Taking the "What if 9/11 didn't happen" argument in a different direction, I have often wondered how things would have went down had someone else been in the White House in 2001. Al Gore. Bill Bradley. Even John McCain (had the GOP nominated him he would have crushed Gore). Or how about an alternative universe where the Constitution's 22nd Amendment didn't exist - or was repealed - and Bill Clinton was serving a third term in 2001 (had he been able to run, he would have crushed Bush).
Instead, I'll take it from another vantage point: What if I were president?
Let's say I entered office in the same fashion as George W. Bush...having lost the popular vote by half a million ballots and with the slimmest Electoral College victory since 1876. Such a skewed result would have led me to reach across the political aisle and Republicans would have been given more than just a token seat at the administration table. Colin Powell at Defense, perhaps. William Cohen as my Chief of Staff. Another moderate Republican as my budget director. Including the opposition party in my cabinet would have signaled to my fellow Americans that I respected their voice on Election Day and was ready to alter my agenda as such.
Internationally I would have kept the United States in the Kyoto Treaty to stop global warming, and I wouldn't have thumbed my nose at the hard work of former President Clinton in the Middle East peace process.
On 9/11 I would not have froze at the news of the massive attack on the private citizens of our country. As Commander-in-Chief I would have called for an immediate meeting of the National Security Council, calling the shots, delegating duty where necessary.
In the aftermath, with my country behind me, with my fellow citizens wanting to do what was necessary to fight the radicals of the Arab region, I would have started an immediate draft. Men AND women between 18 and 30 would be drafted not just into the military service, but into a national civil service (perhaps an expanded AmeriCorps) that would stress education in science and engineering among many other things.
This military draft would have both strengthened our troop numbers for the coming war and instilled a sense of discipline in American youth that is sorely lacking today.
With our international allies at our side and ready to help, a massive military mission - as well as a political police action - would have been ordered against the Taliban and their al-Qaeda supporters in Afghanistan and in the mountains of Tora Bora. Get Osama bin Laden and you take a huge step in breaking the spirit of his followers. Upon the defeat of the Taliban, Afghanistan would have served as the seed for a new democratic Middle East. A large military presence would have been kept there (300,000 or so) to make sure that seed takes hold and to make sue any potential insurgencies against American and allied troops are squashed before they could begin.
And the Geneva Conventions would have been strictly followed.
Massive sanctions against Iran and Saudi Arabia - yes, Saudi Arabia - would have been implemented until the regimes there were either forced from office or forced to moderate their governments - and by extension their societies.
A $2.00 to $3.00 a gallon gas tax would have been implemented to fund a massive program for energy independence. Drain the Middle East of their oil dependence by draining Americans of theirs and we might make a huge dent in de-throning the corrupted rulers of the Middle East region and, by extension, their backward policies that keep their citizens in the poor house - and their young men angry.
As president I wouldn't have signed a tax reduction bill as massive as the one President Bush signed in 2001. But had I done so, I would have immediately reinstated those taxes. You can't fight a war on the cheap. Our young men and women in uniform deserve better stewardship.
A war with Iraq? No. Iraq may have come into play a few years down the road, but with strengthened sanctions against Saddam Hussein and additional pressure on him from other leaders in that region, I really do think he would have been removed from power without our intervention. Had I been president, our troops would have been deployed to fight the war that was brought to us on 9/11. Not to a country that had nothing to do with it.
But I wasn't president and never will be. These are just the rambling thoughts of a patriotic American who, on the fifth anniversary of that horrible day, so wishes we had leadership in place that was up to the task. Because, quite frankly, George W. Bush has failed us. For an increasing number of Americans, that is plainly evident; for others, not so much. Amd to those who disagree with me I ask this: Can you honestly say that your children's lives will be better than yours?
I didn't think so.
