An Alternate 9/11 History

[ron28]

An Alternate 9/11 History

By staying 'humble,' as he promised in 2000, Bush preserved much of the post-9/11 good will abroad.




By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek
Sept. 18, 2006 issue - Five years after 9/11, the world is surprisingly peaceful. President Bush's pragmatic and bipartisan leadership has kept the United States not just strong but unexpectedly popular across the globe. The president himself is poised to enjoy big GOP wins in the midterm elections, a validation of his subtle understanding of the challenges facing the country. A new survey of historians puts him in the first tier of American presidents.

As Bush warned, catching terrorists wasn't easy, but he kept at it. At the battle of Tora Bora, CIA operatives on the ground cabled Washington that Osama bin Laden was cornered, but they desperately needed troop support. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld immediately dispatched fresh forces, and the evildoer was killed. While bin Laden was seen as a martyr in a few isolated areas, the bulk of the Arab world had been in sympathy with the United States after 9/11 and shed no tears. After their capture, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terrorists were transported to the United States, where they were tried and quickly executed.

Today, Al Qaeda remains a threat but its opportunities for recruitment have been scarce, and the involvement of the entire international community has helped dramatically reduce terrorist attacks worldwide. Because Bush believes diplomacy requires talking to adversaries as well as friends, even Syria and Iraq were forced to help. By staying "humble," as he promised in 2000, he preserved much of the post-9/11 good feeling abroad, which paid dividends when it came time to pull together a coalition to handle North Korea and Iran.

At home, some aides suggested that Bush simply tell the nation to "go shopping." But the president knew he had a precious opportunity to ask Americans for real sacrifice. He took John McCain's suggestion and pushed through Congress an ambitious national-service program that bolstered communities and helped train citizens as first responders.

Soon Bush put the country on a Manhattan Project crash course to get off oil. He bluntly told Detroit that it was embarrassing that Chinese automakers had better fuel efficiency, he classified SUVs as cars, and he imposed a stiff gas tax with a rebate for the working poor. To pay for it, he abandoned his tax cuts for the wealthy, reminding the country that no president in history had ever cut taxes in the middle of a war. This president would be damned if he was going to put more oil money into the pockets of Middle Eastern hatemongers who had killed nearly 3,000 of our people. To dramatize the point, he drove to his 2002 State of the Union address in a hybrid car. Sales soared.

When Karl Rove suggested that the war on terror would make a perfect wedge issue against Democrats in the 2002 midterms, Bush brought him up short. Didn't Rove understand that bipartisanship is good politics? Lincoln and FDR had both gone bipartisan during wartime, he reminded his aide. So when evidence of torture at the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay surfaced and Rumsfeld was forced to resign, former Democratic senator Sam Nunn got the job. With post-9/11 unity still at least partially intact in 2004, Bush was re-elected in a landslide.

Taking a cue from Lincoln's impatience with his generals, Bush was merciless about poor performance on homeland security. When the head of the FBI couldn't fix the bureau's computers in a year's time to "connect the dots," he was out. And Bush had no patience for excuse-making about leaky port security, unsecured chemical plants and first responders whose radios didn't communicate. If someone had told him that five years after 9/11 these problems would still be unsolved, Bush would have laughed him out of the office.

In 2003, Vice President Cheney advised the president to take out Iraq's Saddam Hussein militarily. But Bush was beginning to understand that his veep, while sounding full of gravitas, was in fact reckless. When it became clear that Saddam posed no imminent threat, Bush resolved to neuter him, Kaddafi style. When the president found, after a little asking around, that the 10-year cost of invading Iraq would be a crushing $1.2 trillion, he opted out of this war of choice.

Five years after that awful September day, even Bush's fiercest critics have learned an important lesson: leadership counts. Imagine if we'd done the opposite of these things. This country—and the world—would be in a heap of trouble.


I don't agree with everything Alter says, but I think he makes some legit points.

[DeeMan]

wow. this is trash. just another example of a liberal in la la land. when are liberals going to come to realize that Syria/Iran/whoever are not going to "realize" diplomacy is the way to go. the author forgot the final paragraph where multiple nuclear warheads are detonated in infidel infested countries thanks to the "diplomatic talks" over the course of 10 years with Iran.

[UMD TSAR]

Utopian.

[WUB]

Click HERE

[gribble]

What a bunch of horseshit. Us sitting around on our asses doing nothing so that the rest of the world will like us does not make the world a better or safer place. Liberals are passive-agressive about this. They try to completely ignore the problem in hopes that it will go away by itself. It's fucking ridiculous.

[Anti_Liberal]

[ron28]

It would be nice if some of you would actually introduce an argument to counter some of Alter's points rather than just dismissing it as "hippie bullshit."

[gribble]

Why justify it with an argument. It is hippy bullshit.

[Ranger]

Why justify it with an argument. It is hippy bullshit.

clap clap

[UMD TSAR]

We did.

We called it "Utopian", which implies it is a naive outlook on the peaceful tranquility of mankind.

Gribble also, in his own crude way, furthered that argument by pointing out it is fallacy to assume doing nothing would have led to such a great outcome.

The "argument" you present is based on no less than a dozen optimistic assumptions. It is the ultimate in "mental masterbation", as Stang would say. It cannot be tested purely because of the reason it is a hypothetical interpretation of an alternative universe.

"Introducing an argument to counter" only requires challenging any one of the dozen assumptions. "If we did X, as Alter suggests, Y would not have happened."

[WUB]

Wouldn't it be nice if we were older
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long
And wouldn't it be nice to live together
In the kind of world where we belong


You know its gonna make it that much better
When we can say goodnight and stay together

Wouldn't it be nice if we could wake up
In the morning when the day is new
And after having spent the day together
Hold each other close the whole night through

The happy times together we've been spending
I wish that every kiss was never ending
Oh Wouldn't it be nice

Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true (run, run, run)
Baby then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn't do
We could be married (we could be married)
And then we'd be happy (then we'd be happy)

Wouldn't it be nice (ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba)

You know it seems the more we talk about it
It only makes it worse to live without it
But lets talk about it
Oh, wouldn't it be nice

good night baby
sleep tight baby

good night baby
sleep tight baby

good night baby
sleep tight baby

good night baby
sleep tight baby

[OctaPochette]

Our politicians are doing a great job with this war on terrorism. They have accomplished so much.

I hope they stick around.

[krosch]

Don't worry the failure of the Democrats to have any sort of plan outside of attack Bush might be coming apart. GOP is starting to trend stronger and the whole Demcratic campaign of Bush is bad is sunk if his ratings continue to hold let alone rise like they have been as he focuses on terrorism policy speechs.

If the war has gone so badly in so many repects how come there are so few workable opinions on what to do now by the Democrats? Because while it has been tough everyone realizes that its easier to point a finger than to come up with a solution to the issue.

This could well be the crux of the GOP winning yet another election despite these "supposed horrid unpopluar mistakes of Bush and the GOP".

The article is largly a imagine if song which is so general vauge and wishy washy its hard to actually debate...

[karl0092]

If I went into your fine china shop and busted the fuck out of everything and then looked at you as you got pissed and said "well, I don't here you giving any good plans to fix this!" that would make me an ass hole.....

Stop defending Howdy Doody and realize he's a fuck up.

When his campaign went dirty on McCain in the primaries 6-7 years ago our country got fucked, plain and simple.

[krosch]

By going "dirty" I assume you mean the calls that weren't made by the Bush campaign or despite heavy investigation were not linked to anyone involved in the Bush campaign that were made against Mccain.

If Bush is responsible for those calls then Al Gore is responsibe for the DFL campaign worker in Milwakuee that was caught trading packs of cigerates to homeless people for filled out absenttee ballots voting for Al Gore. You can't control everyone who supports you (or more in this case opposed John Mccain).

On the China shop analogy ok, but then we have to add the fact the Democrats went in with Bush saying he could break them then helped distract the store owner while he did it.

The point is the Democrats have no plan that is any better than Bush on terrorism issues right now (at least one they have put forward). They are attempting to look strong on the issue by hitting on Iraq but have no plan on what they will do just simply Bush is screwing up we can do better. The voters are starting to see that and at this point the odds are better than 50-50 the Democrats again lose this election because they have no direction.

[OctaPochette]

Nobody has a plan, Donny.

[Anti_Liberal]

If I went into your fine china shop and busted the fuck out of everything and then looked at you as you got pissed and said "well, I don't here you giving any good plans to fix this!" that would make me an ass hole.....

Stop defending Howdy Doody and realize he's a fuck up.

When his campaign went dirty on McCain in the primaries 6-7 years ago our country got fucked, plain and simple.

When you say howdy doody, i assume youre talking about the congress as a whole. the congress has the power to start wars, not the pres and last time i checked there were a whole lot of democrats who voted for military action.

[OctaPochette]

I think it's reasonable to blame one side or the other (I personally blame both sides). Since the beginning of this war, both sides have been pushing their own Gulf War realities and differentiating themselves from the others. As a country, we need to come together with a common plan for Iraq and Afghanistan, something neither side seems willing to do.

[krosch]

Agreed while many times individual politicans do attempt this to some limited degree they spend much more time trying to win political points than take hard knocks and put out a soild policy idea. I agree almost entirely with you on this on Octa.

[UMD TSAR]

I think it's reasonable to blame one side or the other (I personally blame both sides). Since the beginning of this war, both sides have been pushing their own Gulf War realities and differentiating themselves from the others. As a country, we need to come together with a common plan for Iraq and Afghanistan, something neither side seems willing to do.

Nabisco, my respect for you has just increased tenfold.

But you are coming from a low place, so that doesn't mean much

[OctaPochette]

I think we can all agree that we desire leaders who can inspire us, be honest with us, be there for us and not be there for us, and remind us that we are all striving for happiness and a little something to call our own. Where has the fireside chat gone? Where has our "Go Westward, son" resolve gone? Where has our will to go to work for our countrymen and women gone?

Sadly, we do not have these leaders and, I think, our confidence as a nation has more than slipped.