Robert Farley at LGF makes “Hopefully My Last Nader Post Ever” (which would be something considering that “nader” appears 4,280 times on the site in a Google search while “bush” shows up only 2,920 times) and dismisses the possibility that a Gore administration would have gone to war in Iraq.
No 9/11, no Iraq War.
The breakup of the 9/11 plot would have had to be 100% in order to prevent “9/11”. They would have had to know about, find, and capture or kill all four groups of hijackers in order to stop something from being referred to as “9/11”. If they’d been 75% successful and one of the towers had fallen, or if just the Pentagon had been hit, or whatever the target of the plane that went down in Pennsylvania had been hit, there would still be a 9/11.
Even if they’d been prevented from doing any major damage, the very knowledge of the plot would have been a rallying cry to do something about Muslim extremists. Remember the “Millennium” bomb plot that was foiled by border agents in Washington state? You’ve heard of it? Well, imagine if the country had found out that Osama bin Laden had four teams of guys in the US who were foiled in an attempt to hijack planes and crash them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the White House? Would people have just said “Hunh” and gone about their lives? Or would we have gone into Afghanistan as we did?
And just for fun, imagine that the Vice President was a guy who had a hard on for Iraq since before he was in Blair House. The guy who picked him is a member of his centrist political club. A bunch of the people in their club think that Iraq’s a problem for a lot of reasons.
Then the Republicans — a rowdy lot — start saying that there’s some sort of connection between the guy who almost blew up America and Saddam Hussein (who everyone knows is a bad guy). Ex-military and geopolitical strategists that the administration and its supporters listen to all say they think a war with Iraq might be a good idea. Newspaper columnists and radio and cable talkers start questioning the manhood and resolve of an administration that won’t take on the obvious threat from Saddam. The people in the President and Vice President’s club know Iraq’s not a real threat to the US — particularly since Iraq’s been under sanctions for a dozen years and they don’t have any real technology — but they do have oil. And while we’re in the region….
In Bizarro universe, where a total moron and his robot Frankenstein took control, the Vice President remained a Senator and he and almost all of his friends from the club supported a war with Iraq. In that universe, the would-be President broke with his former club members and came out against the war after conceding a close election that he won “for the sake of our unity of the people and the strength of our democracy” and watching what then happened for a couple of years. Of course, he didn’t have to run for office then.