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.