lets assume bush did not respond to 9/11 and did not invade Iraq?

Question

what would the world have done and what would be happening now.serious answers please not anti bush/blair rants.

Answer 1

Saddam would still be making thousands of lives hell and terrorists would probably have blown up a few more places if no-one had taken any action.

Answer 2

I support the war in Iraq in general because in the end I believe it will be the right thing for the Iraqi people. However, I do not believe the United States was under an imminent threat from Iraq or Saddam Hussein. Therefore, an invasion was not absolutely necessary. The Bush administration was over reaching in it's goals and now we do have a mess in Iraq. The country is on the brink of civil war. Do not misread this because I do not believe that we can abandon Iraq and it's people. In the case of responding to 911 and the invasion of Afghanistan, this was wholly proper and should have been prosecuted fully and with all the administration's attentions.

If Mr. Bush had not responded to 911 then we would have been attacked again by now. To fail to respond would have been viewed as weakness by the terrorists and would have emboldened their actions. Whether you agree with Iraq or not, one fact cannot be denied. Their are vast amounts of terrorist resources, both in money and manpower tied up there and this is less for them to use against other targets in the world. So by extension, the war in Iraq has indeed made us safer. There are only two ways to handle terrorism, meet the challenge in a strong resolute fashion, or stick our heads in the sand and wait for the next attack. We have seen both approaches used and frankly the former is more preferable than the latter.

Answer 3

Two separate questions.

If Bush had not responded to 9/11.
Then it is possible that the Taliban would still control Afghanistan. Which would be a bad thing. But Bin Laden would be dead or captured. The outrage and grief felt by the world was real, co-ordinated effort would have meant the end of Bin Laden, and Al Queda would be marginalised with their leaders dead. This was an attack on all civilisation not just America. The world would not have let it pass. Bush alienated the good feeling he could have used with his arrogant policies.

If Bush did not invade Iraq.
Then the world would still be focused on Afghanistan, the moderate Muslims would support us, and terrorism in general would be targeted more effectively. The world would be a better place.

Answer 4

The only thing I can calculate differently is the history books. Why? When we were in grade school we read about presidents making decisions during their presidencies. Emancipation, Boston Tea Party, Civics, Law and Constitutionalism and most importantly decisions on war all the way down to Generals and popular LT's and militia's and sergeants. You name the war, or conflict, you can name some pretty popular people that had served in those wars and done amazing things. Fast FWD 80 years form now and do you see my point? Were all dead, and our great grandchildren are reading about President Bush. He does not, nor does any president want to be written about to being portrayed as an indecisive coward. Immediate reaction, immediate retaliation. Yeah, there probably could have been a better political answer to the nine one one attacks, but at that moment didn't we ALL say to ourselves (when we found out what was actually going on) that it was time for someone to pay? America is strong and always has been and always will be.

Answer 5

The world would without question be a safer place. There was never any evidence that Iraq harboured terrorists, in fact the evidence suggested that Saddam despised religious extremists, why did USA/ UK invade? Only two people can answer that.
I am not some loony lefty either!
We should have invaded Afghanistan, we should also have finished the job before committing our troops to other arenas, causing further problems.
Both Blair and Bush are not military tacticians, it appears they have waged their own wars believing they are, they've completely f**cked it up as a result.

Answer 6

Just one point. What has iraq got to do with 9/11. 9/11 was committed by terrorists under Osama Bin Laden who was ideologically opposed to Saddam Husseins regime due to the secular nature of Iraq.

I think you have been listening to your President's lies again. There has been no proven connection between Bin Laden and Saddam or Iraq and no connection between Iraq and 9/11.

After the first Iraq George Bush senior stated that Iraq was contained militarily and could not produce any weapons. Even when George junior was in power the Republican govt stated that iraq was no threat. Then suddenly after 9/11 they target Iraq as being developers of chemical weapons and nukes (when the don't even have a reactor). How stupid you Yanks were for believing this BS.

Answer 7

On the 9th September 2001, the benchmark for terrorist atrocities was moved beyond all civilised reasoning.

Sadly, the reason for the ongoing activity of Islamic based terrorism now, is probably twofold:
1. The 'Israeli Factor'. Clearly, a solution, which is acceptable to the Middle East countries, would be a step in the right direction.
2. The message of Holy War coming from fundamentalist Muslims who want an Islamic world.

The reasons for the World Trade Centre atrocity and the aspirations of fundamentalist Muslims were never going to be solved by invading Iraq or 'sorting out' Afghanistan.

We have an organisation called the United Nations, which was created to prevent such events and foster communication between peoples of the World.

If Osama Bin Laden once worked for the CIA/FBI then he can communicate well enough in English. Dialogue should have been opened with him and his followers to find out the reason for the atrocities in New York - it seems to me that has not yet been established.

As for the fundamentalist Muslims aiming for an Islamic World - well one has to ask why? What can Islam bring to the World that would improve the lot of the World's people? Can Islam see off hunger and poverty, poor human rights, pending environmental disaster etc etc? If so, then we need to know how!

If Bush had not responded to 9/11 nothing would have been any different, except that the different tribes and religious sects in Afghanistan would be killing each other instead of the occupying ‘peace keeping’ forces of other nations, and Saddam Hussein would still be ruling Iraq with an iron hand of fear and the killing would have been restricted to his activities, instead of religious sects killing each other and fundamentalist terrorists from outside adding their own brand of killings.

However, our World leaders lack the logic and perception to clearly take an impartial view of situations from all angles and both sides - and whilst this continues they will never learn from history.

Answer 8

I don't understand why he would invade Iraq since Bush was always informed that Iraq had neither WMD or was involved in 9/11.

And now he has admitted that Iraq never had WMD and was never involved with what happend on 9/11.

I am not anti Bush or anti Blair, I don't believe a country has a right to invade another country under false pretenses or lies.

Answer 9

I've often thought about that. There's a distinct possibility that we'd be better off without this war. I think the world is a much more dangerous place now. This war has solidified the terrorist movement. It has grown to proportions nobody could have imagined. What has happened is, Muslim men in all countries are turning against the United States. Osama's a very clever man. His plan worked. Before this war he was a small operation. Now? Who knows? A million man army? Even women are blowing themselves up. I know every American would be better off financially if this war never happened. Look at what's ahead of us. This war can't be won in the next 10 or 20 years. It wont happen. We may leave Iraq but Iran's next. It's going to get bloody. We chose the wrong option in our response to the tradegy of 911. Our lives will never be the same.

Answer 10

The response to 9/11 was to find Bin Ladin in Afghanistan. That was proper. The world was with us on that one. The idea that Iraq is or was any part of a 9/11 response hasn't ever been linked.
So many reasons have been given for the invasion, that it does make your head spin, but even if it was just bad intelligence, we went in to rid the world of Saddam, or give them democracy, or because some guy had lunch (maybe, maybe not) with someone else in April. Its always risky to look in hindsight at what would be happening now, but I would assume, Saddam would be killing his own, as his own are now killing each other. The terrorists would have found another reason for hating the west, they aren't good guys you know. Possibly the US wouldn't be in the position of having lost the moral high ground, and we could have engendered more of a group effort in what is going to become a global religious war. We may have blown it there, so many countries are out of sorts with us that its easier to hate us than the Muslim extremists burning their cities.

Answer 11

No one would have done anything. If Algore was president he'd probably try to sue somebody. A lot of handwringing. And we'd have lost San Francisco by now to a nuke smuggled in on a container ship. They almost did it anyway in Bush's first term. Bush's people barely caught it in time. Intercepted the phone traffic. Algore would not have. Dems are against tapping phones. So, goodbye SF. Not sure if going into Iraq was a good idea anyway, and I'm a big Bush fan. I question whether the whole country is worth one American life. These people kill each other for sport. Shiites and Sunnis hate each other way more than they do Americans. Why try to get in between them? Stand back and let them slaughter each other. It's what they're born to do. That's what they're religion teaches. Kill, kill, and keep killing. It's impossible to stop. Rather than invade after 9-11, I would have bombed them back to the Stone Age. And tell Iran, "You're next". But trying to rebuild the lives of whacko Arabs is not worth the death of one American soldier.