Let's remember that George W. Bush, once the WMDs excuse was shown to be non-factual, reverted to the 'Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who tortured and oppressed his people and they deserve to have the freedom that only democracy brings' justification for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Apparently, this justification is only selectively applied:
US News & World Report: It was what Washington insiders call a grip 'n' grin. A beaming President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea shook hands with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who welcomed him warmly to Washington as a "good friend" of the United States. If Rice had any qualms that April day, she didn't let them show. Obiang may head a corrupt and repressive regime, according to the State Department's own human-rights reports, but Equatorial Guinea is a growing oil producer-now No. 3 in sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria and Angola-and an oil-needy America can't afford to be too picky about choosing its petro pals.
But half a world away, in this nation's dusty, ramshackle capital, Rice's diplomatic pragmatism doesn't cut it for two political dissidents who show their torture scars from their four years confined in the notorious Black Beach prison. "We are offended," one of them says. "For a Third World country to call a dictator a good friend is one thing, but for the United States to do it is something else." Read on...
[h/t BSBF]
