• Bob Robertson IX @discuss.tchncs.de
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    4 hours ago

    Al Gore being President would not have stopped 9/11… that was a ball set in motion long before the 2000 election.

    The response to 9/11 might have been different since the Clinton / Gore administration had tended to deal with international terror attacks on the US as criminal matters rather than acts of war… but up until then none of the terror attacks had been anywhere near as successful at 9/11, so it is entirely possible that Gore would have had a similar response as Bush in Afghanistan. And the Patriot Act and Homeland Security came from Congress, which would have been the same makeup no matter who the President was.

    What would have been different is we very likely would not have gone to war with Iraq, and we possibly could have ended up breaking ties with Saudi Arabia, if not going to war with them, over 9/11. The loss of Saudi Arabia as an ‘ally’ would have been a huge benefit for green infrastructure in the US.

    • HubertManne@piefed.social
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      3 hours ago

      the clinton administration was well aware of al kaida as a threat and desperately tried during transition for the bush adminstration to see that. In addition they understood the role of the presidency in connecting the dots between different agencies intelligence reports. I like its very very likely they would have identified and stopped it before they got to the planes.

    • yenahmik@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      I could be wrong since it’s mostly a vague memory at this point, but I recall reading at some point that Bush brushed off some reports in the handoff from the Clinton admin about Islamic terrorism.

      So maybe 9/11 would have happened anyways and we just would have seen a different response, or maybe Gore could have acted on those reports and caught the perpetrators before 3000+ people were killed.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        Its also possible they would indeed stop 9/11 but that doesnt stop them from trying again later and maybe they blow up a sports stadium full of people instead.

        Stopping one thing by no means means stopping future things.