Frist calls for surrender to Taliban - repercussions?

From the International Herald-Tribune:

I personally think that Frist is a scum-sucking waste of oxygen, but I really have to wonder how this is going to play to the Republicans’ core voters, especially since it’s coming out just a month before the elections. I mean, doesn’t this effectively undermine the GOP’s entire “We’re stronger against terrorism” argument, when the Senate Majority Leader is effectively advocating throwing in the towel?

Huh. You went for GD, I went for a Pit thread.

Repercussions? With any luck, Frist’s ambitions to be POTUS have just been taken off life support. It’s probably best that they were put out of their misery.

In the current perfect storm of blazing shit, I doubt anyone would notice if he commited seppuku on the Capitol steps.

Perhaps some of the NATO allies could find ways to add more military power to the Afghan effort. It sure would be nice if maybe they had a lot of troops involved in some unnecessary war they could pull them away from.

Or would care.

Frist now says he was misquoted (The link appears to be down at the moment). I don’t think his alternate explanation deviates much from his original:

Is there one sane person in the entire nation who actually believes Bill Frist (R - Cat Killer) has a snowball’s chance in hell of being elected our next president?

Note: I said sane person, so James Dobson doesn’t count.

The “misquote” claim surprises me. I’d have thought he was a stalking horse: someone who is near but not in the administration who floats an intelligent idea and, if he is not roasted alive, the administration can then follow up on the idea.

I suppose that that could have still been the situation and his “misquote” claim is the result of a whole wall of fire that engulfed him privately before the hordes of the Radio Right could call for him to be removed from office in five weeks.

Can you imagine what the Republicans would be saying if a Democract suggested this? “Not only do they want to cut and run, they want to surrender and give Afghanistan back to the terrorists!”

No, no, no! It’s simply a theological disagreement amongst true Republicans, who worship private property and entrepenuership! The current situation oppresses the opium growers (family farmers, each and ever one!) and curtails their access to the Open Market. It is not their responsibility to what end their harvest is turned, much like tobacco growers and distributors.

To put it bluntly and omit all sarcasm: it may not hit the Big Boards, it may not be as closely noted as the price of light, sweet crude oil…but the price of opium matters. A lot.

This reminds me of the time a few years ago when Bush was asked if we could win the war on terror, and he said: “I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.”

He then promptly backtracked, as I recall.

I found it tragically humorous - the one time the guy says something thoughtful, nuanced, and reflective of reality… he takes it back.

So it would seem with Frist. Although I’ll point out that while his statement showed some connection with reality, I disagree with the idea put forward. I don’t think the Taliban has any role in a real government.

But, I wish our system permitted actual debate instead of merely opportunities to shout, “See, I told you he’s a moron!!!”

I’ve studied the video and if Frist is taken off life support I think he will still live.

This idea is the key to eventual victory in Afghanistan and Iraq:

“I believe that we cannot stabilize Afghanistan purely through military means. Our counter-insurgency strategy must win hearts and minds and persuade moderate Islamists potentially sympathetic to the Taliban to accept the legitimacy of the Afghan national government and democratic political processes.”

If you can’t get enough people to buy into the western ideal of society, it won’t work. The arab version of Joe Sixpack has to want that society for his own best interests. If the people in Iraq and Afghanistan are unwilling to stand up for this kind of society, we will eventually have to wash our hands of them.

Europe and Japan appreciated the Marshall Plan. The Arab world may not be as astute.

“De-Ba’athification” seems to have been a disaster in Iraq, so I can’t really slam Frist for proposing something different in Afghanistan. (I do think it’s amazing we’re having this conversation at all with regard to that country.)

I don’t know if it will do anything to the GOP. They can’t say anything that people will hear over the clamor from the Foley scandal right now. Frist himself is out of office in a few months, so by the time he starts putting a Presidential run together, this may be long forgotten.

First off, Afghans are not Arabs.

Secondly, part of the reason Afghanistan is in turmoil is because it became the site of a proxy war between the Soviets and the US. Once the Soviets withdrew, we rapidly decreased our aid to the nation, abandoning an ally.

Thirdly, maybe we should have thought about what kind of government the people of Iraq wanted before we invaded? As you put it, we might need to “wash our hands of them.” That would be easier for us if our hands weren’t so covered in blood.

Sweet Jesus, didn’t we win the war in Afghanistan? How could thing have gotten this bad? This is like us declaring back in 1948 that we had changed our minds and were giving Germany back to the Nazis.

Think about September 12, 2001. Did any of us imagine that five years later, bin Laden would still be on the run and that we’d be talking about making deals with the Taliban.

We have completely mishandled our response. After 9/11 it was clear we had been attacked by a terrorist organization with the support of the government of Afghanistan. We clearly had the right to respond to this attack and had near universal support from the international community. Our allies were ready to help in fighting this war.

Instead, we tried to do the Afghanistan war on the cheap, while diverting resources to an ill-advised and unwinnable war in Iraq (if you don’t think Iraq is unwinnable come on over here and tell me in person).

We have squandered international good will. We have done nearly irreparable harm to our international reputation, we have ammassed crippling debt, we have created a failed state (that is the term used by the US State Department to describe Iraq in a memo to Rice); we have created a training ground for terrorits and radical fundamentalists, where it had previously not existed, and we have failed to aprehend and punish the man who master-minded the 9/11 attacks.

And yet, the US population consistently gives the Republican party high marks for national security.

Was it Voltaire who said every nation gets the government it deserves?

It’s the occupation that’s a bitch. Of course, we took out the Afghani govt., such as it was, and flattened what was left of their already pathetic infrastructure. If that’s “winning”, yeah, we won at least that portion of the overall campaign.