The well-known and well-respected war correspondent, Dexter Filkins, writing in the New York Times on Tuesday of this past week, reported on the secret talks that have been going on for the last three months between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war in Afghanistan. The talks seemed to be showing promise, Filkins wrote, “if only because of the repeated appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Askhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement.”
Mr. Mansour was considered so critical to the success of the talks that NATO and Afghan officials held three meetings with him, he was flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraft and taken to the presidential palace for an official audience with President Hamid Karzai and, to top it off, he was given “a sizeable sum of money to take part in the talks — and to help persuade him to return.” (The amount is estimated to have been in the low six figures.) Even General Petraeus was on board, commenting favorably on the progress the talks were making with his participation, and Mr. Filkens himself was cautioned not to reveal the presence of Mr. Mansour at the negotiations for security reasons.
Then something strange and unexpected happened. At a recent meeting in Kandahar a man who knew Mr. Mansour personally was brought into the negotiating room and given a seat at the table. What followed probably went something like this:
The NATO official said to the man, “Please present yourself to Mr. Mansour.”
“Fine,” he replied, “but where’s Mr. Mansour?”
“He’s right there. He’s seated across from you.”
“Er, no, sir, he’s not. That’s not Mr. Mansour. I’ve never seen that man before. I don’t know who he is.”
[The reaction of the NATO official has not been released and is considered classified.]
There you have it. As it turned out, Mullalh Askhtar Muhammad Mansour was not really Mullah Askhtar Muhammad Mansour after all.
Dexter Filkins was thus compelled to conclude: “In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.”
Well, okay, you say, but what happened to the imposter after his cover was blown? The answer: to complete this military version of the keystone cops, somehow the guy was left unattended and he simply walked back over the border into Pakistan into the mountains from whence he came. Nobody (on our side) knows where he is — or, for that matter, who he is.
After the fact, an unnamed Western diplomat said, “It’s funny but not funny because the consequences are so staggering.”
To the contrary, I know full well that these negotiations were at least thought to have been important stuff, but come on, you all, we have to admit it — this episode in the war in Afghanistan is totally, flat-out hilarious.
Mr. Mansour was considered so critical to the success of the talks that NATO and Afghan officials held three meetings with him, he was flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraft and taken to the presidential palace for an official audience with President Hamid Karzai and, to top it off, he was given “a sizeable sum of money to take part in the talks — and to help persuade him to return.” (The amount is estimated to have been in the low six figures.) Even General Petraeus was on board, commenting favorably on the progress the talks were making with his participation, and Mr. Filkens himself was cautioned not to reveal the presence of Mr. Mansour at the negotiations for security reasons.
Then something strange and unexpected happened. At a recent meeting in Kandahar a man who knew Mr. Mansour personally was brought into the negotiating room and given a seat at the table. What followed probably went something like this:
The NATO official said to the man, “Please present yourself to Mr. Mansour.”
“Fine,” he replied, “but where’s Mr. Mansour?”
“He’s right there. He’s seated across from you.”
“Er, no, sir, he’s not. That’s not Mr. Mansour. I’ve never seen that man before. I don’t know who he is.”
[The reaction of the NATO official has not been released and is considered classified.]
There you have it. As it turned out, Mullalh Askhtar Muhammad Mansour was not really Mullah Askhtar Muhammad Mansour after all.
Dexter Filkins was thus compelled to conclude: “In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.”
Well, okay, you say, but what happened to the imposter after his cover was blown? The answer: to complete this military version of the keystone cops, somehow the guy was left unattended and he simply walked back over the border into Pakistan into the mountains from whence he came. Nobody (on our side) knows where he is — or, for that matter, who he is.
After the fact, an unnamed Western diplomat said, “It’s funny but not funny because the consequences are so staggering.”
To the contrary, I know full well that these negotiations were at least thought to have been important stuff, but come on, you all, we have to admit it — this episode in the war in Afghanistan is totally, flat-out hilarious.
Sources: Dexter Filkins, “Taliban Leader in Secret Talks Was an Impostor: Setback in NATO Effort: Man Purporting to Be Insurgents’ No. 2 Got Western Money,” New York Times A1 (November 23, 2010); Maureen Dowd, “The Great Game Imposter,” New York Times A23 (November 24, 2010).
