Just when you think you’ve seen as much Republican stupidity as one week can hold, in splashes another. In a unique display of world wisdom, Bill Frist, on tour of the Afghanistan region, declared it’s time to win the hearts and minds of the Taliban.
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.
Frist didn’t explain how he measured popular support. Do Afghan polls skip the women? He did concede that the decision to include the Taliban in Afghanistan’s government is up to Afghan President Karzai. Evidently that’s what passes for diplomacy in Republican circles.
The Afghan scene has changed drastically. President Karzai told the Canadian Parliament last month that about 19 percent of the 351 seats in the Afghan Parliament are held by women, as required by the Afghan Constitution. That’s a long way from the Taliban regime’s brutal, Dark Ages treatment of girls and women.
Unfortunately, as described in Der Spiegel the Taliban has changed drastically, too. Germany has assumed command of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)in the North, and the unit has been repeatedly attacked.
Security experts refer to them as the neo-Taliban: a resurgent, motley crew consisting of Mullah Omar’s former holy warriors, the mighty drug mafia, the troops of Islamist terror lord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Arabian and central Asian jihadists, and al Qaeda. … over the past few years, thousands of young fighters have been drafted from the refugee camps and impoverished villages, and drilled in boot camps in the Pashtun border region.
These militias still have Saudi and Egyptian sponsors. But the poppy fields are paramount, heavily guarded. The Taliban has state-of-the-art satellite phones, semiautomatics, and Toyotas. With 21st century technology, the Taliban still imposes an ancient lifestyle of draconian rule.
The fundamentalists once again control large parts of Afghanistan’s southern and eastern provinces….Music and Western clothing are forbidden, men are not permitted to shave, and praying five times a day is mandatory. Women are not allowed to work and may only leave home wearing veils and in the company of men.
Bill Frist suggests that we win the hearts and minds of these mongrels. Then they’ll abandon their poppy fields and automoatic weapons for the pleasures of serving alongside women in the Afghan Parliament.
NATO troops are planning to take over on Thursday. The U.S. troops, about 8,000 in all, will remain outside of NATO control. Back at the ranch, Rumsfeld and his cohorts of generals have pressed Latin American countries to help out in the Middle East.
Nicaraguan Army Gen. Moises Omar Halleslevens said his country may send a team to Afghanistan to remove mines.
Nothing was said about the potential Nicaraguan help having to wear burkhas, though. It must have slipped Rumsey’s mind.
