In Afghanistan, the CIA and other U.S. forces are pursuing wildly different objectives, seemingly without coordination. As CIA-trained and sponsored strike forces operate outside the law, the United States is also sponsoring nation-building and trying establish basic principles of the rule of law.
A new investigative report from the New York Times details how the CIA has trained and sponsored essentially lawless strike forces responsible for extrajudicial killings, abuse, and torture. These operations, while theoretically ridding militants from difficult-to-control areas, cause human suffering among some of the very people they are supposed to be protecting.
The details of those raids, as documented by reporters on the ground, are deeply troubling: burned bodies of children left in the rubble of homes, men handcuffed and hooded, shot execution-style, and women shot in the head.
As those interviewed for the investigation pointed out, this does little to build stability or trust in the U.S.-backed government.
As the article notes, “American defense officials in Washington say the CIA operations in Afghanistan are largely opaque to military generals operating in the war zone.” Without better coordination between the CIA and the military, that seems unlikely to be resolved.
In large part, that coordination between the military and the CIA should come from the White House. Ideally, bringing the force and their missions together could result in more transparency of U.S. operations against militants, legal proceedings instead of executions, and more information on those who have been taken away or why certain individuals were targeted.
Given the volatility of the region, even the best attempts at coordination will likely leave some operations against militants at odds with nation-building. But setting that inevitability aside, Washington needs to do a better job of holding U.S. operatives and the forces they train accountable to curtail the sorts of abuses documented by the Times.
