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 In America, there are self-proclaimed Democrats who praise Colin Powell yet despise Condoleezza Rice, despite the fact that both of them pushed the same foreign policies while in the GW Bush Administration.

Instead of pretending to know what's going in Afghanistan or arrogantly trying to predict the country's future, why not take the time to reminisce about past and current America presidents trying to justify being there? Since we're talking about 20 years and multiple presidents (Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden) this will be broken up into four parts For this post: George W. Bush . Keep in mind that these are not every speech or even every speech about the country in question, just notable ones where the justification is mentioned. Because justifications vary, let's use a key: Humanitarian ("People are getting hurt!") Economic ("America/American businesses are either losing money because we're not taking action, or can gain money by taking action."  Political ("This will give us an advantage with our political adversaries," or "We must spread liberty/freedom.") Military/Strategic ("Better to fight them over there than figh...

The Democratic Party's problem, in a nutshell, is that they believe their recent losses and the "sudden" lack of enthusiasm from their base and the "center" is due to poor articulation. They want to move on, and with a plan to win the middle again . To do this, they are being lead by the same Democratic Senator who said losing one Democratic voter from the urban areas to gain two Republican voters from the suburbs was ideal .   He's not exactly a fighter for the people . But I digress: the new better deal includes some things that might have helped Hillary Clinton win the damn election, as well as things designed to get the attention of dissatisfied Trump voters . Maybe it will give them just enough seats in the mid-terms to keep this tug-of-war with Republicans going, while both parties focus on things they agree on (like conducting war for profit). What it doesn't do is "wow." There's not much in this proposal that makes me th...

Lengthy, but relevant .

So the (Republican) President can order a person's testicles to be crushed, but he (as a Democrat) can't force political donors to reveal themselves ?

Me neither.

Their "legal logistics." They don't want to prosecute anyone from the Bush Administration, and now they want to make sure no one else can either.

.... if you combined it with "Line of Fire."

So there's at least two instances of the Army essentially saying, "Fuck your kid, you gotta go fight!" and a recruiter who thought it was a great idea to seduce a 14-year-old girl . Even though both conflicts started under Bush, Obama had a chance to truly turn a leaf by going after reports of abuse and definitively addressing Gitmo (as in: closing it down). He hasn't done either to the point where these types of stories have gone away, and I suspect that now he's CIC they'll be a lot more stories coming out of the woodwork...and he'll get all the blame.

43's nephew gets deployed to a war his uncle started.

Some people freaked out because Obama didn't want to continue the ridiculous missile defense program former President Bush was pushing. But it looks like Obama's move has had at least one positive result .

We were outsourcing everything to shady organizations . WASHINGTON – When the CIA revived a plan to kill or capture terrorists in 2004, the agency turned to the well-connected security company then known as Blackwater USA. With Blackwater's lucrative government security work and contacts arrayed in hot spots around the world, company officials offered the services of foreigners supposedly skilled at tracking terrorists in lawless regions and countries where the CIA had no working relationships with the government. Blackwater told the CIA that it "could put people on the ground to provide the surveillance and support — all of the things you need to conduct an operation," a former senior CIA official familiar with the secret program told The Associated Press. But the CIA's use of the private contractor as part of its now-abandoned plan to dispatch death squads skirted concerns now re-emerging with recent disclosures ab...

Better late than never : WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter. The recommendation by the Office of Professional Responsibility , presented to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in recent weeks, comes as the Justice Department is about to disclose on Monday voluminous details on prisoner abuse that were gathered in 2004 by the C.I.A.’s inspector general but have never been released. Will this distract the anti-Obama crowd long enough for the President (and Congress) to pass some effective health care reform? Doubt it, but no one ever said politics was easy.

Well, well, well ... The dismissal of New Mexico U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias in December 2006 followed extensive communication among lawyers and political aides in the White House who hashed over complaints about his work on public corruption cases against Democrats, according to newly released e-mails and transcripts of closed-door House testimony by former Bush counsel Harriet Miers and political chief Karl Rove. A campaign to oust Iglesias intensified after state party officials and GOP members of the congressional delegation apparently concluded he was not pursuing the cases against Democrats in a way that would help then- Rep. Heather Wilson in a tight reelection race, according to interviews and Bush White House e-mails released Tuesday by congressional investigators. The documents place the genesis of Iglesias's dismissal earlier than previously known.

Are military was thisclose to being used on domestic soil under George W. Bush.

Either Iran's elections are the product of former President G. W. Bush's " substantial reform movement " or current President Obama's " policies of going around the world and apologizing for America aren't working ." It. Can't. Be. Both.

OK; let me see if I have this straight (if anyone can provide dates and such, cool): On 9/11/2001, America experiences its worst terrorist attack ever. The Bush Administration (specifically Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld) want to link this horrible event to Saddam Hussein for financial and ideological reasons. The US start capturing suspected terrorists and people who may have ties to terrorists. They began to interrogate them . The interrogations either yield nothing or nothing giving the pro-war-with-Iraq faction of the White House the information it needs. Without crucial "links" to Iraq, Bush Administration settles for real evidence linking to Afghanistan. Under the influence of key Bush White House officials, the Executive Branch redefines interrogation , adopting techniques that some lawyers and most lay people define as torture. The United States of America begins to apply these "techniques" in order to make the people that were captured "admit" t...

It ain't easy being a transitional president: WASHINGTON — Pressure mounted on President Obama on Monday for more thorough investigation into harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects under the Bush administration, even as he tried to reassure the Central Intelligence Agency that it would not be blamed for following legal advice. Mr. Obama said it was time to admit “mistakes” and “move forward.” But there were signs that he might not be able to avoid a protracted inquiry into the use of interrogation techniques that the president’s top aides and many critics say crossed the line into torture. And while Mr. Obama vowed not to prosecute C.I.A. officers for acting on legal advice, on Monday aides did not rule out legal sanctions for the Bush lawyers who developed the legal basis for the use of the techniques. The president’s decision last week to release secret memorandums detailing the harsh tactics employed by the C.I.A. under his predecessor provoked a furor that continued to g...