The Truth About the War in Iraq and Al Gore

[BurtWorm]

Trudi Loh:


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/trudi-loh/the-truth-about-the-war-i_b_20645.html


READ MORE: 9/11, Iraq, 2006, Afghanistan, Al Gore, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush

It is sometimes said that good ideas have many fathers but bad ideas are always orphans. And so it is with the retrospective of the decision to go to war in Iraq. As everyone from the White House and Secretary of Defense to members of Congress and the media engage in revisionist history concerning who said what and who knew what about the decision to invade Iraq, it is important to hold everyone's feet to the fire.

The integrity of our democracy requires it. The American people should demand it. Joe Scarborough, the self-styled straight-talking host of Scarborough Country, contributed to annuals of revisionism last Thursday (May 4, 2006) when he suggested that Al Gore was a Johnny-come-lately in his opposition to the War in Iraq. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth is that, on September 23, 2002, in a speech at the Commonwealth Club -- long before the invasion of Iraq and before members of Congress voted to give President Bush authority to invade -- Vice President Al Gore unequivocally and emphatically stated his opposition to a War in Iraq and set forth a multitude of reasons why.

Among his reasons were that 1) We should focus our efforts on building a multinational coalition to fight terrorism and the enemies who were responsible for 9/11 and not become distracted; 2) A war with Iraq had the potential to seriously damage our ability to win the war against terrorism and weaken our ability to lead the world in this new century; 3) Although Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction would continue for as long as Saddam was in power, the existing U.N. resolutions passed 11 years ago were completely sufficient to contain that potential threat; and, 4) We should focus on stabilizing Afghanistan so that terrorists would not be able to slip back across the border and set up camp there again. Al Gore told the truth despite the political costs. In contrast, members of Congress checked President Bush's poll numbers before deciding whether to vote to authorize a war in Iraq. Al Gore took the unpopular position, but clearly the correct one. He took no small amount of flak from his own party for raising the pressure on them not to issue a blank check and to at least require the administration to put forth the an assessment of how it thought the course of a war would run. Instead, Congress rushed to vote yes, to show its patriotic bona fides -- just in time for the November election. Not that you would know any of this by reading or listening to the mainstream press such as Scarborough Country. They gloss over or ignore Al Gore's courageous and insightful (and early) opposition to the War. So it is up to Blogworld to set the record straight. Blog on.

[autorank]

1. K&R I saw that speech on CSpan. You are so right. "What's theier major

malfunction," those clowns who try to push gore into a hawk position. "They" do it to Clark to with blunt scissors around his analysis or testimony.

Gore is the man of the decade...We need to have a survival driven President, as in survival of the planet. It's no joke, not at all. He's the ONLY one out their with a comprehensive vision.

As for Joltin Joe Scarbourough, not to worry. O'Liely has about 2.0 million viewers total, less than 1% of the population. Scarborough is in the 200k range. Think of him having some influence on, lets say, Akron Ohio.

Great post. Thank you.

[SKKY]

2. You mean people still care what Joe Scarborough thinks???

Oh my, I had no idea.

[Apollo11]

3. It's gotta be Gore!

Thanks for setting the record straight.

Why do Republicans and their media whores try to distort Gore's record?

It's simple. Because they see him as a real threat - not just electorally, but politically - in terms of what a Gore Administration could achieve and what it would mean for certain corporations who put short-term profit before the long term interests of the American people and the future of the planet.

It's similar to why sometimes you will find folks here on DU trying to distort Gore's record. Maybe because they have already decided who they are supporting to be the nominee in 2008 - and so they are determined to diss any other democrat that might be a potential Presidential candidate.

Al Gore has the experience, the integrity, the vision, the values, the knowledge and the intelligence to make a great President. Why should we accept any candidate that offers less?

In Gore We Trust
www.algore.org :)

[sandnsea]

4. Here's the text

And as with most other Democrats, he doesn't come out specifically against war but takes the position that dealing with Iraq is essential, but should be done with international cooperation. He didn't even believe another resolution was necessary, but that it was preferable in order to reassure the world because we needed them to fight terrorists. His speech is very good, but to say that it is 100% anti-war is wrong.

http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/02/02-09gore-speech.html

[BurtWorm]

5. No one did say it was "100% anti-war."

The point was, he was anti-Iraq war way ahead of the crowd.

[sandnsea]

6. He was pro dealing with Iraq

Just like most of the rest of the Democrats, with war as a last resort. Which is very different than being against going to war because "they knew" there weren't any WMD. I love it when people around here "knew" when their own annointed anti-war heroes didn't "know" any such thing. People like Gore and Dean and Clark were FOR a process that included the threat of war. They just didn't have to put their vote down, that's all.

"Nevertheless, all Americans should acknowledge that Iraq does indeed pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf region, and we should be about the business of organizing an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."