OPINION:
Here we go again. If the past is prologue, then The Washington Post has started a false media campaign that will destroy quite possibly one of the most effective U.S. counterterror programs in Afghanistan. The Washington Post writes that a CIA “highly secretive paramilitary unit has been implicated in civilian killings, torture, questionable detentions, arbitrary arrests and use of excessive force in controversial night raids, abuses that have mostly not been previously disclosed.” The unwritten inference: If the CIA has created such a thing, then surely we must get it under control or do away with it.
The operation it condemns involves the Khost Protection Force, or KPF, a CIA-run indigenous force that operates in a very dangerous region along the Afghan-Pakistan border. As proof of CIA skullduggery, the newspaper offers the story of a man whose parents were mistakenly killed by the KPF, and how he was compensated when the mistake was acknowledged. Three other stories involve a man who was also paid compensation after his 17-year-old son was killed when he failed to stop at a KPF checkpoint; a man whose son was apparently murdered, resulting in a criminal trial of three KPF soldiers, with one acquitted and two sent to jail; and a couple who were killed in a KPF night raid, the facts of which are omitted, but again ending with compensation being paid.
Other smoking guns used to assess the KPF program include an anonymous man arrested by the KPF and subsequently let go who complained, “They capture anyone they want for no reason”; an unidentified U.N. report suggesting five KPF detainees were “subjected to ill treatment,” without mentioning what the treatment was; and the author’s personal observation about KPF night raids: “But Afghans consider the intrusions offensive.” It’s a sensationalist account with breathless reporting — the stuff of modern American journalism — but it is garbage.
The supposition and innuendo The Washington Post uses to condemn the CIA’s Khost operation mirrors the sensationalist but inaccurate reporting that undermined the Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War, a CIA program that attacked and destroyed the political infrastructure that supported that country’s Communist insurgency — an insurgency, incidentally, that used many of the same tactics now being used by the Taliban and ISIS to terrorize civilians.
During the Vietnam War, a phenomenon known as pack journalism occurred. Reporters ignored or debunked assertions by former CIA Director William Colby and others that Phoenix was eliminating Communist agents and defeating the insurgency in favor of a more sensationalist, but untrue, narrative of a morally corrupt CIA running amuck, managing an “assassination” program, rife with misconduct and malfeasance. This false narrative led to calls for the CIA to disband the program, which it eventually did. The lure of writing sensationalist stories about the CIA was simply too much for most journalists to resist, proving Napoleon right: “History is a set of lies agreed upon.”
Having won the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese Communist rejected the narrative “agreed upon” by the chardonnay pundits. Referring to Phoenix, Nguyen thi Dinh, a senior Vietcong leader, said, “Very dangerous.” It caused “the loss of thousands of our cadres,” said North Vietnamese strategist, Col. Bui Tin. “Extremely destructive,” said Gen. Tran Do, deputy Communist commander in South Vietnam. It “wiped out many of our bases,” compelling a retreat to Cambodia, said Nguyen Co Thach, the new Communist foreign minister. Ironically, Colby’s enemies proved him right.
The idea of real-time, actionable and targeted intelligence, coupled with rapid, flexible and lethal raids by U.S. or indigenous forces to destroy the enemy, a concept begun by Phoenix, has proven to be very effective in defeating groups that kill innocent people to advance their cause, whether you call them insurgents, terrorists or something else. It lays at the heart of today’s special operations — the killing of Osama bin Laden being but one example — but it is a nasty, bloody, high-risk business, requiring judgment and rapid decision-making, often with less-than perfect-information. Flaws and mistakes occur because it is war, humans are fallible, and people in life-and-death struggles don’t play by Marquess of Queensberry Rules.
There may be problems with the CIA’s operations in Khost — poor intelligence, poor training, bad decision-making, even bad apples — but some things are pretty clear. First, Afghan politicians and police, denied access to KPF funds, manpower and equipment, are jealous and only too ready to dish dirt, real or imagined, to gullible U.S. reporters. Second, if the CIA turns over operational or payroll control to the Afghanis, the KPF will become ineffective and corrupt. When the Afghanis start making mistakes — and they will — don’t look for compensation payments or criminal trials. Third, if the program has flaws, the solution is to fix, not destroy it, because the operational concept is sound.
Finally, The Washington Post’s narrative that indicts American CIA officers for unlawful killings, torture, questionable detentions, arbitrary arrests, excessive force and cover-ups is simply untrue. It is Phoenix reporting redux, a sensationalist narrative based on supposition and innuendo. It may sell newspapers, but it is false, and does an enormous disservice to the men and women who are trying to win a very nasty war.
• Bruce Lawlor, a U.S. Army retired major general, was a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council and the former chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security.
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