Like all Americans I have been wrestling with the question of what our country needs to do to defend itself from the kind of intense, focused and enabled hatred that brought about September 11th, and which at this moment must be presumed to be gathering force for yet another attack. I'm speaking today in an effort to recommend a specific course of action for our country which I believe would be preferable to the course recommended by President Bush. Specifically, I am deeply concerned that the policy we are presently following with respect to Iraq has the potential to seriously damage our ability to win the war against terrorism and to weaken our ability to lead the world in this new century.

       To begin with, I believe we should focus our efforts first and foremost against those who attacked us on September 11th and have thus far gotten away with it. The vast majority of those who sponsored, planned and implemented the cold blooded murder of more than 3,000 Americans are still at large, still neither located nor apprehended, much less punished and neutralized.   I do not believe that we should allow ourselves to be distracted from this urgent task simply because it is proving to be more difficult and lengthy than predicted. Great nations persevere and then prevail. They do not jump from one unfinished task to another. Sept. 23, 2002

think of Darfur:

GORE: Well, I've been kind of a hard-liner on this issue for more than eight years. When I was in the senate before I became vice president I was pushing for stronger action against Milosevic. He caused the death of so many people. He was the last communist party boss there and then he became a dictator that by some other label he was still essentially a communist dictator. And unfortunately now he is trying to reassert himself in Serbian politics. Already just today the members of his political party said that they were going to ignore the orders of the new president of Serbia, and that they question his legitimacy, and he's still going to try to be actively involved. He is an indicted war criminal. He should be held accountable. Now, I did want to pick up on one of the statements earlier, and maybe I have heard, maybe I have heard the previous statements wrong, Governor. In some of the discussions we've had about when it's appropriate for the U.S. to use force around the world, at times the standards that you've laid down have given me the impression that if it's something like a genocide taking place or what they called ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, that that alone would not be, that that wouldn't be the kind of situation that would cause you to think that the U.S. ought to get involved with troops. Now, have to be other factors involved for me to want to be involved. But by itself, that to me can bring into play a fundamental American strategic interest because I think it's based on our values. Now, have I got that wrong? Presidential Debate at Wake Forest University- Oct 11, 2000

Still No One has been held accountable.

How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words "We Are All Americans Now" and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world -- to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib.

To begin with, from its earliest days in power, this administration sought to radically destroy the foreign policy consensus that had guided America since the end of World War II. The long successful strategy of containment was abandoned in favor of the new strategy of "preemption." And what they meant by preemption was not the inherent right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat to its national security, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted a unique and unilateral U.S. right to ignore international law wherever it wished to do so and take military action against any nation, even in circumstances where there was no imminent threat. All that is required, in the view of Bush's team is the mere assertion of a possible, future threat - and the assertion need be made by only one person, the President.
...
How dare they blame their misdeeds on enlisted personnel from a Reserve unit in upstate New York. President Bush owes more than one apology. On the list of those he let down are the young soldiers who are themselves apparently culpable, but who were clearly put into a moral cesspool. The perpetrators as well as the victims were both placed in their relationship to one another by the policies of George W. Bush.

How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney Administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people. How dare they subject us to such dishonor and disgrace. How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein's torture prison.May 2004

and this,

Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean's bid for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination on Tuesday, substantially deepening Dean's fast-developing drive for dominance in the nine-candidate field of would-be challengers to President Bush.

"I'm very proud and honored to endorse Howard Dean to be the next president of the United States of America," Gore said.

The announcement in Manhattan's Harlem, coming on the morning of another debate between the "'04 Dems," as they're called, could cement Dean's status as the leading Democratic candidate heading into the kickoff contests now just weeks away in Iowa and New Hampshire.

"We need to remake the Democratic Party, we need to remake America," Gore said. Dec. 9, 2003

and this,

Katrina

and this

The book is a scathing exposé of what Gore calls the White House's unprecedented and sustained campaign of mass deception," but goes beyond partisan bickering to ask, "Why do reason, logic, and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions?" Gore begins by positing that our Founders' revolutionary trust in "the rule of reason" PW

and this

The debate tomorrow should not seek to discover which candidate would be more fun to have a beer with. As Jon Stewart of the "The Daily Show'' nicely put in 2000, "I want my president to be the designated driver. NYT 2004

and this

The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, "Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem." If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action. CBS 2007

and this

What if?

What Part of Lock Box Do You Not UNDERSTAND!

and this

Part 1

and

Part 2

and this

He assembled the earliest slide show in 1989, while writing Earth in the Balance--carrying an easel to a dinner party at David Brinkley's house, standing on a chair to show CO2 emissions heading off the charts. She wanted him to find that passion again. They were living in Virginia, and the Kodak slides were gathering dust in the basement. So he pulled them out, arranged them in the carousel and gave his first show with the images mostly backward and upside down. Time

and this

I'm trying to say to you, be a part of the change," he told the crowd. "No one else is going to do it. The politicians are paralyzed. The people have to do it for themselves!" He was getting charged up now. "Our democracy hasn't been working very well--that's my opinion. We've made a bunch of serious policy mistakes. But it's way too simple and way too partisan to blame the Bush-Cheney Administration. We've got checks and balances, an independent judiciary, a free press, a Congress--have they all failed us? Have we failed ourselves?"

"You Take Action"

AlGore.org , DraftAlGore.MeetUp.com

(Crossposted on DKos Yesterday)