Bill Frist: Let's bring the Taliban into Afghan government

[elbales]

No, I'm serious. You can't make this shit up.

U.S. Senate majority leader calls for efforts to bring Taliban into Afghan government

The Associated Press
MONDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2006

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

Hello? Remember why we invaded in the first place? Taliban ♥ Al Qaeda? War on Terror? Am I ringing any bells, Mr. Frist?

Go ahead, Mr. Frist. Admit it. It was never about a "war on terror." It was all about oil, war profiteering for your biggest donors, and using terrorists as a way to terrify Americans into giving up control and civil liberties so you and the Shrub's inner circle could create a fascist government, stay in power for life, and live like fat cats while the rest of us fall below the poverty line.

One Daily Kos diary collected some of the responses from Repubs.

What. The. Fuck.


(Oh, and if I disappear, we'll all know who's responsible, won't we?

ETA: (...Kidding! I'm not high-profile enough to disappear.)

Comments

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

Elizabeth, you're thinking too linearly if you think oil and profiteering has _anything_ to do with what the NeoCons are up to.

The NeoCons, created in the late 40's, believe that in order to save western civilization's comfortable way of life, they have to create polarized situation where there is:

a) an Evil Empire to rally against (even if the empire isn't that evil, and isn't really a threat ... see "The Soviet Union during the 1980's", when it was already crumbling from within, yet then Under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld painted them as "The Evil Empire on the verge of striking against the Democracy Loving West" and managed to sell that perspective to Pres. Reagan).

b) a necessary mythology (even if the NeoCons themselves don't believe in it) to rally behind (see: the absolute raping and co-opting of christian politics by the NeoCons, starting in the early/mid-80's, including the 90's, and including the last 6 years),

so that they can focus the west on a common enemy, and prevent a slip into "decadent liberalism" (essentially). (sound very 1984? ... the war with the east is irrelevant to the party, it serves only as the source of fear, the justification for extreme measures, and the austere conditions)


You want to know why we're at war with a "Vast Terrorist Network (that didn't actually exist before 9/11/01)?" Because the Soviet Union collapsed, and the NeoCons need their evil empire to rally against. You know why Bush, who can't quote a scripture to save his life, plays up faith based initiatives and his being "born again"? Because the NeoCons need a necessary mythology, that they themselves don't actually believe in, to rally the public behind.

The part you got right is fascism. They use Arab Fundamentalism as the new Judaism, and they use Christianity in place of Aryan Mythology. And they're doing it to build a more glorious empire, and preserve "the American Way of Life" (nevermind that last week they pretty much put a bullet in the skull of the western way of life). Fascism is exactly it.

Oil and profiteering are as important to the NeoCons as Christianity is... meaning "not at all". It is a necessary alliance to their rise to power, and retaining power. Their goal is that new American Empire. Pax Americana. The oil companies are as much pawns to that goal as the Religious Right is.

Do you think that they really ever planned to let the Taliban die? That would be as bad for them as the collapse of the Soviet Union ... who would be their Evil Empire then? And when it looked like we might be finishing up in Afghanistan, and we just needed to do the last 20% of the job, why wouldn't we finish it instead of moving into a new conflict that would make us a lightning rod for new Islamic Extremist violence? Because it perpetuates the new Evil Empire. It allows it to continue coming back for more, making new semi-credible threats, and thus continue to feed the stance of the NeoCons.

The last time their evil empire collapsed, they lost 13 good years of progress to liberal excess ... until 9/11/01. You don't really think they're going to let themselves be put into another phase of being put out to pasture because the Evil Empire is gone, do you? They want a new and improved Evil Empire, this time around.

Hm. Perhaps enough of a rant for tonight :-}

Must... have... Great Enemy...

[elbales]

Actually, I do know the things you mentioned; I just didn't mention them in my post. It wasn't intended to be an exhaustive breakdown of the neocon worldview. :)

I'm really glad you posted, though; it gives other readers more fodder for reflection, so thank you.

I would say that profiteering is actually important to them in one sense, in that some of that money does actually end up in their pockets, but yes, it's mostly to win support from their cronies.

One thing you didn't state specifically is that the neocons want to impose Western-style democracy on other countries. Sort of an "if you won't do it yourselves, we'll make you" situation. But nobody wants to admit that that's what we're doing, because there's no political will to do all the grunt work of nationbuilding. So we end up with half-assed puppet regimes like the one in Iraq. But I'm leaving a lot out here, too, so unless you feel like laying it out in a comment I'm going to let this stand, oversimplified as it is. ;)

Re: Must... have... Great Enemy...

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

I didn't actually mean to get all preachy and lecture-y :-}

It wasn't that I thought you didn't know, it was just a rant that's been building up in my head for the last few days, and once I started to reply, it all just kept spilling out.

Re: Must... have... Great Enemy...

[elbales]

:)

[ebrin.livejournal.com]

As if the Republican Party doesn't have enough to deal with with the Mark Foley scandal.

Though maybe they just needed someone to say or do something even more stupid, to take attention away from that.

[elbales]

My husband said to me last night, "You know how much attention the BBC has devoted to this? None. It's a sex scandal, that's all. Did you know there's a new Secretary-General of the UN?"

I said, "It's a pedophilia scandal. And no, I didn't; who is it?"

(Actually it's not decided yet, but it sounds pretty certain it's the S. Korean foreign minister.)

He pointed out 1) that Foley never actually came out and said directly that he wanted to have sex with the young man (I haven't read the transcripts; ick factor too high) and 2) that the age of consent in Washington, DC is 16.

Yeah, I still think the guy is sick. You think he's going to stick to 16-year-olds? I have doubts.

[ebrin.livejournal.com]

All the news I've read (albeit, my American news reading tends to be a bit gay-centric), has been following a whole lot of people in Washington running around with their hands in the air screaming, "THE CHILDREN! THE CHILDREN!" Bay Buchanan, et al. If they were to be believed, this debacle could mean that a whole bunch of Republican congresspeople and staff get ousted. Apparently a big deal.

A greater concern of mine though is that, legal age or not, this could end up being one more case used in the "all homosexuals are pedophiles" argument. The Republicans have already said that they didn't initially look into it because it might have been perceived as vilifying gays (though their track record doesn't really give this much credence...). And those decrying this situation--Bay Buchanan, and more notably the Wall Street Journal--are already saying that the fact that Foley was a "known homosexual" should have inherently made him unsuitable for working with pages and on the child protection panel he did. And I hate both sides of that. Either way, the rest of us are seen as predators. I think the focus should be that Foley was abusing his position and trying to seduce a subordinate, who happened to be sixteen years old. Not the fact that both parties involved are male. But like that's going to happen.

Sorry if I'm not making much sense... It's 3:30am here and this comment is giving me an aside to writing a nightmare of an essay.

I'd suggest watching this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2Pvqe36nRs&eurl=) though. If you haven't already seen it. It puts everything into perspective.

[elbales]

Jon Stewart rocks.

The gay = pedophile thing is repulsive, yes.

[psybelle.livejournal.com]

Sweetie - nobody's actually going to disappear you or me. Unfortunately, nobody pays attention to us whiny ranty bloggers but other whiny ranty bloggers...


Did you hear something? . . . What was that click?

[elbales]

Honest, I was kidding. Should have added "Ha ha ha" at the end, shouldn't I? ;)

Heh.