Spiders! (It Is Our Hero)

After months of waiting, fans of the excellent online comic Spiders can finally feast on a new installment. The strip is a a parallel-universe tale of the U.S./Afghan conflict in which Gore is president, and the hunt for Osama bin Laden is an open source affair carried out by millions of Americans controlling webcam equipped robots via IM-style clients.

Comments

[Ray]

Only in fantasy comics would Algore have taken any military action against anyone except for Cuban refugees in Miami or maybe owner/operators of internal combustion engines.

[xray]

One post about a fantasy web-site and the Gore bashing begins. Typical closet republican behavior.

[thoreau]

Let's not quarrel and bicker about who would invade who. Based on the They Might Be Giants reference in the title this is supposed to be a happy thread.

As John and John sang on Apollo 18 "Spider! He is our hero!"

If we must discuss US politics in this thread, let's talk about James K. Polk, memorialized in a song by They Might Be Giants:

In four short years he met his every goal,
He seized the whole southwest from Mexico,
Made sure the tarriffs fell,
And made the English sell
The Oregon Territory,
He built an independent treasury,
Having done all this he sought no second term!
But precious few have mourned the passing of
Mr. James K. Polk our eleventh President,
Young Hickory--Napolean of the stump.

[Plutarck]

Let's round up all the terrorists and put them in a "Lock Box"! Wooohoo!

[thoreau]

I'm not worried about terrorists.

And I've got something,
To help you understand,
Something hidden there, beneath the land,
My metal detector,
Goes with me all of the time,
I'm the inspector over the mines!

(Yep, that's another They Might Be Giants lyric.)

Will nobody else join in the TMBG spirit?

[Ray]

What'd fyodor want, praise from a nut job right winger like me for Algore of all creatures?

[xray]

Ray, when are you gonna get it thru yer thick reactionary, ultraconservative skull that more than one person might disagree with you from time to time. Please stop accusing me of being fyodor or he's gonna hafta kick my ass. And that will be your fault, not mine. Stop the campaign of misinformation. Fyodor is fyodor and I am not.

[Josh]

Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks.

[Ray]

xray,

so you voted for Algore?

[Ray]

And we're all just joshin' around xray ol' buddy.

As serious as you seem to take this; do you really think that Algore would have taken real military action? Not lobbing a few hellfire's into someone's hut but an actual campaign.

Really, you think that? First try some decaf, then get a grip on reality.

[xray]

No Ray, I actually think that if Gore had won, Osama would have called off the attacks and 3000 lives would have been spared (and that's only counting deaths on 9/11). (Sarcasm)

Yeah, Ray, you are right, Algore would have done nothing to respond to 9/11. (More sarcasm)If you really think that, it just goes to prove your intentional obtuseness. Obtusity?

[Julian Sanchez]

Err, I've got to second that. I know Gore doesn't look half as spiffy in a flight suit, but do you really think he would've... what... sent Jimmy Carter to ask Osama if he wouldn't mind, please, not killing any more Americans?

[Ray]

Really xman, decaf, it's a quality of life issue for you. Breath deeply and think happy thoughts.

ohmmm..... Fantasy comics, I'm reading fantasy comics ohmmmmmm...

[Ray]

No, Algore would not have launched a military strike against Afghanistan.

If, big if, If he could have received unanimous UN approval for it, he would have at the most, launched a weekend's worth of outwardly impressive air strikes against obsolete targets.

There is absolutely nothing in Algore's professional history to suggest an aggressive military stance. Even his pro vote in '91 had to be part of a deal in which he got to make a publicity piece out of it.

[thoreau]

I think if Gore had been President he wouldn't have had the luxury of waiting to invade Afghanistan. Bush took a few weeks to mobilize and prepare, and he issued ultimatums, giving the Taliban an opportunity to hand over Bin Laden. Only after they rejected our demands did Bush invade Afghanistan.

Bush could afford to take time because as a conservative Republican he has an automatic presumption of toughness. Nobody would suggest that waiting a couple weeks was a sign of weakness. It was just good planning. Nobody would suggest that giving the Taliban a chance to comply was a sign of weakness. We know he was just going through the motions to keep some allies (i.e. Pakistan) on board, and seeing whether we'd do this the hard way or the really hard way.

But if Gore had been President, conservatives would have screamed bloody murder if the bombs weren't dropping on Kabul within 24 hours. Any delay, any pause to get in position or deploy more forces would be seen as a lack of resolve. Any effort to negotiate with the Taliban would have been seen as "going soft."

So, basically, Gore would have had gotten much less deference than Bush, and he would have been allowed no margin for error or even a deliberate pause to better mobilize.

[Warren]

"I've seen the worst bands of my generation applied by magic marker to dry wall... I should be allowed to think"
TMBG

[Ray]

No one would have ever predicted that an American president would have allowed the detention of American hostages for 444 days.

Algore, the alpha male, more aggressive than Carter? I think not. It would have been bombs dropped on old training camps and some tough talk but then nothing but UN sanctions and so on.

The Taliban would still be in power as they would have sacrificed one or two supposed officials and stayed, as a group, in power.

[thoreau]

Well, whenever we finally capture Osama it will be

"Bah-bada-baba-badapa, bah-bada-baba-badapa,
Bah-bada-baba-badapa, bah-bada-baba-badapa,
Exquisite Dead Guy, rotating in his display case"

[HH]

Nader has already told us he would have bribed Osama's buddies and caught him lickety-split after that. Yeah we've only been trying to do that with Saddam's buddies since before the war started...

[Eestoria]

So "He seized the whole southwest from Mexico"

Istanbul, not Constantinople.
Now it's Istanbul,not Constantinople,
'Cause you can't go back to Constantinople.
... Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks.

... Why did the world on Tibet do an appease?
That's nobody's business but the Chinese.

... Why did they seize the whole of Chechnia?
That's nobody's business but Russia.

... Why did they squash the freedom fighters of Timor?
That's nobody's business but Sukarno, what a whore.

[xray]

Good point Ray, a republican would have traded arms for hostages and they would have been home as soon as the check cleared.

[Lucy Powett]

Good thing he bought the whole southwest from Mexico,
Cause that's the way events tend to go.

Considering they're in such an economic slump,
The Grand Canyon would've been turned into an oversized trash dump.

Nevada would be littered with sombreros sleeping under the cactus.
As billions of dollars would never materialize when there's no Vegas.

San Francisco would've been one big, barren ridge.
And there surely would've been no Golden Gate bridge.

The war with Japan would've been lost, at best.
For we'd have no A-bomb ranges to test.

And what of beautiful Yellystone, Yosemite, or Disney?
Would we instead be trudging along dusty roads on a donkey?

No thanks. No matter what it is you say,
I'm glad the southwest is now part of the U.S. of A.

[joe]

"As serious as you seem to take this; do you really think that Algore would have taken real military action? Not lobbing a few hellfire's into someone's hut but an actual campaign.'

You mean the Senator who sponsored the bill to create the next generation of ICBMs? The one who voted for the Gulf War? The one who convinced Clinton to take military action in the Balkans while the Republican Party decided mass graves on the continent of Europe wasn't really a concern of ours, and much of his political base was railing against any American military action? The one who joined the active duty military during wartime, got sent to Vietnam, and actually finished his service honorably?

Gore's SecDef wouldn't have been such a cheapskate that he'd count on Afghan militiamen to guard the back door at Tora Bora. We almost had him, dammit!