The hallmark of the American approach to Afghanistan has been to negotiate with the Taliban.  American diplomats,  at the direction of the Obama Administration,  have been sitting down for detailed negotiations with Mullah Mansour, a senior commander of the Taliban. This has been Obama’s great solution to the Afghan mess.  I’ve written before how its a bad idea to cut a deal with senior Taliban officials.  They simply can’t be trusted. Now comes this very strange report from the New York Times that the man sitting at the other end of the table,  who they thought was Mansour,  was actually an impostor.  American officials discovered this after three meetings,  including one that was held with Afghan President Karzai. Reports one of the diplomats involved in the negotiations,  ”we gave him a lot of money.”

How does something like this happen? It strikes me as incredibly bizarre that we could be fooled so easily.   Also, why are we giving senior Taliban commanders “lots of money” for what are simply negotiations?

What our enemies must think of us…