Bush Scandals Numbers 201-300

**FORD** · 02-12-2009, 09:31 PM

In fairness, I don't think you can really blame Chimpy/the BCE for the David Vitter or Larry Craig sex scandals.

They are self righteous hypocritical lying Republican bastards, but they weren't in the Fraudministration itself.

**FORD** · 02-12-2009, 09:32 PM

What the fuck is up with the double posting?

**ELVIS** · 02-12-2009, 09:39 PM

This is fuckin' stupid and has no merit in the current political environment...

The Bushgy man is gone...

Case closed...

**kwame k** · 02-12-2009, 09:40 PM

258. State Department gives grant to Taliban

Yet the Bush administration did more than praise the Taliban's proclaimed ban of opium cultivation. In mid-May, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced a $43 million grant to Afghanistan in addition to the humanitarian aid the United States had long been providing to agencies assisting Afghan refugees. Given Callahan's comment, there was little doubt that the new stipend was a reward for Kabul's anti-drug efforts. That $43 million grant needs to be placed in context. Afghanistan's estimated gross domestic product was a mere $2 billion. The equivalent financial impact on the U.S. economy would have required an infusion of $215 billion. In other words, $43 million was very serious money to Afghanistan's theocratic masters.

To make matters worse, U.S. officials were naive to take the Taliban edict at face value. The much-touted crackdown on opium poppy cultivation appears to have been little more than an illusion. Despite U.S. and UN reports that the Taliban had virtually wiped out the poppy crop in 2000-2001, authorities in neighboring Tajikistan reported that the amounts coming across the border were actually increasing. In reality, the Taliban gave its order to halt cultivation merely to drive up the price of opium the regime had already stockpiled.

Even if the Taliban had tried to stem cultivation for honest reasons, U.S. cooperation with that regime should have been morally repugnant. Among other outrages, the Taliban government prohibited the education of girls, tortured and executed political critics, and required non-Muslims to wear distinctive clothing--a practice eerily reminiscent of Nazi Germany's requirement that Jews display the Star of David on their clothing. Yet U.S. officials deemed none of that to be a bar to cooperation with the Taliban on drug policy.

Even if the Bush administration had not been dissuaded by moral considerations, it should have been by purely pragmatic concerns. There was already ample evidence in the spring of 2001 that the Taliban was giving sanctuary to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network that had bombed two U.S. embassies in East Africa. For the State Department to ignore that connection and agree to subsidize the Taliban was inexcusably obtuse. Scheer was on the mark when he concluded, "The war on drugs has become our own fanatics' obsession and easily trumps all other concerns."

Washington's approach came to an especially calamitous end in September 2001 when the Taliban regime was linked to bin Laden's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed some 3,000 people. Moreover, evidence quickly emerged that the Taliban all along had been collecting millions of dollars in profits from the illicit drug trade, with much of that money going into the coffers of the terrorists. Rarely is there such graphic evidence of the bankruptcy of U.S. drug policy.
Also of interest

Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America

Foreign policy expert Ted Galen Carpenter outlines strategies for protecting America's security while avoiding unnecessary and unrewarding military adventures.

Opinion and Commentary
Drug Gangs Winning the War for Mexico
Obama's Legislative Funeral
Lazy Allies
Arrest Michael Phelps Now!
Bush's Legacy: The End of an Error
Studies
Troubled Neighbor: Mexico's Drug Violence Poses a Threat to the United States
Taiwan's Defense Budget: How Taipei's Free Riding Risks War
Escaping the Trap: Why the United States Must Leave Iraq
Perilous Panacea: The Military in the Drug War
The U.S. Campaign Against International Narcotics Trafficking: A Cure Worse than the Disease
Daily Podcasts
A New Tone toward the Muslim World
Close Guantanamo Bay
Advice to Obama: Afghanistan and Pakistan
Security Theater and Balancing Risks
What Overreaction to Terrorism Delivers
Events
Afghanistan Seven Years Later
Global Terror's Central Front: Pakistan and Afghanistan
Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America
China’s Rise: Is Conflict Unavoidable?
Taiwan's Defense Budget: How Taipei's Free Riding Risks War
Drug War
Terrorism and Homeland Security

Link

**ELVIS** · 02-12-2009, 09:40 PM

Especially to sticky this bullshit...

C'mon, this forum is becoming a laughing stock...

**kwame k** · 02-12-2009, 09:41 PM

I agree that some of these are silly but.............

**LoungeMachine** · 02-12-2009, 09:41 PM

Originally posted by ELVIS

This is fuckin' stupid and has no merit in the current political environment...

The Bushgy man is gone...

Case closed...

But Clinton, But Clinton......

**FORD** · 02-12-2009, 09:42 PM

Originally posted by ELVIS

This is fuckin' stupid and has no merit in the current political environment...

The Bushgy man is gone...

Case closed...

"The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. - Bill Shakespeare

**chefcraig** · 02-12-2009, 09:42 PM

Originally posted by ELVIS

This is fuckin' stupid and has no merit in the current political environment...

The Bushgy man is gone...

Case closed...

You choose to refer to the President of the United States by using the N-word, yet this is "fuckin' stupid and has no merit in the current political environment"? :tongue0011:

**LoungeMachine** · 02-12-2009, 09:43 PM

Originally posted by kwame k

I agree that some of these are silly but.............

Let's say for the sake of argument that 90% are silly.......

That leaves 40 scandals.

Let's say he's only guilty of 10% of those

That's 4 he should be investigated for, and have charges brought forth if the evidence suggests.....

**LoungeMachine** · 02-12-2009, 09:44 PM

Originally posted by chefcraig

You choose to refer to the President of the United States by using the N-word, yet this is "fuckin' stupid and has no merit in the current political environment"? :tongue0011:

Oh, snap

That's gonna leave a mark.

**kwame k** · 02-12-2009, 10:12 PM

Originally posted by LoungeMachine

Let's say for the sake of argument that 90% are silly.......

That leaves 40 scandals.

Let's say he's only guilty of 10% of those

That's 4 he should be investigated for, and have charges brought forth if the evidence suggests.....

I've always said this SOB should be investigated......The big 4 would be.....

1. Failure to uphold and defend the Constitution.
2. Manipulating the facts and lying to Congress and the UN for justification in invading Iraq.
3. Violation of Habeas Corpus and torture.
4. Abuse of power and invoking Executive Privilege, thus thwarting Congress from doing it's job of Checks and Balances.

**sadaist** · 02-12-2009, 10:31 PM

Originally posted by chefcraig

You choose to refer to the President of the United States by using the N-word, yet this is "fuckin' stupid and has no merit in the current political environment"? :tongue0011:

N-word?

**ELVIS** · 02-13-2009, 01:04 AM

Originally posted by LoungeMachine

Oh, snap

You pick up that line from your 17 year old boyfriend ??