On Nobility and the CIA’s War in Afghanistan by Ian Allen - The Cipher Brief
On December 31, The New York Times published a piece that claimed Afghan forces “trained and equipped by CIA agents or contractors” were conducting “torture and killings with near impunity.” The piece opens with the description of one such raid where an alleged CIA-trained strike force burst into a family’s home, separated the men from the women and children, and began shooting.
If the insinuation that the men and women were separated only for ease of execution was insufficiently evocative, we are then told that one woman had been shot three times in the head and a child had been burned to death in her torched bedroom. In six unequivocal sentences, the murdered woman and immolated child become helpful journalistic tools for a case to be made; people whose suffering need not be embellished, but merely laid bare for the higher purpose: ending CIA atrocities.
Forgive my rage. As a former CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer who served in the places where these atrocities allegedly took place, (and I know the Americans still serving there), perhaps I’m too close to it. Perhaps I shed too much blood in Afghanistan. Perhaps I have too many dead friends, Afghan and American. Perhaps I’ve seen too many colleagues slandered too many times, Afghan and American. Or perhaps having risked and fought for and still absolutely believing in, the Agency’s core value – And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free – has caused me to finally hit my limit of one-sidedness and I can no longer swallow hard and go on quietly, as me and my colleagues usually do when this kind of story is told…