This is one of those stories where one looks twice to make sure it's not the work of The Onion. But as the report notes, the level of attention seems to reflect an alarming lack of caution in the pursuit of peace talks with the Taliban, and also recalls last year's embarrassment in which "peace talks" moved forward with an impostor claiming to represent the Taliban. "Mullah Omar, headscarves and bizarre Afghan peace talks," by Jonathon Burch for Reuters, July 15:
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's complex and often confusing business of talks with the Taliban took a surprisingly dramatic turn this week when a female lawmaker told a news conference she had recently met the militant group's leader, Mullah Omar, who agreed to make peace.
Despite questions of credibility, the large turnout to Thursday's unusual event, which included representatives from Western embassies, highlights the somewhat desperate nature of peace talks as foreign powers look for an exit from the war.
Homa Sultani, a former rights activist and now an MP from Ghazni, a volatile province southwest of Kabul, said she had met the reclusive Omar some 150 km (90 miles) from the capital and that they had wept together after deliberating the country's plight.
Omar then sat down on Sultani's headscarf which she had placed on the floor in front of him, she said, before the one-eyed fugitive leader accepted her proposal to act as his lone mediator for peace.
"It wasn't that Mullah Omar had fallen in love with my eyes or my eyebrows, we seriously engaged in peace talks," Sultani told the news conference in Kabul on Thursday.
Now, that's just weird.
Another male MP, Haji Abdul Basir, who was also at the news conference, had witnessed the meeting, Sultani said.
That Sultani's story would draw a packed audience from Kabul's local and international press corps along with low-profile Afghan delegates from Western embassies, shows just how little is really known about peace "talks" with the Taliban.
"Several embassies (inc Brits) sent people to today's bizarre presser with Mullah Omar's improbable mediators. Clutching at straws?" one Western journalist said on Twitter after the news conference.
Reports about talks have intensified as the United States and its allies prepare to gradually withdraw from Afghanistan and as acceptance grows for the need for a negotiated settlement to a war that is fast approaching its tenth year.
But so little is known about these contacts that they have been open to widely different interpretations and have had all kinds of unrealistic hopes placed on them.
Late last year, the talks process itself bordered on farce when an apparent senior Taliban leader, who had been flown to Kabul for secret talks with the Afghan government, transpired to be an impostor, leaving Afghan and foreign officials red-faced.
A Taliban spokesman dismissed Sultani's meeting as fraud, saying it would take more than a woman's scarf to bring peace. The Taliban have publicly maintained they will not enter into any negotiations as long as foreign troops are in Afghanistan.
I heard a US preacher say one time that a truce is when both sides stop shooting in order to reload. Couldn't be more true. Islam is locked into a never ending war with the West. It is true that Islamic truces can be signed but will only last as long as the Muslims think that a truce will aid their cause. Historically, we have seen it again and again. We see the same thing today. I don't know who this woman is but w/o a doubt she is spreading bologna. Anytime Islam speaks of a truce; look out!
When will we mature enough to recognize the elitist supremacist (sociopathic) nature of Islamic doctrine, which appeals to man's fallen nature and love of money (Islamic plunder), sex, and power (over women and non-Muslims)? When will we finally recognize red herrings and Muhammad's deceit of war? When will we look at the long history of Islamic conquest and learn something?
The Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, met with the Muslim King of Saudi Arabia to "talk peace." When she refused his offer of peace through his "protection" (dhimmitude), she was denounced by him as being just a woman and he was later assassinated. Now, we have Clinton,let alone this ridiculous woman claiming to broker peace with the Taliban, talking "peace" with the Muslim world. The horrifying thing is that Golda Meir refused to submit to Islam under the King's "protection," but Clinton would sell out her country and the rest of humanity just to have a photo op like her husband did when he brokered a worthless peace (hudna) agreement. More horrifying still, apparently, the world would rush to accept a "peace" (i.e. submission) agreement with the Taliban, no matter how flimsy.
Any peace the Taliban agree to will only temporary to allow them to regroup and reorganise. As the Quran tells us Allah is the greatest of deceivers.
Now, let me get this straight:
Omar,
1) who has gone through hell
2 avoiding assassination from the US for 10+ years
3) who is one of the history's greatest misogynists,
4) decides he wants to talk peace
5) now that foreign troops are leaving!,
6) this same Omar, one of history's greatest misogynists
7) seeks out a female activist
8) who is a women in a political position
10) that he outlawed more than 10 years ago
11) he doesn't kill her for being an activist & politician
12) he wants her to help broker peace when he now doesn't need it
13) and he comes within 90 miles of the capital in easy US drone range to do so.
And the embassies fell for this?!!!
No wonder the west has done so poorly in Afghanistan, our politicians and their representatives are doinks.
How could any embassy official think the above was credible enough to listen to. Hell my worry would have been it was a trick to get as many government and foreign embassy officials together that they could all be taken out with one or two missiles hits.
I'm beginning to understand the Obama-Clinton thing about working with the Muslim Brotherhood.
This has never been about dhimmitude. It has been about doinkitude.
Even so, I sure hope the US has plenty of spies scoping out Homa Sultani. She's obviously up to something.