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View Full Version : Bill Frist Wants to "Cunt & Run" from Afghanistan?



Nickdfresh
10-03-2006, 08:20 AM
Frist says Taliban can't be defeated
Senate leader urges role in government

By Jim Krane
Associated Press

October 3, 2006

QALAT, Afghanistan -- U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and called for efforts to bring the Islamic militia and its supporters into the Afghan government.

The Tennessee Republican said he learned from briefings that Taliban fighters are too numerous and have 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 Qaeda 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.

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

Sen. Mel Martinez, a Republican from Florida accompanying Frist on his trip, said negotiating with the Taliban is 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."

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0610030092oct03,1,2117792.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed)

LoungeMachine
10-03-2006, 10:15 AM
Stalking Horse.....


Let's float the balloon about Afghany, and measure the reaction among our base.....

Then we'll do what Murtha, et al have been saying all along....

Little Texan
10-03-2006, 08:56 PM
Letting the Taliban have a role in government is the most idiotic idea I have ever heard! You know if these fuckers are given any kind of role in the Afghan government, they are not going to stop there...they will eventually take back control of the entire government, then what have we accomplished there? It will all be back to square one...everything will be just as it was before the US invaded Afghanistan, and all those lives and all those billions of dollars will have been wasted, all for what? Give the Taliban an inch, and they'll take a mile. I'll tell you right now, the same kind of thing is going to happen in Iraq. With the Shiites in power, that government is headed towards an Iranian style Islamic Republic, another anti-US regime is going to take over there, and what will we have accomplished in Iraq? Replacing one headache with an even bigger one? Well, we've already done that by creating a terrorism problem there! I say just hand it back over to the Iraqi's, let them form whatever style government they wish, stop trying to impose democracy on them because it will never work, and get our troops the hell out of there!

Little Texan
10-03-2006, 09:05 PM
If we would have had any leaders with any kind of a head on their shoulders, we would have kept all our focus on Afghanistan in finishing the job there and left Iraq the hell alone, as they had nothing to do with terrorism and had done nothing to us.