The Infinite Justice Of Frist

Ethan Heitner

October 05, 2006

Poor Bill Frist. After finishing a grueling session of selling out American freedom in the Senate, the Republican leader decided to take a quick jaunt to Afghanistan to see how they were loving their freedom. Apparently the dose of reality that slapped him in the face produced a bit of a shock. Speaking from the military base in Qalat, Frist said some things that got him into hot water at home:

[T]he war against Taliban guerrillas in Afghanistan could never be won militarily, and he urged support for efforts to bring "people who call themselves Taliban" into the government.

Frist said he learned from military 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," he said during a visit to a military base in the Taliban stronghold of Qalat. "And if that's accomplished, we'll be successful."

"FRIST SAYS AFGHAN WAR CAN'T BE WON" screamed the headlines. "TALIBAN SHOULD BE INVITED INTO AFGHAN GOVERNMENT."

"Wait!" screamed Bill Frist's staff. "That's not what we meant!" He hastily issued a clarifying statement:

First of all, let me make something clear: The Taliban is a murderous band of terrorists who’ve oppressed the people of Afghanistan with their hateful ideology long enough. America’s overthrow of the Taliban and support for responsible, democratic governance in Afghanistan is a great accomplishment that should not and will not be reversed.

Having discussed the situation with commanders on the ground, 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.

National reconciliation is a necessary and an urgent priority … but America will never negotiate with terrorists or support their entry into Afghanistan’s government.

Got that? Of course, sadly, predictably, more inept than Frist's furious spinning was the response from the Democratic leadership. Desperate to thump their chests and prove how tough they are, the Dems went Rove on Frist:

Phil Singer, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said, "Doctors are supposed to wear the white coat, not wave the white flag. Dr. Frist's proposal to surrender to the Taliban ignores the fact that they enabled the 9/11 hijackers, give safe haven to al-Qaida and remain hell-bent on destroying Western civilization."

This from the Kerry-Clinton-Clinton crowd who didn't have a problem with invading Iraq, they just think it was done badly. Their whole shtick is that now they realize that bombing the brown people in Iraq is a mistake—because it distracts us from our real mission of bombing the brown people in Afghanistan.

This shows they have yet to learn the actual lesson of Iraq (and Afghanistan, and Lebanon, Gaza, Vietnam, what-have-you): Overwhelming foreign military force cannot win against guerilla forces operating in their native environment with the support of the civillian population with whom they share an ethnic and religious identity.

See, what the Dems should have said was: Bill Frist is shockingly, appallingly correct.

In other words, welcome to the loony left, Bill. Let me be the first to hand you your lei and invite you to join the real party—what one of TomPaine.com's readers described as our very own "gay Spanish-speaking communist paradise."

The American army can't shoot people into agreeing with us. Bravo, Bill. Now be brave enough to say the same thing about Iraq.

Of course, it's not that easy. Bill, like all politicians, is prone to firing off his mouth without knowing a damn thing about what he's talking about. Dr. Juan Cole pointed out in an e-mail to TomPaine.com:

The U.S. cannot win the hearts and minds of Pashtuns , because it put the Northern Alliance in power in the country, i.e. Tajiks, Shiite Hazaras, and Uzbeks. The Pashtuns are used to ruling and they aren't going to put up with this. Moreover, Helmand Province is among the biggest producers of poppies, and U.S./ Kabul eradication campaigns have alienated Pashtun farmers there.

Still, Frist gets points for trying.

"I have been watching the effort here to portray Frist as naive or stupid," Dr. Gordon Adams, a defense analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International School, told TomPaine.com via e-mail. "He might be either, neither, or both, but if you set aside the author of the comment, and just examine the issue, there is no doubt that the struggle against insurgencies is not only a question of military force, but of how one uses the entire toolkit of statecraft to achieve one's ends."

"Our current policy has set us on a very bad course, not only in Afghanistan, but in Iraq and in general in the struggle with terrorist organizations and the militant, militarized fringe of Islamic fundamentalism.  All counter-insurgency operations are political ... Put another way, it is not our 'values,' culture or democracy that is the focus of enmity and insurgency, it is our policies and our military presence that is the target."

The British army, which is doing the bulk of the fighting in Afghanistan and finding it is quickly turning into the U.K.'s Vietnam—or is that Iraq?—have belatedly realized this. They've started making deals with local tribes, much like the much-derided deals made by Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan recently. In exchange for the Taliban keeping out, British tanks stay out too. Everyone wins.

Adams believes that the U.S. army has been forced to (re)learn this lesson from Vietnam in Afghanistan and is starting to in Iraq, but that political and civillian leadership is still far behind. "This is what is wrong with our policy in Lebanon, Iran, and North Korea—it is the refusal to use statecraft and engage that exacerbates the problem.  It converts a situation we don't like—terrorists in a government, a potential nuclear power, a "real" nuclear-armed state—and pushes it to confrontation."

The problem is that the military can only do so much do pursue non-military strategies for our national security. Can the Democratic Party learn from Bush's mistake and realize that smart defense means utilizing different tools, and not just using the same hammer in different places?