If only John McCain had won the GOP in 2000, the world would be a much better place.

[manu1959]

Looks like you are the one struggling with comprehension. You just described the same thing I did, and yet you felt compelled to pretend it means I misunderstand the situation.

The world can in fact be a different place even if all of those things are the same (not a given, but I'll assume true to simplify things for you).

Again, your failure is in thinking those things on your list are by themselves the only things that define how our world is today. They are not.

You then go on to finally address my point directly. I'll give you credit for that part though, it's a hollow effort. Kudos.

please tell me how mccain would have have made the world a better place?

 

[jAZ]

please tell me how mccain would have have made the world a better place?

I already did that. Why do you need me to repeat myself? It's post #11 above that you ignored entirely. Read it again.

 

[manu1959]

I already did that. Why do you need me to repeat myself? It's post #11 above that you ignored entirely. Read it again.

as did i ..... read post 19 ..... mccain's energy ideas would not make the world a better place ....

 

[jAZ]

as did i ..... read post 19 ..... mccain's energy ideas would not make the world a better place ....

So why do you want me to repeat myself? What's the purpose?

 

[manu1959]

So why do you want me to repeat myself? What's the purpose?

not asking you to repeat yourself you made a claim the mcain would make the world a better place if elected in 2000....i gave you several things that have occured since 2000 that made the world a worse place ...

tell me how his energy polices, which he has done nothing on in 6 years
would have prevented or improve any of those events....

how would he have prevented 9/11?

dafur?

pick one

...or you can keep calling me an idiot

 

[no1tovote4]

I truly expected Bush to take advantage of the opportunity to release himself from the Oil Special Interests and gain huge political clout announcing a new directed energy program defined by the removal of oil as our basic staple of energy. A national drive, like the space race for Kennedy, to give the nation a directive to withstand the economic temptation to continue as before. Thus taking the US to the forefront of new energy technology and setting us up as the producers with a near monopoly on such new techonology.

Instead he disappointed me, we lost the momentum and the opportunity. It is likely that such new energy technologies will be much longer in coming and even less likely that we will be the main producer of such technology.

 

[jAZ]

...or you can keep calling me an idiot

I haven't done anything of the sort, but that cross looks mighty good on you. It's gotta be painful though.

tell me how his energy polices, which he has done nothing on in 6 years
would have prevented or improve any of those events....

First, and once again, you are basing your request on the assumption that I must address one of those items in order for the world to be a much better place. Why can't you understand this concept? It's becoming frustrating.

However, that aside, I will take one and expore it for your benefit. And just to break the cycle of ridiculousness.

Iraq/Iran.

If McCain were President in 2000, I don't think we invade Iraq. I think we use a Colin Powell type view of foreign policy. I think we focus our WoT on al Queda and other anti-american terrorist networks, and not Saddam. I think he has a much higher % chance of persuing and obtaining buy in for an Apollo Energy Project challenging, businesses, scienctists, engineers, politicans and citizens to fund a race to develop renewable, sustainable, domestically generated energy sources to replace oil (and our dependence upon the middle east). If we start that in 2001, by say 2016 (7 years after leaving office after 2nd term) America would potentially be totally independant from middle east oil, domestic oil, nuclear waste storage, coal mining and massive pollution. It would mean an end to the resources that keep dictators like Saddam in power as the demand for their lone natural resource disappears. Saudi Arabia falls from power. Saddam falls from power.

how would he have prevented 9/11?

I think that Bush failed so miserably to even attempt to defend the country against terrorism prior to 9/11 that even I (and certainly McCain) would have tried ANYTHING to stop it. Bush, Condi, Cheney, Rove and the like were so fixated on a "national missle defense" system that they literally did almost NOTHING that would have been necessary to prevent 9/11.

Doing ANYTHING more than nothing would have been better and could have (though unlikely) prevented 9/11.

 

[no1tovote4]

I think that Bush failed so miserably to even attempt to defend the country against terrorism prior to 9/11 that even I (and certainly McCain) would have tried ANYTHING to stop it. Bush, Condi, Cheney, Rove and the like were so fixated on a "national missle defense" system that they literally did almost NOTHING that would have been necessary to prevent 9/11.

Doing ANYTHING more than nothing would have been better and could have (though unlikely) prevented 9/11.

I think you ignore the evidence before you eyes because it was presented in such a negative light by people that didn't want you to pay attention.

For two years the ideas of Richard Clarke were on the table during Clinton's Administration and zero progress was made on any of them, yet he was quiet as he was able to maintain a position in the Top Level Meetings that he so clearly wanted. In less than 8 months the Bush Administration, at the same time as trying to get all of their second on down level Cabinet posistion filled (The Principles were filled but not their staffs) with a Senate that was not Republican and fought them all the way, Bush was able to get it so that his ideas were to be implemented after a meeting with the Principles on 9/12/2001...

That is blinding speed considering the complications of his first months in his administration and the monstrous bureaucracy that he had to work with. He took advice from the outgoing Administration and then implemented it more quickly than most previous administrations had done.

That Richard Clarke complained was more evidently because he no longer had access to the meetings of the Principles and had to work through their staffs. He would have remained quietly at bliss if Bush had not done a thing but had let him into those meetings. This is evidenced by the fact that he was willing to sit quietly while his ideas were ignored for over two years so long as he could go to those all important meetings.

He so desparately wanted the appearance that he had power that he was willing to give up actual power just for the trappings. A weak mind...

 

[jAZ]

I think you ignore the evidence before you eyes because it was presented in such a negative light by people that didn't want you to pay attention.

For two years the ideas of Richard Clarke were on the table during Clinton's Administration and zero progress was made on any of them, yet he was quiet as he was able to maintain a position in the Top Level Meetings that he so clearly wanted. In less than 8 months the Bush Administration, at the same time as trying to get all of their second on down level Cabinet posistion filled (The Principles were filled but not their staffs) with a Senate that was not Republican and fought them all the way, Bush was able to get it so that his ideas were to be implemented after a meeting with the Principles on 9/12/2001...

That is blinding speed considering the complications of his first months in his administration and the monstrous bureaucracy that he had to work with. He took advice from the outgoing Administration and then implemented it more quickly than most previous administrations had done.

That Richard Clarke complained was more evidently because he no longer had access to the meetings of the Principles and had to work through their staffs. He would have remained quietly at bliss if Bush had not done a thing but had let him into those meetings. This is evidenced by the fact that he was willing to sit quietly while his ideas were ignored for over two years so long as he could go to those all important meetings.

He so desparately wanted the appearance that he had power that he was willing to give up actual power just for the trappings. A weak mind...

You speak broadly about "Richard Clarke's ideas" and in doing so you obfuscate valuable detail.

Clarke had been proposing an invasion of Afganistan with ground troops (literally exactly what Bush eveutally did after considering an invastion of Iraq first).

I'll be the first to admit that Bush (nor Clinton before him) could have successfully undertaken such a preemptive war prior to 9/11. I don't blame Bush for failing to do this (which is the "Clarke plan").

However, Clinton had a great many things going on in the world of terrorism that were absolutely shut down by the Bush administation. There was zero activity for 6 months. That's not an accident. It was so agregious that it's not hard to understand why people might conider 9/11 to be something Bush hoped would happen. Their lack of action was that bad. I attribute it to a complete and total failure to read the situation and prioritize properly.

 

[jAZ]

For two years the ideas of Richard Clarke were on the table during Clinton's Administration and zero progress was made on any of them, yet he was quiet as he was able to maintain a position in the Top Level Meetings that he so clearly wanted. In less than 8 months the Bush Administration, at the same time as trying to get all of their second on down level Cabinet posistion filled (The Principles were filled but not their staffs) with a Senate that was not Republican and fought them all the way, Bush was able to get it so that his ideas were to be implemented after a meeting with the Principles on 9/12/2001...

That is blinding speed considering the complications of his first months in his administration and the monstrous bureaucracy that he had to work with. He took advice from the outgoing Administration and then implemented it more quickly than most previous administrations had done.

That Richard Clarke complained was more evidently because he no longer had access to the meetings of the Principles and had to work through their staffs. He would have remained quietly at bliss if Bush had not done a thing but had let him into those meetings. This is evidenced by the fact that he was willing to sit quietly while his ideas were ignored for over two years so long as he could go to those all important meetings.

He so desparately wanted the appearance that he had power that he was willing to give up actual power just for the trappings. A weak mind...

You also forget that Bush stripped Clarke of the responsiblity and turned it over to Cheney. Cheney went on to do nothing ever. Until the warning signs were so loud, that terrorism showed back up on the political radar and Bush was forced to address the issue. At that point it was too late. But by stripping Clarke of his authority and not putting some in that role to actively and agressively address terrorism for 7 months, Bush sealed the nations fate and 9/11 was effectively inevitable.

How a sitting President could posisbly leave the threat of terrorism unaddressed for that long is unconcionable. I mean, it's not like we weren't attack by AQ 2 months before he took office. The investigation on the Cole attack was completed days before he took office. And yet, he did squat. In fact if he had done nothing at all (not demote clarke) we would have been better off.

 

[Gunny]

As for the question of what would alt-energy mean and what would I expect McCain do differently in 2001?

I imagine that given McCain's pragmatism and willingness to go against the partyline and lobbiest line, he would be a much stronger change agent for revolutionizing our energy technolgies.

The single greatest of Bush's many failures as President is that he failed to realize the opportunity that was presented to him on 9/11. He took the shortsighted view that toppling Saddam Hussein would be good for our country in very large part because it would lead to a domino effect in the ME freeing us up to more reliable access to ME oil. Sometimes this discussion is trivialized down to "war for oil", but I recogonize it's more complex than that.

However, this strategy still remains a dangerously shortsighted plan. And Bush's deep background in oil, and deep reaching influence he allows by other oil types prevents him from making the truely lasting choice to launch an International Apollo Project to abolish our nation's (and the world's) dependence on non-renewable, dirty energy sources.

It's the kind of project that could potenitally have been completed within a short time (5 years?) of leaving office in 2009 if Bush had been up to the task in 2001. He wasn't. McCain clearly would have been more up to the task.

That's but one change (the one raised in this thread) that could drastically change for the better the world as we know it today.

Bullshit. McCain does not have the confidence of the Republican Party, and certainly not the DNC. He couldn't get enough people to cross political lines to get jack-shit passed.

We went through this with Jimmy Carter, young 'un. An honest politician and Cinderella candidate who refused to play ball inside the beltway. He accomplshied very little, and by the time he left office, the Congressmen in his own party wouldn't support him.

And as Manu points out, it wouldn't matter WHO was President since 9/11 was planned during the Clinton Administration. McCain would not have stooped that, and 9/11 has pretty-much defined the US geopolitically.

So, besides your broke-dick speculation, what evidence do you have to support your thread title?

 

[manu1959]

I haven't done anything of the sort, but that cross looks mighty good on you. It's gotta be painful though.

First, and once again, you are basing your request on the assumption that I must address one of those items in order for the world to be a much better place. Why can't you understand this concept? It's becoming frustrating.

However, that aside, I will take one and expore it for your benefit. And just to break the cycle of ridiculousness.

Iraq/Iran.

If McCain were President in 2000, I don't think we invade Iraq. I think we use a Colin Powell type view of foreign policy. I think we focus our WoT on al Queda and other anti-american terrorist networks, and not Saddam. I think he has a much higher % chance of persuing and obtaining buy in for an Apollo Energy Project challenging, businesses, scienctists, engineers, politicans and citizens to fund a race to develop renewable, sustainable, domestically generated energy sources to replace oil (and our dependence upon the middle east). If we start that in 2001, by say 2016 (7 years after leaving office after 2nd term) America would potentially be totally independant from middle east oil, domestic oil, nuclear waste storage, coal mining and massive pollution. It would mean an end to the resources that keep dictators like Saddam in power as the demand for their lone natural resource disappears. Saudi Arabia falls from power. Saddam falls from power.

I think that Bush failed so miserably to even attempt to defend the country against terrorism prior to 9/11 that even I (and certainly McCain) would have tried ANYTHING to stop it. Bush, Condi, Cheney, Rove and the like were so fixated on a "national missle defense" system that they literally did almost NOTHING that would have been necessary to prevent 9/11.

Doing ANYTHING more than nothing would have been better and could have (though unlikely) prevented 9/11.

liar

why when you do it is ok but when i do it it is not

your opinion is unknowable and unproveable...further mccain has not done any of those things in 6 years and he could have

so the terrorists just started hating us in the 9 moths bush was in office? what was nigeria, bali, the cole, wtc I, and somalia then? who was preventing that? to claim they were doing nothing is once again untrue...just because it happened doesn't mean they were doing nothing....and if that is you claim then clinton did nothing for 8 years to allow the build up...i seem to rcall OBL declared war on the US during the clinton years...the problem was passed....what the hell was the clinton fbi cia and nsa doing for 8 years and did they suddenly stop when bush was elected?

 

[no1tovote4]

You speak broadly about "Richard Clarke's ideas" and in doing so you obfuscate valuable detail.

Clarke had been proposing an invasion of Afganistan with ground troops (literally exactly what Bush eveutally did after considering an invastion of Iraq first).

I'll be the first to admit that Bush (nor Clinton before him) could have successfully undertaken such a preemptive war prior to 9/11. I don't blame Bush for failing to do this (which is the "Clarke plan").

However, Clinton had a great many things going on in the world of terrorism that were absolutely shut down by the Bush administation. There was zero activity for 6 months. That's not an accident. It was so agregious that it's not hard to understand why people might conider 9/11 to be something Bush hoped would happen. Their lack of action was that bad. I attribute it to a complete and total failure to read the situation and prioritize properly.

Once again a one dimensional response. You reach for an idea of Clarke's that was no implemented, a preemptive invasion that you admit could not have been part of the plan. However I speak of his book where he outlined ideas then complained that Bush didn't implement them fast enough (even though he admitted those ideas would not have stopped the 9/11 attack) without mentioning the fact that Clinton had those same ideas tabled for two years.

You also failed to mention that that idea was presented to Berger and to the Clinton Administration and failed to meet the standards of an idea based in political reality.

Amazingly a Time magazine article supports my presentation of the facts concerning this:

And that's the point. The proposals Clarke developed in the winter of 2000-01 were not given another hearing by top decision makers until late April, and then spent another four months making their laborious way through the bureaucracy before they were readied for approval by President Bush. (Notice here, four months it took, only four. Imagine how far along we would have been had Clinton done even one iota of that in two years previous when those ideas were first presented.) It is quite true that nobody predicted Sept. 11—that nobody guessed in advance how and when the attacks would come. But other things are true too. By last summer, many of those in the know—the spooks, the buttoned-down bureaucrats, the law-enforcement professionals in a dozen countries—were almost frantic with worry that a major terrorist attack against American interests was imminent. It wasn't averted because 2001 saw a systematic collapse in the ability of Washington's national-security apparatus to handle the terrorist threat.

I bolded the important part, and my own remarks are in red, remember these same ideas were presented to the Clinton Administration over two years before and nothing had been done to progress those ideas into reality, nothing at all. Saying that progressing those ideas is doing nothing is nothing in comparison to the fact that for two years and more with the previous administration they sat and did nothing on the very same ideas. And, as I stated previously, the only difference between what Bush did and what Clinton did is one actually took action but didn't let him into the Big Wig meetings while the previous one did nothing and let him in on those meetings.

Let me make the point very clear indeed, nothing in over two years was implemented that Clarke brought to Berger and Clinton, in less than 8 months it was prepared to be implemented by the next administration. In one administration the man had no power but had the trappings of power, in the other he had real power but was missing the trappings. His book made it clear where his priorities lied, he wanted the trappings so bad he was willing to give up those who gave him actual power by implementing his ideas.

Bush was taking the previous 'response after attack mentality' and transforming it to the 'take it to the terrorist mentality' that Clarke proposed. That he ceased to support the programs with the previous menatility does not surprise me, that those on the other side of the political perspective were successful in redefining action into inaction is what amazes me.

 

[jAZ]

liar

why when you do it is ok but when i do it it is not

I don't believe I lied. What are you talking about?

your opinion is unknowable and unproveable...further mccain has not done any of those things in 6 years and he could have

This is entirely true. I have never suggested otherwise. There is no way to re-write history and know what would have happened. This is merely my opinion and my detailed reasons. Nothing more.

so the terrorists just started hating us in the 9 moths bush was in office? what was nigeria, bali, the cole, wtc I, and somalia then? who was preventing that?

Again, false presumptions that mean nothing. I didn't say they just started hating us. I said that Bush didn't do anything about their organzied plans to act on their hate. That actually assumes the opposite of what you just asked - it assumes that hated us before 2001.

to claim they were doing nothing is once again untrue...just because it happened doesn't mean they were doing nothing....and if that is you claim then clinton did nothing for 8 years to allow the build up...i seem to rcall OBL declared war on the US during the clinton years...the problem was passed....what the hell was the clinton fbi cia and nsa doing for 8 years and did they suddenly stop when bush was elected?

Just because Clinton didn't successfully "fix" the problem doesn't mean he didn't try. Bush documentably did literally almost NOTHING after taking office. The same is documentably the opposite under Clinton. He did a great deal. He wasn't able to kill Bin Laden, but at least he tried.

what the hell was the clinton fbi cia and nsa doing for 8 years and did they suddenly stop when bush was elected?

A lot. Clinton authorized the CIA to go into Afganistan and hunt down and kill or capture bin laden. He also tried to kill him by firing missles (remember the "no war for monica" taunts from the GOP at the time?).

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030804fa_fact

 

[MtnBiker]

Just because Clinton didn't successfully "fix" the problem doesn't mean he didn't try. Bush documentably did literally almost NOTHING after taking office. The same is documentably the opposite under Clinton. He did a great deal. He wasn't able to kill Bin Laden, but at least he tried.

Did he try every oppurtunity given to him?

 

[no1tovote4]

You also forget that Bush stripped Clarke of the responsiblity and turned it over to Cheney. Cheney went on to do nothing ever. Until the warning signs were so loud, that terrorism showed back up on the political radar and Bush was forced to address the issue. At that point it was too late. But by stripping Clarke of his authority and not putting some in that role to actively and agressively address terrorism for 7 months, Bush sealed the nations fate and 9/11 was effectively inevitable.

Once again, the previous administration gave him the trapping of responsibility and none of the actual implementation. The next gave him implementation but didn't give him the trappings. The responsibility was not given to another, but was given an actual voice. The idea was to 'take it to the terrorist', Clarke's actual plans were now coming to fruition rather than sitting stagnant on a back burner while they placated him with Top Level meetings. That he now had to work with the level below the principals was what really galled him, not the fact that none of his ideas were meeting with success and implementation.

How a sitting President could posisbly leave the threat of terrorism unaddressed for that long is unconcionable. I mean, it's not like we weren't attack by AQ 2 months before he took office. The investigation on the Cole attack was completed days before he took office. And yet, he did squat. In fact if he had done nothing at all (not demote clarke) we would have been better off.

He didn't, he was changing the face of the fight. From law enforcement mentality to a war mentality, even before attacks were made. That actual action was being taken is even notable in articles that are derogatory toward the administration. That those ideas sat stagnant in the previous administration was made apparant in his book, that they were finally being implemented was apparant in the anti-Bush propaganda.

The ideas were fundamentally different than the previous policy of reaction rather than action, that there was a transition period was also apparant. That we were attacked just at the end of that transition was also made apparant by those anti-Bush propaganda stories by the very fact that the new ideas were to be implemented after a meeting of agreement by the principals set to happen on 9/12/2001.

Where nothing was being done to change from a reactive mentality before and was now being implemented is clear. That it was actually done at speed regardless of the fact that the last of his Secondaries and below were finally voted on by the Senate in August, that he hadn't even had a full staff because of the slow walking done by the opposing party that controlled the Senate yet was still able to get it pushed through so quickly while the previous action was exactly zero is an astounding feat of political strength.

 

[manu1959]

so clinton and clarke did everything they could...pulled out all the stops....yet somalia happens, the cole, nigeria, bali, wtc I, they fire a missle and pass on two chances to have OBL handed to them....they did a damn fine job....then bush was elected and stopped all that brilliant work and so if only mccain would have been elected he would continued all clarke's and clinton's brilliant work and made the world a better place.

got it

 

[Gunny]

so clinton and clarke did everything they could...pulled out all the stops....yet somalia happens, the cole, nigeria, bali, wtc I, they fire a missle and pass on two chances to have OBL handed to them....they did a damn fine job....then bush was elected and stopped all that brilliant work and so if only mccain would have been elected he would continued all clarke's and clinton's brilliant work and made the world a better place.

got it

Hey, give Clintona break. He blew up a tent and two camels ......

 

[no1tovote4]

Hey, give Clintona break. He blew up a tent and two camels ......

And a pill factory! Don't forget the aspirin factory. That was a great victory in the burgeoning new War on Terror that was so young it was called the 'Reaction to Bad Things Happening' at that time. The flashy new name hadn't even been developed yet.

 

[Gunny]

And a pill factory! Don't forget the aspirin factory. That was a great victory in the burgeoning new War on Terror that was so young it was called the 'Reaction to Bad Things Happening' at that time. The flashy new name hadn't even been developed yet.

Well there is THAT. Not to mention that great showing we put on in Somalia. Hell, I was proud to be a US Marine THAT day.