If Al Gore was elected in 2000 instead of GWB, would terrorism still be a big issue

[Hongfan91]

Assuming the likely possibility that 9/11 does not happen under Gore's watch, would Islamic extremism and terrorism still be as big an issue today?

 

[Saphroneth]

In my opinion, it would not, because the thing which really got everyone in the middle east annoyed was the invasion of Iraq - which was very much a Bush administration thing.

 

[The Kiat]

Al Qaeda is bent on its attack, even if Bill Murray (first name to pop into my head of the right age, don't ask me why) was President.

 

[Saphroneth]

Al Qaeda is bent on its attack, even if Bill Murray (first name to pop into my head of the right age, don't ask me why) was President.

True; however, even if 11/9 did take place, I don't think it would lead to an invasion of Iraq.

 

[Meadow]

9/11 would still have been attempted, we don't know what butterflies would happen and whether they'd stop it in time. But without an invasion of Iraq, Islamic terrorism simply isn't going to become a thing in the same way as OTL.

 

[tedio]

9/11 still occurs, probably, but everything afterwards will go very differently. Probably no Iraq invasion. Probably Afghanistan is a much more limited engagement, more 90's US style actions than full fledged war.

 

[Deleted member 9338]

I see it being important, but not as important as under President Bush.

 

[DTF955Baseballfan]

"Would it still be a big issue?" Today, yes. (Which is why I voted that way.) The first few years or so, not as much as it was.

The first attempt on the WTC was that truck in 1993, IIRC. People in the Middle East were mad at us for even the first invasion of Iraq and certainly for America's support of Israel. Al-Qaeda would have done 9/11, perhaps things are a little different, I mean Gore might have been in Washington, different people on Flight 93, and it could have crashed itnot he White House meaning Lieberman might have become President. Just because butterflies could have changed it doesn't mean it would have been better, after all. It could have been about the same or worse.

I think other terrorist attacks are attempted, too, and the U.S. goes into Afghanistan, but not Iraq. there is still a heightened sense of awareness, but it feels, to me at least, like it has settled down since the first few years of the Iraq War. There aren't constant talks about the "terro level" or anything.

However, I did a term paper on terrorism in high school around 1985 o when it was mostly hijackings and not a 9/11-type scenario. As The Kiat said, they'd be insane no matter who was America's President. These people are out there, and they're nuts. Even if al-Baghdadi(sp?) doesn't emerge with ISIS, someone else very well could have.

So, I suspect that things would have remained rather steady like they are now, instead of that really heightened sense of, "We've got to get those guys" that there was at first.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Well that depends on whether Gore ignores the memos about Al Qaeda like Bush did:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html?_r=0
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat...d_september_11_cia_intelligence_warnings.html
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/

Would Gore act differently on the Bin Laden task force?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_Issue_Station

I think 9/11 was preventable had Bush and his administration not been so focused on war with Iraq and ignored the warnings and limited funds to the Bin Laden task force. There were a huge number of missed chances, though the death of Bin Laden wouldn't have necessarily preventing 9/11, as bin Laden was more instrumental in funding KSMs plan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Sheikh_Mohammed#Plan_for_September_11.2C_2001_attacks

No 9/11 and a dead bin Laden in 2001 would probably make terrorism a minor issue in modern politics all things considered, while no Iraq Invasion would change the entire course of Middle Eastern politics, as would not having the Bush administration overturn US policy on the West Bank, giving Bibi the green light to annex territory and helping put Hamas in power in Gaza, while escalating the 2006 Lebanon situation into an invasion. Bush/Cheney screwed up so many things domestically and internationally in general.

 

[ChazMo]

Well that depends on whether Gore ignores the memos about Al Qaeda like Bush did

The memos stated Al Qaeda was about to perpetrate some sort of attack, somewhere, sometime in the near-future. The State Department literally sifts through these things by the dozen every fortnight. What was Bush meant to do?

Gore's overrated.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

The memos stated Al Qaeda was about to perpetrate some sort of attack, somewhere, sometime in the near-future. The State Department literally sifts through these things by the dozen every fortnight. What was Bush meant to do?

Gore's overrated.

I included a copy of the report in my links, it was much more than just one idle memo, the famous one was bolded warning after a series of memos was ignored. Bush was criminally negligent in his duties, ignoring it in favor of finding an excuse to attack Saddam.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html?_r=0

On Aug. 6, 2001, President George W. Bush received a classified review of the threats posed by Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, Al Qaeda. That morning’s “presidential daily brief” — the top-secret document prepared by America’s intelligence agencies — featured the now-infamous heading: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” A few weeks later, on 9/11, Al Qaeda accomplished that goal.

On April 10, 2004, the Bush White House declassified that daily brief — and only that daily brief — in response to pressure from the 9/11 Commission, which was investigating the events leading to the attack. Administration officials dismissed the document’s significance, saying that, despite the jaw-dropping headline, it was only an assessment of Al Qaeda’s history, not a warning of the impending attack. While some critics considered that claim absurd, a close reading of the brief showed that the argument had some validity.

That is, unless it was read in conjunction with the daily briefs preceding Aug. 6, the ones the Bush administration would not release. While those documents are still not public, I have read excerpts from many of them, along with other recently declassified records, and come to an inescapable conclusion: the administration’s reaction to what Mr. Bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed. In other words, the Aug. 6 document, for all of the controversy it provoked, is not nearly as shocking as the briefs that came before it.

The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that “a group presently in the United States” was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be “imminent,” although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible.

But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day.

In response, the C.I.A. prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real.

“The U.S. is not the target of a disinformation campaign by Usama Bin Laden,” the daily brief of June 29 read, using the government’s transliteration of Bin Laden’s first name. Going on for more than a page, the document recited much of the evidence, including an interview that month with a Middle Eastern journalist in which Bin Laden aides warned of a coming attack, as well as competitive pressures that the terrorist leader was feeling, given the number of Islamists being recruited for the separatist Russian region of Chechnya.

And the C.I.A. repeated the warnings in the briefs that followed. Operatives connected to Bin Laden, one reported on June 29, expected the planned near-term attacks to have “dramatic consequences,” including major casualties. On July 1, the brief stated that the operation had been delayed, but “will occur soon.” Some of the briefs again reminded Mr. Bush that the attack timing was flexible, and that, despite any perceived delay, the planned assault was on track.

Yet, the White House failed to take significant action. Officials at the Counterterrorism Center of the C.I.A. grew apoplectic. On July 9, at a meeting of the counterterrorism group, one official suggested that the staff put in for a transfer so that somebody else would be responsible when the attack took place, two people who were there told me in interviews. The suggestion was batted down, they said, because there would be no time to train anyone else.

That same day in Chechnya, according to intelligence I reviewed, Ibn Al-Khattab, an extremist who was known for his brutality and his links to Al Qaeda, told his followers that there would soon be very big news. Within 48 hours, an intelligence official told me, that information was conveyed to the White House, providing more data supporting the C.I.A.’s warnings. Still, the alarm bells didn’t sound.

On July 24, Mr. Bush was notified that the attack was still being readied, but that it had been postponed, perhaps by a few months. But the president did not feel the briefings on potential attacks were sufficient, one intelligence official told me, and instead asked for a broader analysis on Al Qaeda, its aspirations and its history. In response, the C.I.A. set to work on the Aug. 6 brief.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Bush officials attempted to deflect criticism that they had ignored C.I.A. warnings by saying they had not been told when and where the attack would occur. That is true, as far as it goes, but it misses the point. Throughout that summer, there were events that might have exposed the plans, had the government been on high alert. Indeed, even as the Aug. 6 brief was being prepared, Mohamed al-Kahtani, a Saudi believed to have been assigned a role in the 9/11 attacks, was stopped at an airport in Orlando, Fla., by a suspicious customs agent and sent back overseas on Aug. 4. Two weeks later, another co-conspirator, Zacarias Moussaoui, was arrested on immigration charges in Minnesota after arousing suspicions at a flight school. But the dots were not connected, and Washington did not react.

Could the 9/11 attack have been stopped, had the Bush team reacted with urgency to the warnings contained in all of those daily briefs? We can’t ever know. And that may be the most agonizing reality of all.

Kurt Eichenwald, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a former reporter for The New York Times, is the author of “500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars.”

 

[ChazMo]

I included a copy of the report in my links, it was much more than just one idle memo, the famous one was bolded warning after a series of memos was ignored. Bush was criminally negligent in his duties, ignoring it in favor of finding an excuse to attack Saddam.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html?_r=0

As I said, all very imprecise. No detail is provided as to the full nature of the attack, nor any notion of a date beyond "a few months time". Terrorist organizations always whip up spin like this.

 

[DG Valdron]

The memos stated Al Qaeda was about to perpetrate some sort of attack, somewhere, sometime in the near-future. The State Department literally sifts through these things by the dozen every fortnight. What was Bush meant to do?

Gore's overrated.

Disagree. Dealing with terrorism and Al Quaeda was a priority of the Clinton administration, and presumably would have been a priority of the Gore administration. They would have presumably followed through with Clarke's plans to go after and dismantle Al Quaeda, would not have cut staff and resources allocated to Islamic terrorism.

In general terms, the Gore administration presumably would not have shelved the Hart/Rudman report on airline security, and if these recommendations had been implemented, any number of them would have foiled or raised red flags.

Even with the Bush administration's systemic indifference and gross negligence, 9/11 succeeded as much through luck as ability. There were any number of points where it could have all fallen apart.

The notion that it would have automatically happened under Gore is simply wishful thinking.

 

[ChazMo]

Disagree. Dealing with terrorism and Al Quaeda was a priority of the Clinton administration, and presumably would have been a priority of the Gore administration. They would have presumably followed through with Clarke's plans to go after and dismantle Al Quaeda, would not have cut staff and resources allocated to Islamic terrorism.

In general terms, the Gore administration presumably would not have shelved the Hart/Rudman report on airline security, and if these recommendations had been implemented, any number of them would have foiled or raised red flags.

Even with the Bush administration's systemic indifference and gross negligence, 9/11 succeeded as much through luck as ability. There were any number of points where it could have all fallen apart.

The notion that it would have automatically happened under Gore is simply wishful thinking.

Al Qaeda's two major 1990s attempts to manufacture a 9/11-style attack (no others spring to mind right now) were foiled as a consequence of happy customs mishaps, incompetence on the planners' behalf, or the hard work of foreign law enforcement agencies. Clinton placed no special emphasis on terrorism that Bush didn't, and Gore isn't some cure-all here. 9/11 was no technically sophisticated affair - the hijackers were armed with box cutters. Just keep your operatives quiet enough, and anybody could have pulled off a terrible feat like it back then.

No, 9/11 isn't going to automatically happen, and that's an irritating assumption. What I find equally whimsical and annoying is the projection by otherwise reasonable people round here of their (very logical) dislike for all things Bush upon his feel-good rival. Hell, we've got somebody above claiming Bush let 9/11 go ahead as a pretext to attack Saddam ...

 

[Cymraeg]

Everything that I have read about the Bush Administration leads me to the inevitable conclusion that it fatally handicapped by inflexibility, delusions and incompetence. The man seemed to be baffled whenever reality triumphed over his version of the real world. He did not take the threat from Bin Laden seriously. Therefore the intelligence was always going to be belittled or even ignored. The Bush Administration has to be viewed as the worst-case scenario for detecting a plot like 9/11. Why would anyone think that a Gore administration would make the same mistakes, given the fact that Clinton warned Bush about Bin Laden when he left office?

 

[DG Valdron]

Clinton placed no special emphasis on terrorism that Bush didn't,

That's entirely false.

and Gore isn't some cure-all here.

Not necessarily. But we can assume that Gore would not have more likely followed Clinton era policies, rather than repudiate them as definitively as Bush did.

What I find equally whimsical and annoying is the projection by otherwise reasonable people round here of their (very logical) dislike for all things Bush upon his feel-good rival.

I'm not a fan of Gore. But this is a site which acknowledges and places great emphasis on butterflies. It is on the whole more reasonable to argue that a Gore administration would have avoided 9/11, or at least blunted it somewhat, than that it would have proceeded inevitably.

Hell, we've got somebody above claiming Bush let 9/11 go ahead as a pretext to attack Saddam ...

Whereas the truth is that after it happened, the Bush administration expressed unseemly haste to use it as a pretext to attack Saddam. If you can't wait to let the bodies be buried... well, people are going to draw unpleasant conclusions.

 

[Mark E.]

I'm not a fan of Gore. But this is a site which acknowledges and places great emphasis on butterflies. It is on the whole more reasonable to argue that a Gore administration would have avoided 9/11, or at least blunted it somewhat, than that it would have proceeded inevitably.

I agree with that point. Didn't Bush have some sort of distrust over Clinton's emphasis that Al Qaeda was the greatest terrorist threat?

 

[cubefreak123]

Here's my thing, terrorism isn't going away if GWB isn't elected. Even if we assume that Gore's administration stops or at least blunts the 9/11 attack, then AQ would still be around. If the attack is blunted we'll still see a big response and US troops in Afghanistan. I'm in the camp that doesn't think Gore would go after Iraq so that can of worms stays sealed. We still get a PATRIOT Act of sorts and a War on Al-Qaeda. Difference to the latter being that we don't get a "with us or against us" doctrine that also pisses off Iran (consequently Saddam still being in power keeps them in check) or gives other terror cells as big of a rallying point.

If the attack is prevented then Gore will probably push for a very concentrated effort to take out the group but likely stopping short of anything beyond spec ops raids. In light of the embassy attacks, the USS Cole being hit, and then an attempted large scale attack on US soil, Gore would be pushing for more anti-terrorism measures to stop the group and would likely get some of it, although probably nowhere near the PATRIOT Act. A War on Terror would probably fizzle out fairly quickly and we would all go about our happy-go-lucky lives that the 90s gave. At least until AQ or someone else plans and pulls off another big attack...

 

[troosvelt_68]

Come now we all know if either Gore or Kerry had been elected we'd be living in a perfect paradise... just ask the hard core left (I do not include the many intelligent and fair minded folks here I might disagree with in that category)

But had to tease a little, it is the holidays after all

 

[funnyhat]

Assuming the likely possibility that 9/11 does not happen under Gore's watch, would Islamic extremism and terrorism still be as big an issue today?

Not sure why this is a "likely possibility." 9/11 was accomplished by men armed with nothing more than box cutters. It could have been foiled with stricter airport security. But in the summer of 2001, there was no political will (on either side of the aisle) for that kind of thing, nor did the general public want that.