Republican Bill Frist: We Should Welcome the Taliban to Join the Afghan Government

[Hatfield]

has this dude lost his mind?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061002/...hanistan_frist

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R): Taliban should be in Afghan gov't

By JIM KRANE, Associated Press WriterMon Oct 2, 7:56 PM ET

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and urged support for efforts to bring "people who call themselves Taliban" and their allies into the government.

The Tennessee Republican said he learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated on the battlefield.

"You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government," Frist said during a brief visit to a U.S. and Romanian military base in the southern Taliban stronghold of Qalat. "And if that's accomplished, we'll be successful."

Afghanistan is suffering its heaviest insurgent attacks since a U.S.-led military force toppled the Taliban in late 2001 for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

According to an Associated Press count, based on reports from U.S., NATO and Afghan officials, at least 2,800 people have been killed nationwide so far this year. The count, which includes militants and civilians, is about 1,300 more than the toll for all of 2005.

The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, told Pentagon reporters last month that while the Taliban enemy in Afghanistan is not extremely strong, their numbers and influence have grown in some southern sections of the country.

President Bush has been criticized for his handling of the war and is trying to contain the damage ahead of midterm elections this fall. On Friday, Bush acknowledged setbacks in the training of Afghan police to fight against the Taliban resurgence but predicted eventual victory.

Frist said asking the Taliban to join the government was a decision to be made by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Karzai's spokesmen were not immediately able to be reached for comment.

Sen. Mel Martinez, a Republican from Florida accompanying Frist on his trip, said negotiating with the Taliban was not "out of the question" but that fighters who refused to join the political process would have to be defeated.

"A political solution is how it's all going to be solved," he said.

Frist said he had hoped the U.S. would be able to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan soon. But he said the 20,000 U.S. troops in the country are still needed to support the NATO alliance, which will assume direct control over most military operations here.

"We're going to need to stay here a long time," Frist said.

The senator said he was warned to expect attacks to increase. There appears to be an "unlimited flow" of Afghans and foreigners "willing to pick up arms and integrate themselves with the Taliban," he said.

He said the only way to win in places like the volatile southern part of the country is to "assimilate people who call themselves Taliban into a larger, more representative government."

"Approaching counterinsurgency by winning hearts and minds will ultimately be the answer," Frist said. "Military versus insurgency one-to-one doesn't sound like it can be won. It sounds to me ... that the Taliban is everywhere."

Frist and Martinez flew to this dust-blown mountain city 220 miles south of Kabul during a one-day stop in Afghanistan on a regional tour that includes stops in Pakistan and Iraq.

The pair had intended to visit a new $6.5 million hospital built by the United Arab Emirates, but a group of wounded Taliban fighters were recuperating there, including a midlevel commander, and U.S. commander Lt. Col. Kevin McGlaughlin canceled the visit because of security concerns.

In violence Monday, a suicide bomber blew himself up next to a NATO convoy in the capital Kabul, wounding three foreign soldiers and three civilians, while a roadside bomb in the eastern Paktia province killed three Afghan soldiers and wounded three others, officials said.

Maj. Luke Knittig, a military spokesman, said he could not disclose the nationalities of the NATO soldiers who were wounded. The attack came two days after another suicide bomber killed 12 people and wounded more than 40 outside Afghanistan's Interior Ministry.

In the southern province of Helmand, five civilians were killed when their vehicle hit a mine on a road usually used by NATO and Afghan forces, said Ghulam Muhiddin, the governor's spokesman.

Suspected Taliban on a motorbike, meanwhile, killed two policemen and wounded two others in Gereshk district, he said. NATO-led troops killed three militants in Nawzad district.

[JohnnyMack]

At least he's not trying to schlong teenage boys.

You gotta look on the brightside here.

[mdklatt]

Yet I'm sure Frist is all for removing Democrats from the American government....

[yermom]

well, since the dims and Al Qaeda have the same politics, this isn't much of a stretch

[TopDawg]

has this dude lost his mind?


The answer to your question is in the first word of your thread title. ;)

[mdklatt]

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Republican war against Democrats can never be won militarily and urged support for efforts to bring "people who call themselves Democrats, Independents, Moderates, or Libertarians" and their allies into the government.

:twinkies:

[Widescreen]

I honestly don't know who to vote for in November. I've always voted Republican but what I voted for is not what I got. The Republicans say the right things during the election and then turn into spineless jellyfish when it comes time to govern.

WE WANT SMALL GOVERNMENT (so we'll expand it only slightly less than the Democrats would have)
WE WANT A STRONG MILITARY (but we'll water down our capability to win by being PC and being more concerned with international opinion than fighting)
WE WILL BE THE PARTY OF FAMILY VALUES (but we'll cover up the actions of the pervert who happens to chair committes on protecting children)
WE BELIEVE IN SECURE BORDERS (but won't actually do anything about it until election year and even then it will be just lip service)

If the Republicans get bounced from power it's their own fault.

[RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!]

However, anyone who thinks the dims will be an improvement has it backwards, unfortunately.

[TopDawg]

I honestly don't know who to vote for in November. I've always voted Republican but what I voted for is not what I got. The Republicans say the right things during the election and then turn into spineless jellyfish when it comes time to govern.

WE WANT SMALL GOVERNMENT (so we'll expand it only slightly less than the Democrats would have)
WE WANT A STRONG MILITARY (but we'll water down our capability to win by being PC and being more concerned with international opinion than fighting)
WE WILL BE THE PARTY OF FAMILY VALUES (but we'll cover up the actions of the pervert who happens to chair committes on protecting children)
WE BELIEVE IN SECURE BORDERS (but won't actually do anything about it until election year and even then it will be just lip service)

If the Republicans get bounced from power it's their own fault.

At least the elections have gotten gas prices down a little bit.

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

The government stopped improving right around the time JFK got shot

[KABOOKIE]

To be fair what's Hillary's plan? Anyone?

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

At least he's not trying to schlong teenage boys.

You gotta look on the brightside here.

Didn't you watch Stephen Colbert, those messages to those little boys were teenage acronyms.

Horny equals Happy On Returning New Year

and when he asked him to measure his penis..he was just pointing out that measuring is an important skill to have!!

[Ike]

I honestly don't know who to vote for in November. I've always voted Republican but what I voted for is not what I got. The Republicans say the right things during the election and then turn into spineless jellyfish when it comes time to govern.

WE WANT SMALL GOVERNMENT (so we'll expand it only slightly less than the Democrats would have)
WE WANT A STRONG MILITARY (but we'll water down our capability to win by being PC and being more concerned with international opinion than fighting)
WE WILL BE THE PARTY OF FAMILY VALUES (but we'll cover up the actions of the pervert who happens to chair committes on protecting children)
WE BELIEVE IN SECURE BORDERS (but won't actually do anything about it until election year and even then it will be just lip service)

If the Republicans get bounced from power it's their own fault.

ding.

Heres my thinking...regardless of who says the right things and what you think each party will do once in power, I say go ahead and vote the other way if you are unsatisfied with the job 'your party' is doing. Politicians have become too comfy knowing that while you are woefully disappointed in the job they are doing, you aren't going to vote for the other guy, cause they can paint him as being worse.


The good news is though, the other guy, who might indeed be worse, can be bounced in 2,4 or 6 years. so you won't have to live with him for long. Voting for someone who may indeed be worse sends a message. the message it sends is that your vote is not a guaranteed vote and that they will have to earn it. Otherwise you will vote for the other guy, even if its painful to do so.


Part of the strategy that the republocrats have been going for *is* to polarize us so much that they can count more and more voters as gaurantees. This allows them to win elections much easier as long as they occasionally pay lip service to their base....They figure theres no way you'll vote for the other party. I say prove em wrong. It may hurt in the short term (and then again, it may not)....but will help in the long run.

[RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!]

Heres my thinking...regardless of who says the right things and what you think each party will do once in power, I say go ahead and vote the other way if you are unsatisfied with the job 'your party' is doing.


The good news is though, the other guy, who might indeed be worse, can be bounced in 2,4 or 6 years. so you won't have to live with him for long. Voting for someone who may indeed be worse sends a message. the message it sends is that your vote is not a guaranteed vote and that they will have to earn it. Otherwise you will vote for the other guy, even if its painful to do so.


....They figure theres no way you'll vote for the other party. I say prove em wrong. It may hurt in the short term....The problem in our case(USA), is that the dems re so socialist and are such catastrophes waiting to happen, that they can, and doubtless will do DEVASTATING damage to the country.

[JohnnyMack]

To be fair what's Hillary's plan? Anyone?

To get us all to move to Canada apparently.

[JohnnyMack]

The problem in our case(USA), is that the dems re so socialist and are such catastrophes waiting to happen, that they can, and doubtless will do DEVASTATING damage to the country.

That's some fine party line schtick you're runnin' there Bill.

[TopDawg]

The problem in our case(USA), is that the dems re so socialist and are such catastrophes waiting to happen, that they can, and doubtless will do DEVASTATING damage to the country.

Well, none of us expected you to understand anyway.

[yermom]

i don't remember anyone asking for Rush's opinion ;)

[The]

Back to the first post..
Why did we invade Afghanistan again?

[Ike]

The problem in our case(USA), is that the dems re so socialist and are such catastrophes waiting to happen, that they can, and doubtless will do DEVASTATING damage to the country.


thats only if they manage to get elected en masse, and the ones that do get elected are far left dems, and control every branch of govt. that ain't gonna happen any time soon. a red state dem is a far different breed than a californy dem.


The problem with your line of thinking is that there are enough people who think that way that the republicans have gotten far too comfortable and are able to run complete boobs in red states and still win. you are so afraid of what "the other side" will do if they get in power that you don't even realize you are taking it up the pooper from your own side.

[JohnnyMack]

Back to the first post..
Why did we invade Afghanistan again?

Huh?

[The]

Seriously.
I thought it was to get rid of the Taliban..
but its's been a long time...

[JohnnyMack]

you are so afraid of what "the other side" will do if they get in power that you don't even realize you are taking it up the pooper from your own side.

There's a great Mark Foley joke in there, but I'm in a borderline food coma from lunch and my synapses just aren't firing well enough to figure it out.

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Now imagine William's reaction if this had been the article!


(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061002/...hanistan_frist) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061002/...hanistan_frist (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061002/...hanistan_frist)

Senator and Presidential Hopeful Hilary Clinton (D): Taliban should be in Afghan gov't

By JIM KRANE, Associated Press WriterMon Oct 2, 7:56 PM ET

Democratic Leader Hilary Clinton said Monday that the Afghan war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and urged support for efforts to bring "people who call themselves Taliban" and their allies into the government.

The New York Democrat said she learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated on the battlefield.

"You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government," Clinton said during a brief visit to a U.S. and Romanian military base in the southern Taliban stronghold of Qalat. "And if that's accomplished, we'll be successful."

Afghanistan is suffering its heaviest insurgent attacks since a U.S.-led military force toppled the Taliban in late 2001 for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

According to an Associated Press count, based on reports from U.S., NATO and Afghan officials, at least 2,800 people have been killed nationwide so far this year. The count, which includes militants and civilians, is about 1,300 more than the toll for all of 2005.

The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, told Pentagon reporters last month that while the Taliban enemy in Afghanistan is not extremely strong, their numbers and influence have grown in some southern sections of the country.

President Bush has been criticized for his handling of the war and is trying to contain the damage ahead of midterm elections this fall. On Friday, Bush acknowledged setbacks in the training of Afghan police to fight against the Taliban resurgence but predicted eventual victory.

Clinton said asking the Taliban to join the government was a decision to be made by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Karzai's spokesmen were not immediately able to be reached for comment.

Howard Dean, a Democrat from Bat**** Crazyville accompanying Clinton on her trip, said negotiating with the Taliban was not "out of the question" but that fighters who refused to join the political process would have to be defeated.

"A political solution is how it's all going to be solved," he said.

Clinton said she had hoped the U.S. would be able to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan soon. But he said the 20,000 U.S. troops in the country are still needed to support the NATO alliance, which will assume direct control over most military operations here.

"We're going to need to stay here a long time," Clinton said.

The senator said she was warned to expect attacks to increase. There appears to be an "unlimited flow" of Afghans and foreigners "willing to pick up arms and integrate themselves with the Taliban," she said.

She said the only way to win in places like the volatile southern part of the country is to "assimilate people who call themselves Taliban into a larger, more representative government."

"Approaching counterinsurgency by winning hearts and minds will ultimately be the answer," Clinton said. "Military versus insurgency one-to-one doesn't sound like it can be won. It sounds to me ... that the Taliban is everywhere."

Clinton and Dean flew to this dust-blown mountain city 220 miles south of Kabul during a one-day stop in Afghanistan on a regional tour that includes stops in Pakistan and Iraq.

The pair had intended to visit a new $6.5 million hospital built by the United Arab Emirates, but a group of wounded Taliban fighters were recuperating there, including a midlevel commander, and U.S. commander Lt. Col. Kevin McGlaughlin canceled the visit because of security concerns.

In violence Monday, a suicide bomber blew himself up next to a NATO convoy in the capital Kabul, wounding three foreign soldiers and three civilians, while a roadside bomb in the eastern Paktia province killed three Afghan soldiers and wounded three others, officials said.

Maj. Luke Knittig, a military spokesman, said he could not disclose the nationalities of the NATO soldiers who were wounded. The attack came two days after another suicide bomber killed 12 people and wounded more than 40 outside Afghanistan's Interior Ministry.

In the southern province of Helmand, five civilians were killed when their vehicle hit a mine on a road usually used by NATO and Afghan forces, said Ghulam Muhiddin, the governor's spokesman.

Suspected Taliban on a motorbike, meanwhile, killed two policemen and wounded two others in Gereshk district, he said. NATO-led troops killed three militants in Nawzad district (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061002/...hanistan_frist)

[Hatfield]

this has nothing to do with repug or dim

this jackass wants to put the people back in power that we went in to topple....like some sort of messed up "do-over"...put yourself in the place of a family member of a serviceman/woman that lost their life in the fight in afghan and tell me how you would feel about this "idea"

amazing.

what isn't amazing is that rather than address the article some have resorted to the typical well what is so and so going to do about it?

pathetic william. pathetic.

[Ike]

this has nothing to do with repug or dim

this jackass wants to put the people back in power that we went in to topple....like some sort of messed up "do-over"...put yourself in the place of a family member of a serviceman/woman that lost their life in the fight in afghan and tell me how you would feel about this "idea"

amazing.

what isn't amazing is that rather than address the article some have resorted to the typical well what is so and so going to do about it?

pathetic william. pathetic.



are you really shocked at all? Frist is just doing what Frist does...which is putting out the fact that he doesn't understand anything at all, and saying "neener neener...I can say this **** and STILL get elected!"

And William is just giving us Rush's point of view.


Its all par for the course.

[Hatfield]

no ike sadly i am not shocked.

[Hatfield]

tuba must be out of town.

[TopDawg]

tuba must be out of town.

Nope, he's listening to Rush Limbaugh right now. It's PRIMO!

[mdklatt]

IThe Republicans say the right things during the election and then turn into spineless jellyfish when it comes time to govern.


If you expect the dims to be any different you're going disappointed if you vote that way.



WE WANT SMALL GOVERNMENT (so we'll expand it only slightly less than the Democrats would have)


Isn't the senior drug program the biggest entitlement program in the history of forever?

[Widescreen]

If you expect the dims to be any different you're going disappointed if you vote that way.
Didn't mean to imply I was voting for the democrats. I'm just not sure what I actually will do. The options are pretty limited. But like Ike said, I don't really want to reward the republicans for basically giving my vote the finger either.

[GrapevineSooner]

Hate to say it...

But a good ol' fashioned drubbing at the polls in November may be the only way the Republicans start to 'get it'.

[mdklatt]

Hate to say it...

But a good ol' fashioned drubbing at the polls in November may be the only way the Republicans start to 'get it'.

They think a 50.000000001% majority is some kind of mandate, so that might not work either. They'll just blame the "MSM" or something.

[Ike]

Didn't mean to imply I was voting for the democrats. I'm just not sure what I actually will do. The options are pretty limited. But like Ike said, I don't really want to reward the republicans for basically giving my vote the finger either.

ya know, I have nearly the same opinion over whom to vote for, but from the slightly left end of the spectrum...and I have voted republican as a sign of protest, as much as it has pained me to do so.

Giving this some more thought recently, I have come to the preliminary conclusion that the lack of open primaries are really to blame for the state of politics today. There have been republican candidates in primaries that I would have been thrilled to vote for, but they usually get trounced. Same with the democratic candidates I would have been thrilled to vote for.


yeah, I know the counter to open primaries is that people from "the other side" would vote for the weakest candidate, but I have a feeling that all of that would equal itself out. Hold open primaries and let a person cast their ballot for the one candidate from the one party they would like to see win. I think we'd wind up with better choices.

[The]

Bah.
Until elections are handled by candidates entering "Thunderdome", we'll never have true democracy.
http://www.colossusblog.com/mt/archives/images/thunderdome.jpg

[SoonerProphet]

I know it is hard to have independent thought for some folks, but Pashtuns are not Arabs. Especially wacked out Egyptian and Saudi Arabs. Frist may not be to off base in his reasoning. First Republican to hint at some realpolitik in quite awhile.

[Rogue]

We have open primaries in TN and we still got Frist.
Good news is that he isn't running again.
Yes, he is bat-**** crazy.
He is, or was, a Medical Doctor. He "diagnosed" Terry Schiavo from TV, has commented that he's "not sure" you can't get AIDS from a handshake, and now wants to install the Taliban into government.

Word is that he may have presidential ambitions.