warnings about 911 cause Gore didnt need any excuses to invent for a war for oil in Iraq--he woulda stopped it just like Clinton stopped the millenial bombings

Why do you suppose that? His "pal" Clinton was asleep at the switch when it came to OBL.

SHL

Gore wouldve HEEDED the millions of warnings about 911 cause Gore didnt need any excuses to invent for a war for oil in Iraq--he woulda stopped it just like Clinton stopped the millenial bombings

Why do you suppose that? His "pal" Clinton was asleep at the switch when it came to OBL.

SHLClinton prevented the millenial bombings --Bush woulda allowed the millenial bombings so he can go on a looting crusade in the mideast for oil and Halliburton

http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~jeff/earthgifs/world.gif

I voted for Gore. After 9/11 (I don't think any president would have stopped it), the US would still have probably gone into Afghanistan but not Iraq. And America would still be enjoying the love and sympathy it received at the time instead of the world-wide condemnation Bush has brought.

I don't think terrorist groups would hate us as much if Gore was president.

Even though George. W. Bush can be a bit of a tosser at times he stands up for his rights and is a strong fighter agaisnt terrorism.
http://www.lunabean.com/dancing_spiderman.gif

Stands up for his right alright, but sod anyone elses. Bush has poured fire on the flame of terror so that we now have an inferno. Thank you Mister Bush. I hope you have very prosperous retirement, unlike the poor souls whos social security you're cutting back.

Gore wouldve HEEDED the millions of warnings about 911 cause Gore didnt need any excuses to invent for a war for oil in Iraq--he woulda stopped it just like Clinton stopped the millenial bombings

Why do you suppose that? His "pal" Clinton was asleep at the switch when it came to OBL.

SHLClinton prevented the millenial bombings --Bush woulda allowed the millenial bombings so he can go on a looting crusade in the mideast for oil and Halliburton

Clinton didn't stop squat. If you're referring to Ahmed Ressam who was busted coming into Washington from Canada I'll have to ask you to excuse me as I laugh. That was pure luck and the diligence of a border patrol agent.

Then after no computers crashed and no bombs blew up Clinton went back to sleep on the issue.

SHL

I don't think terrorist groups would hate us as much if Gore was president.

Not true. They would still hate us. As for Gore the Snore, it is true that he would have been perceived as the milquetoast he is. As such, we would be discussing how he f*(ked things up.

9-11 would have happened no matter who was in the White House. To suppose the Wahabbists would hate us any less is an utter misreading of the situation.

It may well be that Iraq would have been obviated by a Gore presidency. It is equally possible that Hussein would have been emboldened by a Gore administration and we could wind up back in there anyway.

Only one thing is certain in this, "For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are those 'It might have been." - John Greenleaf Whittier

SHL

Sorry, SHL, but it's not that Clinton was asleep at the switch--it's that literally every time he tried to take military action against OBL and al Qaeda, he was accused of "wagging the dog," of using the military to cover up for his personal life. Notice no Republicans have ever come forward and admitted that they might be partly responsible for the failure to get Bin Laden during the Clinton years, have they? They're at least as responsible as Clinton, perhaps more, because while Clinton wanted to do something, the Republican congress and their pundits excoriated Clinton every time he tried. Limbaugh has more blood on his hands for 9/11 than Clinton does.

Sorry, SHL, but it's not that Clinton was asleep at the switch--it's that literally every time he tried to take military action against OBL and al Qaeda, he was accused of "wagging the dog," of using the military to cover up for his personal life. Notice no Republicans have ever come forward and admitted that they might be partly responsible for the failure to get Bin Laden during the Clinton years, have they? They're at least as responsible as Clinton, perhaps more, because while Clinton wanted to do something, the Republican congress and their pundits excoriated Clinton every time he tried. Limbaugh has more blood on his hands for 9/11 than Clinton does.It looks like the vast rightwing conspiracy prevented the fight against terrorism in the 90s by hamstringing Clinton--on the Al franken show today they were talking about a new movie called "the hunting of the President" and its about how the rightwing hate industry profitted by creating fake scandals against Clinton--alot of it was funded by this worm ridden smouldering cadaver named richard scaife

Sorry, SHL, but it's not that Clinton was asleep at the switch--it's that literally every time he tried to take military action against OBL and al Qaeda, he was accused of "wagging the dog," of using the military to cover up for his personal life. Notice no Republicans have ever come forward and admitted that they might be partly responsible for the failure to get Bin Laden during the Clinton years, have they? They're at least as responsible as Clinton, perhaps more, because while Clinton wanted to do something, the Republican congress and their pundits excoriated Clinton every time he tried. Limbaugh has more blood on his hands for 9/11 than Clinton does.

C'mon! That argument is a load of crap. He was the sitting president and he could have done a great deal but didn't. The POTUS has extraordinary authority that does not require an act of Congress. I am no raging right winger but neither am I a Clinton apologist.

If you are suggesting that Clinton didn't act because of political considerations rather than fulfill his basic pledge and obligation as president, then fine. But that was a decision that helped pave the road leading up to 9-11 and it proved to be a bad mistake. Fer chrissakes, let's be honest and take the flashlight from behind his head.

Clinton blew it and Bush is blowning it. Why is it so hard to admit his part? If we don't hold our leadership responsible, in a fair and bipartisian way then what are we to say? One side of the aisle is evil incarnate while the other side is composed of angels?

You're better than that.

SHL

His "pal" Clinton was asleep at the switch when it came to OBL.

SHL

Good grief, SHL, if Clinton was asleep at the switch, then why did he give the incoming Bush administration urgent warnings about Al Qeada which they subsequently ignored?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/032104A.shtml

C'mon! That argument is a load of crap. He was the sitting president and he could have done a great deal but didn't. The POTUS has extraordinary authority that does not require an act of Congress. I am no raging right winger but neither am I a Clinton apologist.

If you are suggesting that Clinton didn't act because of political considerations rather than fulfill his basic pledge and obligation as president, then fine. But that was a decision that helped pave the road leading up to 9-11 and it proved to be a bad mistake. Fer chrissakes, let's be honest and take the flashlight from behind his head.

Clinton blew it and Bush is blowning it. Why is it so hard to admit his part? If we don't hold our leadership responsible, in a fair and bipartisian way then what are we to say? One side of the aisle is evil incarnate while the other side is composed of angels?

You're better than that.

SHLI'm not saying Clinton did everything that could have possibly been done and to hell with the consequences, but the fact is that he was trying to handle the Bin Laden problem while he was continually under attack by a Republican congress that eventually impeached him for nothing. Clinton ultimately failed--he didn't get Bin Laden--but it wasn't from lack of trying. It was partly because he was hamstrung and partly because Bin Laden ain't easy to catch.

And when it comes to criticism of Bush for not getting Bin Laden, I don't criticize simply because we haven't gotten OBL yet--I criticize that we unnecessarily divided our forces and haven't gone after him the way we could have.

His "pal" Clinton was asleep at the switch when it came to OBL.

SHL

Good grief, SHL, if Clinton was asleep at the switch, then why did he give the incoming Bush administration urgent warnings about Al Qeada which they subsequently ignored?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/032104A.shtml

I was referring to the eight year history prior to January, 2001. The matter was not adequately dealt with when Clinton had the ball. Handing off the ball (no doubt as one of the hundreds that were passed off) is not an adequate defense to his inaction.

What was that ball? That al Qaeda blew up The Khobar Towers U.S. military housing complex, two of our embassies, the USS Cole and was implicated in the first WTC bombing all under Clinton's watch? That they might attack in New York or Washington DC or perhaps using an airliner? Heck, even I knew most of that!

Clinton's failure is that he treated all this as a criminal matter and not a foreign policy one unless you want to count a one shot bombing of empty al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan as a warning. Hells Bells! A warning? Isn't that whgat you give someone for a minor violation and not an out and out attack?

It will be interesting to see what the 9-11 commission comes up with next month. I think it's fair to assume that there will be no smoking guns. More likely it will show some of what I have pointed out and then absolve all with a 20-20 hindsight bromide.

SHL

I doubt that 9/11 could've been prevented under Gore or Bush, even with the documents from Clinton. Although, I think that Gore would've handled 9/11 much better after it happened. He wouldn't have used it as an excuse to invade Iraq, and ruin foreign relations. Bush has really been doing a terrible job at National Security. If he was competent, do you think we would need to have our rights infringed with the Patriot Act? The biggest part of keeping the nation safe is making sure your enemies don't hate you enough to want to attack you and your allies actually like you.

C'mon! That argument is a load of crap. He was the sitting president and he could have done a great deal but didn't. The POTUS has extraordinary authority that does not require an act of Congress. I am no raging right winger but neither am I a Clinton apologist.

If you are suggesting that Clinton didn't act because of political considerations rather than fulfill his basic pledge and obligation as president, then fine. But that was a decision that helped pave the road leading up to 9-11 and it proved to be a bad mistake. Fer chrissakes, let's be honest and take the flashlight from behind his head.

Clinton blew it and Bush is blowning it. Why is it so hard to admit his part? If we don't hold our leadership responsible, in a fair and bipartisian way then what are we to say? One side of the aisle is evil incarnate while the other side is composed of angels?

You're better than that.

SHLI'm not saying Clinton did everything that could have possibly been done and to hell with the consequences, but the fact is that he was trying to handle the Bin Laden problem while he was continually under attack by a Republican congress that eventually impeached him for nothing. Clinton ultimately failed--he didn't get Bin Laden--but it wasn't from lack of trying. It was partly because he was hamstrung and partly because Bin Laden ain't easy to catch.

And when it comes to criticism of Bush for not getting Bin Laden, I don't criticize simply because we haven't gotten OBL yet--I criticize that we unnecessarily divided our forces and haven't gone after him the way we could have.

On your second point above we are more in agreement than not. Save some revelation of information we currently do not have, Hussein was not an imminent threat.

On the primary point we diverge. In 1996 Sudan had OBL in country and offered him up to Clinton. Because Clinton was treating OBL & al Qaeda as a criminal matter he felt he had no basis for a successful criminal prosecution and didn't have the desire to take him out otherwise, so he begged the Saudis to take him. The Saudis were unwilling to get in the middle because they had a secret 'mutual hands off' pact with OBL. I have to believe Clinton regrets that decision to this day.

SHL

PS - for the heck of it here is a list of known al Qaeda attacks. I may have missed some.

Here is a list of his activities that we know of during the Clinton years;
Dec. 18, 1992 Aiden, Yemen bombing of two hotels housing US Military.
Feb. 26, 1993 WTC I
Oct. 03, 1993 Battle for Mogadishu
Jun. 25, 1996 Khobar Towers
Aug. 07, 1998 Kenya & Tanzania
Dec. 14, 1999 Ahmed Ressam arrested in plot for Y2K blast of LAX
Oct. 14, 2000 USS Cole

Here are those since then;
2001 (Sept.): Destruction of WTC, Pentagon attack. Total dead 3,044.
2002 (Apr.): Explosion at historic synagogue in Tunisia leaves 21 dead, including 14 German tourists.
2002 (May): Car explodes outside hotel in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 14, including 11 French citizens.
2002 (June): Bomb explodes outside American Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 12.
2002 (Oct.): Nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia, kill 202, mostly Australian citizens.
2002 (Nov.): Suicide attack on a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, kills 16.
2003 (May): Suicide bombers kill 34, including 8 Americans, at housing compounds for Westerners in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
2003 (May): Four bombs kill 24 people, targeting Jewish, Spanish, and Belgian sites in Casablanca, Morocco.
2003 (Aug.): Suicide car bomb kills 12, injures 150, at Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia.
2003 (Nov.): Explosions rock a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia housing compound killing 17.
2003 (Nov.): Suicide car bombers simultaneously attack two synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey, killing 25 and injuring hundreds.
2004 (Mar.): Ten terrorists bombs exploded almost simultaneously during the morning rush hour in Madrid, Spain, killing 191 and injuring more than 1,800.
2004 (29 May): Khobar assault team sweeps offices of APICORP the street on the way to the Oasis Hotel where they take hostages. Seige lasts 25 hours and results in 22 killed. The dead included a 10 year old Egyptian boy, three Saudis, one American, one Italian, eight Indians, three Filipinos, two Sri Lankans, one Swede, one South African and one Briton

SHL

SNIPPED
...The biggest part of keeping the nation safe is making sure your enemies don't hate you enough to want to attack you and your allies actually like you.

That may be nice but it is not a healthy perspective. How much of a mush pretzel do you need to be to achive this standard of success?

SHL

you have to give Bush/Cheney credit for being extremely consistent tho--on 99.9% of every conceivable issue under the sun hes taken a very toxic and recklessy destructive course of action--never has a more pure example of unwavering evil ever existed since the times of Adolf Hitler

I am hardly a Bush fan, but I must say that your moniker is appropriate for such a post.... you MUST be on acid. I think Bush needs to be ousted, but I would hardly call him evil.

i still say hindsight is twenty twenty. even if Gore couldnt have prevented sept 11, he still would have attacked afghanistan. but the world was behind the us on that one. just when the us was reaching out to people, forming coalitions, and asking for help, when goodwill was at its highest, bush flushed it all down the drain. so, we wouldnt have a 64 billion dollar deficit, we wouldnt have thrown away the un's legitimacy, there wouldnt be as much arab hatred towards the us, and we would have a stronger, multinational coalition of countries willing to help us stop terrorism now. we would be able to go into russia, get help from the police in europe, and maybe even get some cooperation from the turks. as it stands now, governments cooperating with the us are hated by their people. the iraqi war has hurt the war on terrorism. that's why bush's foreign policy is a failure.

I think Bush would, because he's a violent motha fucka.

you have to give Bush/Cheney credit for being extremely consistent tho--on 99.9% of every conceivable issue under the sun hes taken a very toxic and recklessy destructive course of action--never has a more pure example of unwavering evil ever existed since the times of Adolf Hitler

I am hardly a Bush fan, but I must say that your moniker is appropriate for such a post.... you MUST be on acid. I think Bush needs to be ousted, but I would hardly call him evil.I only do respectable drugs

You do realize all of this is academic.. there is one fact that can't be denied. The most serious attack on American soil from a foreign force happened on Bush's watch.. Not Clinton's or any one else's.. you can play with the argument of strawmen.. or you can accept this undeniable fact.

wasn't pearl harbour the most serious attack on american soil by a foreign force?

wasn't pearl harbour the most serious attack on american soil by a foreign force?

No, it was a base.. Hawaii didn't offically become a "State" until August 21, 1959. Long after WWII. Pearl Harbour was a fair war time target. It was an American base. Also, I believe less people were killed. No, 9/11 tops them all.

hawaii was annexed as a part of the united states in 1898 so it was american soil on dec7, 1941.
it would have been a fair war time target, as would any part of america, if we had been at war at the time.

hawaii was annexed as a part of the united states in 1898 so it was american soil on dec7, 1941.
it would have been a fair war time target, as would any part of america, if we had been at war at the time.

I see what you're saying, but even still I think the difference lies in the fact that Pearl Harbor was a military installation and, therefore, there is a certain amount of risk just being there. 9/11, however, was a completely civilian structure (leaving out the Pentagon).

Perhaps a better way to phrase it would have been: The most serious unprevoked attack on civilian life in the United States happened on Bush's watch.

wasn't pearl harbour the most serious attack on american soil by a foreign force?no--911 was

You do realize all of this is academic.. there is one fact that can't be denied. The most serious attack on American soil from a foreign force happened on Bush's watch.. Not Clinton's or any one else's.. you can play with the argument of strawmen.. or you can accept this undeniable fact.Let me put it this way... would you blame Clinton for the first WTC bombing in 1991? I didn't think so. That attack came with little warning in the first month of his presidency, not enough time to prepare. I do, however, hold him responsible for not doing anything about it. He blew up two abandoned terrorist training camps. Yahoo.

This is why I don't blame Bush for 9-11: Clinton did nothing, and the "millions of clues" that MKULTRA refers to didn't exist. All Bush knew was that OBL might be planning to do something in an airplane. That's it. Plus he only had 7 months, not much time to react to negligable intelligence.

You do realize all of this is academic.. there is one fact that can't be denied. The most serious attack on American soil from a foreign force happened on Bush's watch.. Not Clinton's or any one else's.. you can play with the argument of strawmen.. or you can accept this undeniable fact.Let me put it this way... would you blame Clinton for the first WTC bombing in 1991? I didn't think so. That attack came with little warning in the first month of his presidency, not enough time to prepare. I do, however, hold him responsible for not doing anything about it. He blew up two abandoned terrorist training camps. Yahoo.

This is why I don't blame Bush for 9-11: Clinton did nothing, and the "millions of clues" that MKULTRA refers to didn't exist. All Bush knew was that OBL might be planning to do something in an airplane. That's it. Plus he only had 7 months, not much time to react to negligable intelligence.