As guest-host of The Rachel Maddow Show last night, Chris Hayes invited Nation investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill onto the show to get his take on the revelation that the Taliban leader of NATO-sponsored peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban was actually an impostor.

Scahill, who recently returned from a reporting trip in Afghanistan, says that while the fraud is amusing in some ways, it is actually a "very serious issue." Scahill says, "If they can’t even figure out who is a real Taliban leader to meet with, what does that say about the people who are being killed on a regular basis by special operation forces? It means that what we heard on the ground is true: There are people being killed who have no connection to the Taliban." 

Hayes and Scahill point out that when it is becoming increasingly clear that a military victory for the coalition forces in Afghanistan is highly unlikely, diplomacy is the best option. But with the US policy to kill Taliban leaders instead of emphasizing diplomatic efforts, not only will the US lose the war, when they withdraw from Afghanistan, they will leave the country ripe for years of civil war.

Scahill identifies a "sober question" that the Obama administration needs to consider: "Is our policy in Afghanistan actually making Americans less safe? I think it is."

—Joanna Chiu