# What would Bush have been without 9/11? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 8, 2003, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-bush-have-been-without-9-11/212006 "2003-11-08T01:17:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2003, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-bush-have-been-without-9-11/212006/21 "2003-11-11T20:39:37Z")
Sure. Look at all the effective China-bashing he engaged in during the EP-3 incident, or the North Korea-bashing during his little temper tantrum there. Those bits of saber-rattling turned out to be pretty easy, and worked very well on the more-compliant segments of the media and even the less-skeptical participants on this very board. Imagine how much easier it would have been vs. a readily defeatable opponent like Iraq. It wouldn’t be all that much harder a sell at all. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2003, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-bush-have-been-without-9-11/212006/22 "2003-11-11T20:46:07Z")
[James Carroll is always a thought-provoking read](http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/11/11/the_lessons_we_remember_today/): > [@](#): > > On Remembrance Day, look at what has been forgotten. Washington’s view of the world, replicating imperial Prussia’s of 100 years ago, treats the main epiphany of the 20th century as if it did not happen. As if no lessons were learned in the trenches of Flanders, the fires of Dresden and Tokyo, the fallout of Hiroshima, the countless peasant wars which threw back the great powers, the genocides which sacrificed whole peoples to ferocious versions of the truth. > > The much derided human impulse to find another way in fact succeeded, with the nonviolent overthrow of the Soviet empire from within, but that, too, is forgotten in a Washington that prefers to think of itself as the Cold War victor. The rituals of remembrance are all military, and the ethos of war is still made to seem ennobling. Alas, a new generation of the young are being fed with this lie – and into it. That the roster of America’s war dead is being added to on this Veterans Day should outrage the nation’s conscience. > > We began by thinking of Iraq, and we end there, too. Reports come back that many GIs have inadequate equipment and faulty protective gear, but their vulnerability is worse than that. They lack the protection of a clear and just cause. Their enemies multiply in the poison cloud of Bush’s callow taunts. Bush has put this country’s soldiers in an impossible position, for no good reason. > > This betrayal of the young is a betrayal of the old, too. Bush’s war defiles what the heroes of the last century saw when they saw through war, and betrays the memory of their bravely imagined alternative future – peace – which is the only future there can be. I think that pretty well sums up his place in future history. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2003, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-bush-have-been-without-9-11/212006/23 "2003-11-11T20:49:56Z")
From rjung > [@](#): > > Just replace “Saddam Hussein supports al Qaeda” (which is a lie) with “Saddam Hussein is an evil oppressive dictator,” propagate some bullshit like “Saddam kills people with industrial-strength plastic shredders,” make dark hints about UN non-compliance and secret caches of WMDs, and viola! It wouldn’t be as easy of a sell, but it could be done. I can hear the laughter now. Those folks not rolling in the isle would be yawning and going back to their regularly scheduled program. Get real rjung…without 9/11 the American people could have cared less about Iraq OR Afghanistan. Congress would have cared less. There WAS no movement for war at that time whatsoever…everyone was focused on the crappy economy. Maybe you missed it, but the killing of several thousand Americans on 9/11 seriously pissed off AND frightened the AMerican people. Now I’m NOT saying that Iraq had anything to do with it at all (I don’t think they did fwiw), but it DID seriously wake up the AMerican people AND piss them off. Bush used that energy to do what he did. However, no 9/11 no energy. If you think Bush could have made this whole thing out of smoke and mirrors without that energy you are seriously delusional…as well as you seriously have a Bush is God (well the AntiChrist maybe) complex going. Aint gona happen. -XT ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-bush-have-been-without-9-11/212006/24 "2003-11-12T09:17:18Z")
Just a question here, **xtisme** - have you read the Iraq section of the PNAC site? As well as “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”? If not, I suggest you do. If a government is that keen on a war, a crisis can always be manufactured. Gulf of Tonkin, anyone? I am absolutely certain that, 9/11 or no, a “necessity” to invade Iraq would have been found. It was of course the high proportion of eejits who thought Saddam was behind 9/11 that made it easier to do, but I’m certain, reading what PNAC has to say, that there would have been an attempt at regime change regardless. ---
**Author:** ![Roger\_Mexico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f6c823/32.png) [@Roger\_Mexico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roger_Mexico)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-bush-have-been-without-9-11/212006/25 "2003-11-12T09:28:59Z")
There would have been no 9-11 without Bush. 9-11 was obviously a creation of the Bush-Saudi axis. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-bush-have-been-without-9-11/212006/26 "2003-11-12T10:50:57Z")
Be kinda interesting about now to read the briefing Bush got on 6th August 2001 about the al-Qaeda plot to hijack civilian aircraft and launch an attack on the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-bush-have-been-without-9-11/212006/27 "2003-11-12T10:58:55Z")
Also be kinda interesting to know what the response was. “Yes! Pearl Harbor’s a’comin!”? ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-bush-have-been-without-9-11/212006/28 "2003-11-12T14:05:52Z")
In answer to the OP: Gerald Ford. As in, forgotten 10 years later. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-bush-have-been-without-9-11/212006/29 "2003-11-12T15:48:42Z")
I dunno. If the war(s) hadn’t happened, and the blow to the economy from 9/11 either, the nascent recovery we might be having might have come by faster and Bush II might have been a low-key caretaker President, re-elected by default because what would the Dems run against? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-bush-have-been-without-9-11/212006/30 "2003-11-12T15:56:42Z")
From jjimm > [@](#): > > Just a question here, xtisme - have you read the Iraq section of the PNAC site? As well as “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”? If not, I suggest you do. Yes jimm, I’ve read them several times when they were posted as cites for this or that conspiricy theory. I’ve also read detailed plans for the destruction of the British Navy and the invasion of England prior to WWII. THOSE plans also were never used. I’ve seen plans de-classified by the Soviet Union for its attack on Western Europe too. There are all kinds of plans out there jjimm…however it takes more than just a plan to make something happen. From jjimm > [@](#): > > If a government is that keen on a war, a crisis can always be manufactured. Gulf of Tonkin, anyone? I am absolutely certain that, 9/11 or no, a “necessity” to invade Iraq would have been found. It was of course the high proportion of eejits who thought Saddam was behind 9/11 that made it easier to do, but I’m certain, reading what PNAC has to say, that there would have been an attempt at regime change regardless. Well, I tend to think it would take something fairly spectacular to motivate the American people (especially at THAT time, with a recession and unemployment staring us in the face, and the general appathy we had to anything outside our shores then) enough to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. I also think Bush would have had his hands full trying to deal with the domestic stuff he was dealing with. To me, it strikes me as conspiricy theory to think that GW and his merry band would have ‘manufactured’ something like that out of whole clothe when they had other things to worry about. No, I think that they basically took an oppertunity that presented itself to them, dusted off their plans, looked at the situation and the plan, smiled, and ran with it. Again, you guys attribute nearly god like powers to the man as far as this conspiricy goes. I just don’t see it…he’s just a man, and a bumbler to boot. The only thing thats got him this far is those stupid terrorists that decided to kick the sleeping tiger squarely in the ass…just to piss it off. -XT ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2003, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-bush-have-been-without-9-11/212006/31 "2003-11-12T17:47:12Z")
Qualification: I don’t believe Afghanistan would have been touched at all - perhaps some more Clintonesque cruise attacks at Osama if he’d been ‘merely’ blowing things up in the Middle East rather than demolishing skyscrapers full of people in the US. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-bush-have-been-without-9-11/212006.md?page=1)