Saddam had to go, but the Taliban...

[Doug]

DOUG
Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with 9/11, who hated Al Qaida, who did not lend support to Osama bin Laden, who had no weapons of mass destruction, had to be deposed, the Bush administration argues.

But the Taliban, who protected and promoted Al Qaida, is not so bad, Republicans think...

More Topsy-turvy conservative thinking. Hypocrisy.

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From the Associated Press:

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.

The Tennessee Republican said he had learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated by military means.

"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."

Read the rest here.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

The Taliban, Hezbollah, and the rest of the strong but non-governmental organizations do need to be brought into the government, where their extreme views can be tempered, but their strong points can be utilized. If I didn't know the Rs will use anything to stay in power, I'd say Frist has learned something from the Iraq debacle. Unfortunately, he just hopes to distance himself from W long enough to win re-election - then back to the same ol' neocon rubberstamp.