by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright Oct. 3, 2006
All Rights Reserved.

ouring Afghanistan with fellow Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Flo.), Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a former heart surgeon and possible 2008 presidential candidate, rendered his diagnosis, urging the shaky government of Hamid Karzai to bring “people who call themselves Taliban” into the fold. Swept into power with the help of Osama bin Laden in 1996, the Taliban conducted a violent campaign creating a repressive Islamic theocracy, displacing remnants of the old communist regime, leaving power to Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Masoud and former Soviet Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum. Bin Laden's mujahedeen fighters, called Brigade 055, were integrated in 1997 into the Taliban army, led by a little-known one-eyed mullah named Mohammed Omar. Omar, a tribal Pashtun Sunni, adhered to strict Shariah law from Islam's most conservative Wahabi sect.

      Omar ordered the 2001 destruction of two of Buddhism's most priceless 38 and 53-meter-tall monuments called the Bamiyan Buddhas, carved into Afghan cliffs some 1,500 and 1,800 years ago. Omar's public executions and mutilations drew less world condemnation than destruction of centuries old Buddhas. Two days before Sept. 11, Al Qaeda and the Taliban succeeded in killing Masoud, a Pashtun hero fighting against the Soviets for Afghan independence. Frist's suggestion to incorporate remnants of the Taliban into Karzai's government is no different than asking Osama bin Laden to join the party. During the years before Sept. 11, the Taliban and Al Qaeda were virtually inseparable, providing Omar with the force needed to tyrannize Afghanistan. Frist forgets that Bin Laden left the Sudan in 1996, literally buying part of the Afghanistan with cash and his terrorist army.

      Frist's public comments about incorporating the Taliban into Karzai's government ignore the reality of one the world's most dangerous and corrupt regimes. Bin Laden reportedly paid Omar $40 million for a piece of Afghanistan's opium trade, supplying 75% of the world's heroin and narcotic street drugs. It didn't take long for Frist to get brainwashed on his trip to Afghanistan, believing terrorists' propaganda that the resurgent Taliban was unstopple. “You need to bring them into a more transparent government,” Frist told the press during a brief visit to a U.S. and Romanian military base in southern Afghanistan. “And it that's accomplished, we'll be successful,” failing to recognize the Taliban would topple Karzai's government. Like Al Qaeda, Taliban fanatics would stop nothing short of eradicating Afghan's pro-Western, pro-civil rights government.

      Bringing the Taliban into Karzai's government would be the end of all Western influence. Mullah Mohammed Omar would restore Sheik Bin Laden as the spiritual master of the pan-Islamic movement. Frist forgets Bin Laden plotted the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole, and, yes, Sept. 11 with the help of the Taliban during the years before the slaughter of 2,700 U.S. citizens. Winning the hearts and minds of Afghans has nothing to do with acquiescing to the Taliban or Bin Laden. Frist's call to “assimilate people who call themselves Taliban into a larger, more representative government,” would be like inviting the Nazis into Germany's post-WW II government. Key members of the Taliban, including the one-eyed Omar, remain fugitives from justice, guilty of genocide, war crimes and supporting the most deadly attack in U.S. history.

      Joining the enemy solves nothing in Afghanistan, Iraq or anywhere else the U.S. fights terrorists. Whatever insurgency exists in Afghanistan, it's up to Karzai together with NATO to battle outlaws whose main goal is destroying his government. Frist's kidding himself believing there's room for negotiation and compromise. “Approaching counterinsurgency by winning hearts and minds will ultimately be the answer,” said Frist, confused over the Taliban's goal of infiltration, toppling the Karzai government and returning to power. No matter how Frist's damage control spins it, the senate majority leader showed a blinding lapse of judgment hurting the GOP in November and his presidential aspirations. With the Securities and Exchange Commission still investigating his dubious stock sale of his family's hospital business, Frist is already under a dark cloud.

      White House damage control experts gyrate trying to explain why the senate majority leader wants to get in bed with the Taliban. Whether in Iraq or Afghanistan, the U.S. must refuse to negotiate with terrorists and mass murders. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar and other remnants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban continue to plot the overthrow of Afghanistan and the U.S. Whether there's an endless supply of Taliban or not, the U.S. must relentlessly pursue the perpetrators and collaborators of Sept. 11. Since Bin Laden's son reportedly married Omar's daughter, the two terrorists are joined at the hip. Frist needs to recant his recent remarks or take an early retirement. Bringing the Taliban into Karzai's government won't stop Afghanistan's insurgency, claiming 2,800 lives in 2006. Frist's plan would hand Afghanistan back to Bin Laden.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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