Frankly, after reviewing Clarke's and others' efforts to foil several attacks throughout the Clinton administration and after reading the reams of information that they were quite aware that planes could be hijacked and flown into building , and that there'd been plots discovered about same ssince, at least, 1991, and so forth, I seriously doubt 9.11 would have happened to begin with. At the very worst, what would have happened was hijacked planes shot down before they crashed into WTC and Pentagon. (I didn't much go for the idea that there was foreknowledge, but it's pretty clear that there was. Was it just about structural problems--failure to communicate between CIA, FBI, DoD? Horse shit!)
Had it happened, however, I fail to see what pressure could have been put on Gore to invade Iraq. The only ones would have been doing so were the neocons. "The right" never acted as a monolithic entity re: Iraq. A significant faction was opposed. Even among the Shrub administration, there were people who were extremely reluctant. Not to mention a military that was not at all interested in Rummy's "Lean Mean Fighting Machine" nonsense.
I haven't watched a lick of television for two weeks. News through radio and 'net. Is it the case that Condi is getting away with the outrageous lie: they had no klew that planes might be used to bomb buildings? This is absolutely absurd on its face. Even without plenty of evidence that these things were being planned (as the report has revealed), intelligence would have to be pretty dumb not to have been at least as bright as, say, the Columbine shooters who envisaged hijacking a plane and crashing into NYC buildings.
Anyway, this issue was at the centerpiece of a dipute that broke out at our meeting the other night. It was ugly. I didn't get involved, but was curious what others thought about the issue.
>What's it mean that the war was "about" oil? Was the U.S. oil industry
>actively lobbying for the invasion of Iraq? I don't think there's any
>evidence of that. What would be the material gain from controlling Iraqi
>oil, except direct benefits for the companies involved? How would it
>benefit U.S. capital as a whole? The oil industry likes high prices but
>that hurts almost all other industrial sectors and economic growth and
>stability overall. It may have been "about" oil in some sense, but was it
>out of rational calculation or grandiose fantasies of riches and glory?
>
>Doug
WEll, this is what the neocons said themselves: "Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East. It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world's supply of oil will all be put at hazard. As you have rightly declared, Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how we handle this threat." http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
(since the WMD thing is a hoax and anyone with two brain cells to rub together must have known it was a lie, then the real reason is the oil issue and the securing of a place for US troops in the ME.
Obviously, it wasn't _just_ oil but also about changing the face of US foreign policy. I've discussed this in the past: you only need read what they've written to understand what they were up to: positioning the us on the world stage as a lone cowboy (something neocons think is a good thing), using threats abroad to transform the .mil and advance legislations further infringing civil liberties, and securing a foothold in the ME as they outlined above.
"The process of [military] transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor." (p. 63) http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf
Kelley