September 29, 2005: President Gore nominates Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Texas District Attorney Ronnie Earle to replace Ginsburg as Associate Justice.

i get to vote for Ronnie Earle.
and i always have.
Warmed my heart to think of him on the SCOTUS.
… then so sad to remember what we have there.

I have two words for you: Desert Crossing.

Don’t know what that is, do you?

Most people don’t. That’s the way Bush wants it.

Here’s why:

Iraq invasion sim from 1999 warned of problems

A secret US wargame called “Desert Crossing” produced during the Clinton era showed that an invasion and post-war presence in Iraq would require around 400,000 troops — about three times the number of troops stationed there now. Even with those resources, according to simulation output, the mission could result in chaos. Snip:

70 military, diplomatic and intelligence participants concluded the high troop levels would be needed to keep order, seal borders and take care of other security needs. The documents came to light Saturday through a Freedom of Information Act request by George Washington University’s National Security Archive, an independent research institute and library.

“The conventional wisdom is the U.S. mistake in Iraq was not enough troops,” said Thomas Blanton, the archive’s director. “But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops on the ground.”

There are about 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, down from a peak in January of about 160,000. A week after the invasion, in March 2003, the Pentagon said there were 250,000 U.S. ground force troops inside Iraq, along with 40,000 coalition force troops.

Link to AP report [PW notes: This link no longer works].

Link to “Post-Saddam Iraq: The War Game,” released November 4, 2006 at George Washington University’s National Security online document archives.

In other words, the Pentagon wargamed invading Iraq — just as they routinely wargame invading other countries in a pro forma manner (the Pentagon even wargames invading nations like Canada and Mexico, even though we have no intention of invading them) — and found that it would be utter stupidity to even think about it. So they didn’t.

In other words, even if Clinton had wanted to invade, Desert Crossing told him what most sane people already knew: It would be a disaster and he shouldn’t do it. Bush, however, had his mind stuffed with Chalabi’s flowers-and-candy propaganda by way of PNAC and Doug Feith. He wasn’t going to let a silly wargame result stop him!

So please think twice before you even try to imply that Gore would have invaded Iraq. You know better — or should.

Noticed that you shied away from mentioning global warming, although I’m certain a President Gore would have listened to the warnings and advice of a vast majority of the world’s scientists and done whatever was necessary and sensible to address it…which would have been a marked difference from the insane denial of Bush and Cheney.

I didn’t ’shy away from mentioning global warming’; granted, I spent much more time addressing how Gore would have worked to prevent 9/11 (and would never have attacked/invaded/occupied Iraq), but I did obliquely address the issue of climate change by mentioning that Gore would have continued to protect the Delta wetlands and saltwater marsh areas that Bush allowed developers to destroy. These marshes provided an important buffer zone around New Orleans, taking much of the sting out of past hurricanes.

I agree on everything else.

The 9/11 attacks wouldn’t have happened. Anyone paying attention could have disrupted the September Plot. The Bush/Cheney administration didn’t pay attention, because Al Qaeda, Afghanistan and the Saudi Arabian Osama bin Laden were not Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

Without the 9/11 attacks happening, the nation’s airlines wouldn’t have been hit so hard financially. Nor the rest of the economy.

President Gore would have also appointed FCC members who’d have rolled back media consolidation, opening up free-market competitiveness (to the benefit of consumers) in place of media market monopolization. Also, he may not have appointed anyone with a far-right evangelical agenda, like Martin, who seems intent on pulling a Communist-like censorship stunt on our nation’s media and entertainment industry.

Furthermore, neither an honorable President Al Gore (nor even a Vice President Joe Lieberman) would have authorized the outing of a covert CIA agent to try to cover up for the lies that led our country into a bungled war effort in a country that had nothing to do with the September Plot nor had massive stockpiles of proscribed weapons, especially after the Gore-endorsed U.N. weapons inspectors continued to find none.

And finally, President Gore and the Democratic-controlled Congress would have made sure that sufficient funds went to the Veterans Administration to honor the compact made with our nation’s veterans. Plus, he’d have appointed someone competent and caring to run the VA, not some incompetent partisan political hack.

It is obvious to anyone with a brain that a Gore presidency over the past six years would have been a blessing to our democracy and the rest of the world, as compared to the nightmare and disaster of the Bush and Cheney administration.

Yup, yup, and yup.

Noticed that you shied away from mentioning global warming, although I’m certain a President Gore would have listened to the warnings and advice of a vast majority of the world’s scientists and done whatever was necessary and sensible to address it…which would have been a marked difference from the insane denial of Bush and Cheney.

I agree on everything else.

The 9/11 attacks wouldn’t have happened. Anyone paying attention could have disrupted the September Plot. The Bush/Cheney administration didn’t pay attention, because Al Qaeda, Afghanistan and the Saudi Arabian Osama bin Laden were not Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

Without the 9/11 attacks happening, the nation’s airlines wouldn’t have been hit so hard financially. Nor the rest of the economy.

President Gore would have also appointed FCC members who’d have rolled back media consolidation, opening up free-market competitiveness (to the benefit of consumers) in place of media market monopolization. Also, he may not have appointed anyone with a far-right evangelical agenda, like Martin, who seems intent on pulling a Communist-like censorship stunt on our nation’s media and entertainment industry.

Furthermore, neither an honorable President Al Gore (nor even a Vice President Joe Lieberman) would have authorized the outing of a covert CIA agent to try to cover up for the lies that led our country into a bungled war effort in a country that had nothing to do with the September Plot nor had massive stockpiles of proscribed weapons, especially after the Gore-endorsed U.N. weapons inspectors continued to find none.

And finally, President Gore and the Democratic-controlled Congress would have made sure that sufficient funds went to the Veterans Administration to honor the compact made with our nation’s veterans. Plus, he’d have appointed someone competent and caring to run the VA, not some incompetent partisan political hack.

It is obvious to anyone with a brain that a Gore presidency over the past six years would have been a blessing to our democracy and the rest of the world, as compared to the nightmare and disaster of the Bush and Cheney administration.

I saw this video the other morning attached to a post by Eli at FDL about the possiblity of Gore running for President in 2008. I watched the whole thing, and it’s rather lengthy, and found that it moved me in an unexpected way. As I watched it…

wow, Phoenix Woman. I nearly skipped this, because I, too, thought it would be too painful. but, actually I was captured by the bright cheer of the alternate universe, and felt quite uplifted reading along.
Besides, the quality of your writing – the specifics and the timeline–wonderful.
Altho’ there is pain, I liked living in a fantasy world for a little while.
Besides, it’s a vision for the future, too.
Thanks.

That’s what I was aiming for: Not to make people cry, but to show them what not only could have been, but what can still be if we put our backs into it.

Joe Buck @ 127:

I tend to agree with you about the dotBust (which was easily predictable to me) and 9/11 (there would have been some action taken on the PDB), but we would not be in Iraq, and not only would we not have had President Bush, but we wouldn’t have had Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice, Gonzales, Rove, or Myers. The economic, healthcare, and environmental agendas would be wildly different, and as a parent, for my child’s sake and every child’s future, I wish we had them instead of what we have.

If you’re not happy with the dishonest CPI measure of inflation, have you noticed what’s been happening to the Euro lately? That’s a measure of how we’re discounting the debt.

Exactly.

Hannity just spent a full 20 minutes today sticking knives into Gore. I guess that means least Faux News thinks he’s running….

Either that, or they’re afraid that he is. :-)