What Bush has done right

I ripped G. W. in my last post, but I'll give him some props for things the media doesn't pay attention to.

(1) Tripling Aid to Africa. No president has ever given Africa that much money (not even Clinton).

(2) Encouraging Libya to get rid of its WMD program , and they did. Too bad Hussein didn't comply.

(3) Strengthening relations with India, and having a passive-aggressive relationship with China.

(4) Fourth, but not least, Bush's aggressive measures to combat extremism have been quite successful (I'm not talking about Iraq here). This controversial list includes the Patriot Act, wire tapping, secret prisons, and many more. A bunch of my peers constantly argue with me saying that Bush is no different from Stalin. He abuses his power beyond belief, and we're constantly under surveillance. I don't understand why people have such a problem with the FBI, NSA, or CSS listening in to people's conversations. Remember the IPOD/liquid gel scare in 2006. So what if the US, Britain, Pakistan, and other Muslim countries stopped spying on people's phone records. I mention this fact to some peers, and all they mention is that they "want to have privacy." So what I'm getting from this argument is that people would prefer to keep their civil liberties, rather than thwarting a terrorist attack (an attack which could crumble the markets like in 01; it's fortunate the US had extra reserves due to the money they didn't have to use after the Y2K scare in 2000). Otherwise, we'd faced a depression, and the world would suffer from those consequences as well. I understand why people would be against torture (since an innocent individual who has nothing to do with terroristic activity is harmed through tough interrogative methods). Let's look at Bush's rough play though. George Tenet, former CIA director, claimed that around 70% of torture has been effective, and at times, have given tips to prevent attacks. So in other words, 30% of the time torture hasn't worked. The question to ask is: What's the principle of lesser evils here? Should the US torture (they should torture those who are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt) or stop torturing all together (and give these guys rights)? Remember this though, our torture cells are considered like "Disney Land" (no lie) compared to some Middle Eastern cells. I wonder how this will play out in the future.