In Zinn’s chapter, “The 2000 Election and the ‘War on Terrorism’,” I was fascinated by the election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Zinn talks about how Gore winning the popular vote was not enough to win the election due to Bush winning the electoral vote. Instead of considering the results, the conservative Supreme Court turned a blind eye and allowed Bush to walk into office without reconsideration. I wonder if the United States’ responses to the terrorist attack in 2001 would have changed tremendously if Al Gore won the election. Even before the terrorist attacks in 2001, Bush pushed for an increase in the military budget. Once the World Trade Center was attacked on 9/11, Bush immediately announced the “war on terrorism.” After declaring war, Bush called for the bombing of Afghanistan which most Americans supported, thinking that being strong and violent against terrorism was the correct response the United States should take. It was not a political case, with both republicans and democrats believing in the cause. Americans supported the actions that Bush took, but never fully saw what actually was happening from the bombings of Afghanistan.
Not knowing the full story created suspicion from certain groups of people. I had no idea the extent of precaution that the Department of Justice took, as well as how unfair it was for innocent non-citizens. The paranoia that people felt made created distance from their non-citizen peers. Families of the victims were against the strong military force used. What this seemed to me was another example of Americans not knowing or seeing the full story of what is happening with a United States’ response. News sources were not giving the full extent to what the bombings were doing to Afghanistan. In my opinion, this made the public more inclined to support the use of violence since they did not witness the immediate impact and tragedy that it was causing. I wonder if the people who supported the violent actions on Afghanistan saw the full impact of what the bombings were doing to them, would they have still sided with it? This seems to be a common theme, that the United States does not tell its people the full truth about foreign affairs that they are involved in if they know that it would create resistance to that action.
I agree that not knowing the full story created a problem for some Americans but I don’t think knowing the full story would have caused them to be less suspicious of other people. I think it would have caused them to question the government more. Yes, 9/11 was a terrorist attack, and I am not trying to justify it, but at the same time, it is not a completely out of the blue incident that it may be portrayed as. The United States was involved, unnecessarily, for many years in the Middle East, provoking action. The collapse of the World Trade Center was a tragic event, but I think knowing the full story, Americans would, or they at least should see that it was an attack against a country that was not completely innocent.
In the middle of your last paragraph you talk about how this was another example of Americans not fully realizing the depths of reality surrounding a large moment in our country’s history. I really agree with that. I feel like such a large part of what we have learned in this course is that our reality isn’t accurate a lot of the time.
I too had the same thoughts about what would have gone differently if Al Gore had been elected president. I wonder if he would have retaliated in a different and less violent way. I hope that would have been the case. I also found it disheartening that many Americans did not know the true extent of how much damage we were causing in Afghanistan through all the bombings.
You made some really good points about the untold story, which is a pattern in American history. I wonder if the reason that the full story was not told was because of how the media was in Vietnam . I wonder if more was shown, if the patriotism would’ve faded and the Americans would have been less supportive of the bombings.
I think it’s interesting to pose the question as to how Al Gore would’ve responded to 9/11 as president, but I honestly don’t think it would’ve been much different. Zinn emphasizes Bush and Gore’s shared support of big business and strong military power, so I have a feeling Gore would’ve approved of America’s past economic and military involvement with Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. in such a way that he would’ve at least been opposed to addressing the grievances that led to terror against the U.S. and at most might’ve responded to the 9/11 terrorist attack with similar violence.