Gore Wants US Troops To Stay Until Job Complete

[AEON]

By ELI LAKE
March 6, 2007
So why is it that Hollywood's favorite Democrat would need more information to make a choice everyone in his party seems to have already accepted? Look no further than Mr. Gore's September 23, 2002, address to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, a speech that launched his transformation from goofy Columbia professor to anti-war hero. In it he said that one of the reasons he opposed the intervention, was because he did not trust President Bush to stay in Iraq once the Baathist state was dismantled.

"If we go in there and dismantle them — and they deserve to be dismantled — but then we wash our hands of it and walk away and leave it in a situation of chaos, and say, ‘That's for y'all to decide how to put things back together now,' that hurts us," Mr. Gore said. This, incidentally, is the inverse of how Senator Obama advertises today on the stump his early Iraq war opposition. Mr. Obama says today, "I believed that giving this President the open-ended authority to invade Iraq would lead to the open-ended occupation we find ourselves in today."

The rest of the article here:

Gore Article

 

[Vincent Vega]

I agree. You created the mess, now you have to sleep in this bed.

 

[BVS]

I thought it was the Democrats that were ruining this war?! I'm so confused.

But the question we should ask, is what IS complete?

 

[U2Man]

yep. this is where left-wing activists like michael moore are totally irresponsible. you either invade and finish the job or you don't invade. you don't just invade, create a total mess and say "ups, sorry guys, that was a wrong move, we're leaving, bye, bye". i guess the job can be regarded as done when iraq has solid, well-functioning democratic institutions and a proper police. exactly what the u.s. did in japan after world war ii.

 

[BVS]

But "complete" has different definitions for everyone. In some eyes, there is no way to "complete" this, some it may be another 10 years, and some in may mean till next election...

 

[LyricalDrug]

The New York Sun is a right-wing rag, so take this "article" with more than a grain of salt.

In 2003, the paper published an editorial arguing that protestors against the Iraq war should be prosecuted for treason.

I think that pretty much says it all.

 

[LyricalDrug]

The article also contains an outright lie:

"Mr. Gore's record in public life aside, he is also a far shrewder politician than many are willing to admit. This Nobel Peace Prize nominee and Oscar winner must know that Americans — when faced in a presidential election with a choice between a dove and a hawk — have chosen the hawk every time since Johnson beat Goldwater. Even in 1976, Jimmy Carter, who became America's most supine commander in chief, won an easy contest against a president who at the time was afraid to meet publicly with Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn."

...Uhh, has the writer ever heard of the 1992 election? The voters didn't choose a hawk that time. Bush was definitely a "hawk," having just wrapped up the first Gulf War, and Clinton was the dove. Part of Clinton's campaign stump speech was that when dealing in foreign wars, the U.S. should only be involved when sanctioned by the U.N. And Clinton beat Bush like a drum in that election.

 

[Diemen]

The quote given by Mr. Obama is not the inverse or even contradictory to what Mr. Gore said. It is perfectly logical to believe that giving Bush the authorization to invade Iraq was a horrible mistake, and at the same time acknowledge that it is an unfortunate reality that we simply can't up and leave without screwing up the situation even further.

 

[Ormus]

...Uhh, has the writer ever heard of the 1992 election? The voters didn't choose a hawk that time. Bush was definitely a "hawk," having just wrapped up the first Gulf War, and Clinton was the dove.

Well, just to be argumentative, would Bush, Sr. qualify as a hawk in this case? He allowed the Gulf War to have a quick end, because he didn't want to march into Baghdad, and, as such, allowed Saddam to stay in power.

 

[LyricalDrug]

Well, just to be argumentative, would Bush, Sr. qualify as a hawk in this case? He allowed the Gulf War to have a quick end, because he didn't want to march into Baghdad, and, as such, allowed Saddam to stay in power.

Maybe in hindsight, but at the time, I think voters saw him as a "hawk." He started that war.

 

[Irvine511]

yep. this is where left-wing activists like michael moore are totally irresponsible. you either invade and finish the job or you don't invade. you don't just invade, create a total mess and say "ups, sorry guys, that was a wrong move, we're leaving, bye, bye". i guess the job can be regarded as done when iraq has solid, well-functioning democratic institutions and a proper police. exactly what the u.s. did in japan after world war ii.

i agree.

however, many of us who were against the war knew, 1) Iraq is not Japan, let alone Germany, and 2) this administration were exactly the wrong people to go about this monumentally difficult task.

to get this done, you would have needed a genuine international coalition, with Muslim troops and thousands upon thousands of Arabic-speakers, and well over 500,000 troops.

but we had an administration that thought it could be done quickly, and wanted to send a message to the Axis of Evil -- cooperate, or we'll take you out with a minimum of troops.

which the US can do. the US can knock out any government on earth.

we just can't occupy any country on earth, not least an Arab version of Yugoslavia.

but knowing all this would have required Bush to listen to things he didn't want to hear, and read books he didn't want to read, and to be able to tell the difference between a Sunni, a Shiite, and a Kurd.

 

[BVS]

but knowing all this would have required Bush to listen to things he didn't want to hear, and read books he didn't want to read, and to be able to tell the difference between a Sunni, a Shiite, and a Kurd.

and his party to hold him up to a standand where this type of intelligence was required.

 

[verte76]

but knowing all this would have required Bush to listen to things he didn't want to hear, and read books he didn't want to read, and to be able to tell the difference between a Sunni, a Shiite, and a Kurd.

Yes.