As the Cold War thawed and the Soviet Union crumbled, many believed that the shadowy world of covert operations, with its clandestine coups and manipulations, might finally come to an end. Yet, the CIA was far from becoming a relic of a bygone era. Instead, it shifted its focus to new arenas: the volatile Middle East and, eventually, the global stage with the War on Terror. The crimes of the past hadn’t been forgotten, but the lessons learned—if any—weren’t applied with the caution one might expect.
The new mission was no longer to contain communism but to maintain control in a world that had become unpredictable. The agency, freed from the moral framework of battling an ideological enemy, now found itself playing God in regions already destabilized by years of Western intervention. In this part, we’ll explore how the CIA’s actions post-Cold War have continued to blur the lines between national security and criminality.
In the late 1970s, Soviet tanks rumbled into Afghanistan, launching a military invasion that would change the course of history. The U.S. saw an opportunity to bleed the Soviet Union dry by supporting Afghan mujahideen fighters in a proxy war against the Soviets. The CIA, through Operation Cyclone, began supplying arms, training, and financial support to these insurgents. Billions of dollars flowed into Afghanistan, fueling the resistance and turning it into one of the longest, bloodiest chapters of the Cold War.
But as the saying goes, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"—until they’re no longer useful. Among the many fighters supported by the CIA during this period was a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden. The very same network that the CIA had helped build and empower during the Afghan-Soviet war would later give rise to Al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks in 2001.
The CIA’s role in arming the mujahideen is a classic example of unintended consequences. What was once seen as a brilliant maneuver to weaken Soviet influence ultimately birthed a global terror network that would come back to haunt the U.S. decades later.
How many times can an organization make the same mistake before it learns? If destabilizing nations is the primary tactic, can we ever expect long-term peace to emerge from short-term gains?
Fast forward to the post-9/11 world, where the U.S. launched its War on Terror. In the frantic, fear-filled aftermath of the attacks, the CIA found itself once again operating in the shadows—this time with a global mandate to root out and eliminate terrorist threats. But what price was the agency willing to pay for this newfound mission? How far could it go before crossing the line into criminality?
One of the darkest elements of the War on Terror has been the CIA’s use of extraordinary rendition. This is a process where suspected terrorists are captured and secretly transported to foreign countries, often those with poor human rights records, to be interrogated—or tortured—without due process. Rendition essentially allowed the U.S. government to bypass its own legal system by sending detainees to places where “enhanced interrogation techniques” could be used with impunity.
Many detainees subjected to extraordinary rendition were never charged with a crime. They were simply disappeared into a legal black hole, left at the mercy of foreign governments and private contractors acting on behalf of the CIA.
One notorious example is the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was detained by U.S. authorities in 2002 while transiting through JFK Airport in New York. Arar was suspected of having ties to Al-Qaeda, despite no evidence to support this claim. The CIA transferred him to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured for nearly a year. It was only after intense public outcry and an investigation by the Canadian government that Arar was released—completely innocent of any wrongdoing.
While extraordinary rendition allowed the CIA to send suspects abroad for torture, black sites became another terrifying tool in the agency’s arsenal. These are secret prisons located in undisclosed locations around the world where suspected terrorists were held, often without trial or access to legal counsel. The CIA used these sites to carry out brutal interrogations far from the prying eyes of international law.
In 2005, The Washington Post revealed the existence of these black sites, causing an international scandal. The locations of these prisons ranged from Eastern Europe to Southeast Asia, and even included a facility in Guantanamo Bay. Inside these hidden dungeons, detainees were subjected to waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and other forms of physical and psychological torture designed to break their will.
One infamous case is that of Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi national who was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and transferred to a black site. There, Zubaydah was waterboarded at least 83 times, subjected to mock executions, and locked in a coffin-like box for hours at a time. Although the CIA initially claimed that Zubaydah was a high-level Al-Qaeda operative, it was later revealed that he had no significant role in the organization.
The CIA’s black site program remains one of the most egregious examples of the agency’s willingness to operate above the law, all in the name of fighting terror. But does the end justify the means?
The CIA’s involvement in the Middle East didn’t end with the War on Terror. In 2012, the agency launched Operation Timber Sycamore, a covert program aimed at arming and training Syrian rebels to overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Much like in Afghanistan decades earlier, the goal was to use proxy fighters to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives without committing American troops.
But just as in Afghanistan, the operation quickly spiraled out of control. Many of the weapons and training provided by the CIA ended up in the hands of extremist groups, including ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front—both of which would go on to commit horrific atrocities in the region.
The U.S. had, once again, armed the very forces it would later have to fight.
Operation Timber Sycamore raises fundamental questions about the CIA’s role in the world: How many times can an agency repeat the same mistakes without accountability? And why do these operations, which often result in more instability and bloodshed, continue to be justified as necessary?
As we examine these operations—Operation Cyclone, extraordinary rendition, black sites, and Timber Sycamore—a common thread emerges: a culture of secrecy that allows the CIA to act with near impunity. The agency’s actions are often hidden from the public eye, shielded by claims of national security. When mistakes are made, they’re buried in classified files, declassified only when it’s too late to change the course of history.
What makes this even more troubling is the lack of accountability. When Operation Ajax or MKUltra came to light, there was no widespread reckoning. The same holds true for the CIA’s post-9/11 abuses. While there have been investigations, such as the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture, these efforts often feel like a drop in the ocean. No one is held accountable, and the agency continues its operations as if nothing has changed.
So far we’ve explored the CIA's dark history of foreign interventions, domestic experiments, and post-Cold War operations, each carrying profound consequences. Now, we turn to a deeper question—one that has lingered in the backdrop of every CIA action: Do the ends ever justify the means?
How can a democratic society, ostensibly committed to principles like human rights, justice, and transparency, reconcile with the actions of an institution that operates in secrecy, often in ways that contradict those very principles? This is not just a question of legality but one of morality and ethics. Can covert operations, assassinations, mind-control experiments, and torture ever be morally justified if they are done in the name of protecting national security?
In this part, we’ll dig into the ethical dilemmas presented by the CIA’s operations. We’ll analyze key philosophical questions that arise from these actions, and ask whether it’s possible—or desirable—for a nation to uphold both democratic values and secretive, sometimes criminal, methods of foreign policy.
Democracy thrives on accountability and the rule of law. Citizens are bound by laws, and when those laws are broken, justice is supposed to follow. But the CIA operates outside this framework. It is a unique entity in American life, one that is allowed to break laws in the name of enforcing them. How does one justify that paradox?
Take the case of the assassination plots organized by the CIA in the 1960s under Operation Mongoose. This series of covert actions, sanctioned by the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, aimed to remove Cuban leader Fidel Castro from power. Assassination is illegal under both U.S. and international law, and yet the CIA attempted to carry out this very crime on numerous occasions—using everything from poison pens to exploding cigars. Castro survived, but the sheer number of attempts to kill him became almost farcical.
Now imagine if the situation were reversed. What if Cuban intelligence had repeatedly tried to assassinate U.S. leaders during that same period? Would it have been considered an act of war? Likely. But when the CIA does it, it’s seen as part of the complex game of geopolitics.
This double standard creates a dangerous precedent. If we justify extrajudicial killings in the name of national interest, where does the line get drawn? How can we demand justice from others while allowing ourselves to be exempt from it?
Torture is, by its very nature, one of the most ethically fraught actions a government can undertake. It is banned under international law for a reason: it dehumanizes both the torturer and the tortured. And yet, in the wake of 9/11, the CIA began using “enhanced interrogation techniques,” a euphemism for torture, as part of its strategy to extract information from suspected terrorists.
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program revealed just how brutal these techniques were. Detainees were waterboarded, deprived of sleep, shackled in stress positions, and subjected to mock executions. Some detainees were innocent, caught up in the chaos of the War on Terror, yet they suffered the same fate as those genuinely involved in terrorism.
Defenders of these methods often use a consequentialist argument: if torturing one person can prevent a terrorist attack that kills thousands, isn’t it justified? But this utilitarian logic—where the ends justify the means—opens the door to moral compromise. Where does it end? If torture is acceptable in extreme cases, what other moral boundaries are we willing to cross? Could it lead to the justification of other forms of brutality, as long as they’re cloaked in the guise of national security?
Interestingly, there is little evidence to suggest that torture actually works as an effective method of interrogation. Many experts argue that torture often leads to unreliable information, as people will say anything to make the pain stop. This raises another important question: Is it worth compromising our moral values for methods that may not even achieve their intended results?
One of the most significant ethical concerns surrounding the CIA is its use of secrecy. A functioning democracy requires transparency—without it, how can citizens hold their government accountable? Yet secrecy is inherent to intelligence work, and in many cases, it is necessary for protecting operatives, gathering information, or safeguarding national interests.
But when does secrecy become a cover for criminal activity?
The CIA’s covert operations are often hidden not just from the public but from Congress, the very institution charged with oversight. Operation MKUltra, for example, was carried out with virtually no oversight, and when it was finally exposed, the full extent of the program was destroyed by CIA Director Richard Helms, who ordered the shredding of thousands of documents.
The use of secrecy makes it nearly impossible to apply ethical scrutiny in real-time. When we learn about these operations—decades after they’ve occurred—the damage has already been done. The very nature of secrecy undermines the possibility of democratic accountability.
Philosophers like St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas articulated the theory of just war, a set of criteria that must be met for a war to be morally justifiable. These include just cause, proportionality, and the distinction between combatants and civilians. The CIA’s operations—especially those involving drones and covert warfare—blur these lines, raising ethical concerns about the morality of such actions.
Think about the CIA’s use of drone strikes in countries like Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. These strikes are often justified as necessary to eliminate terrorist leaders, but the reality is that many strikes kill civilians, including women and children, who are caught in the crossfire. The precision of drone warfare is touted as a major advantage, yet it is far from perfect.
One of the most controversial cases involved a drone strike in Yemen in 2011, which killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric who had become a key figure in Al-Qaeda. While al-Awlaki was indeed involved in terrorist activities, the strike that killed him also resulted in the death of his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who had no connection to terrorism. The U.S. government offered no formal explanation for Abdulrahman’s death, raising ethical questions about the use of extrajudicial killings and the blurring of combatant and civilian status.
Drone warfare poses profound ethical questions about the changing nature of war. When an agency like the CIA can kill people across the globe with the push of a button, without trial or accountability, does it not risk becoming judge, jury, and executioner all in one?
When it comes to the CIA, some argue that we must accept it as a “necessary evil.” The world, after all, is full of threats—terrorist organizations, authoritarian regimes, rogue states—and intelligence agencies are essential to countering those threats. Yet, the idea of a “necessary evil” implies that we are willing to tolerate certain moral transgressions for the sake of a greater good. But if we tolerate those transgressions too often, do we risk becoming morally corrupt ourselves?
Is the CIA’s brand of secrecy, manipulation, and criminal activity the inevitable result of wielding power in an uncertain world? Or is it possible to imagine an intelligence agency that operates within ethical bounds, respects the rule of law, and is accountable to the public it serves?
As we learn more about the darker aspects of the CIA's history, one thing becomes very clear: the agency’s actions, often carried out in the name of national security, have left behind a legacy of moral compromise, international instability, and profound ethical questions. From mind control experiments to torture programs, from covert coups to extrajudicial assassinations, the CIA has, in many ways, come to represent the more shadowy and dangerous elements of American power.
This raises a critical question: Is the CIA beyond reform? Can we ever hope to reshape an institution with such a deep running history of corruption, secrecy and lawlessness into something that aligns with democratic values, or must we accept the agency as it is—a "necessary" evil, as some have argued?
One of the core problems with the CIA is its lack of accountability. As we've seen, the agency operates in the shadows, often without oversight, even from the very government officials charged with keeping it in check. The few times its actions have come to light—such as with MKUltra, the Iran-Contra scandal, or the torture report—have usually occurred long after the damage was done.
But what if we demanded more transparency? Some argue that, for the CIA to truly operate within the bounds of law and morality, it must be subject to more rigorous oversight. Congressional oversight committees already exist, but they have proven inadequate in holding the agency accountable. Strengthening these committees, giving them real power to investigate CIA actions in real-time, could serve as a check on future abuses.
Yet, this brings up another dilemma: Can an intelligence agency operate effectively with full transparency? Secrecy is, after all, a key component of espionage. Requiring complete openness may hinder the CIA's ability to do its job. However, some level of public accountability is essential if the agency is to remain tethered to democratic principles.
The United States is not the only country with an intelligence agency prone to abuses. Countries like the United Kingdom, Israel, and Russia have faced similar issues with their covert organizations. But how have they managed to reform—or have they?
One of the more successful models of intelligence reform comes from Germany. After the fall of the Nazi regime, the newly formed West Germany created the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), a civilian-controlled intelligence agency designed to operate under strict oversight. The BND is subject to constant scrutiny by a parliamentary committee, and its operations are more transparent than most intelligence agencies around the world. This has allowed Germany to conduct necessary intelligence operations while keeping abuses to a minimum.
Could the U.S. adopt a similar model? Some argue that moving the CIA under civilian control, and establishing a clearer system of checks and balances, would prevent the kinds of rogue operations that have characterized its history. Others believe that the unique nature of U.S. global power makes such a system unworkable, and that stricter reforms, such as breaking up the CIA’s responsibilities and distributing them across different agencies, might be a better approach.
The post-9/11 world forced the CIA into the forefront of the War on Terror, but it also became a proving ground for the agency’s most controversial actions. Extraordinary rendition, drone warfare, and the use of black sites have all tested the limits of what the public is willing to accept in the name of security. While these methods may have eliminated some dangerous individuals, they have also created widespread distrust, not only in the Middle East but in democratic societies across the world.
The War on Terror demonstrated the dangers of giving an intelligence agency too much unchecked power. The rise of drone warfare, in particular, raises serious ethical questions: Does killing suspects without trial, often in foreign countries with which the U.S. is not officially at war, align with democratic values? Are we willing to live in a world where a secret agency can effectively carry out executions with no oversight?
In the aftermath of the War on Terror, some reforms have been made, such as restrictions on the use of torture. However, the drone program continues, and many of the CIA's operations remain opaque. If the War on Terror was a test of the CIA's moral boundaries, one might argue that the agency failed, choosing expediency over ethics time and again.
As we stand at this historical moment, reflecting on decades of CIA activities, we face a choice. We can either continue to accept the agency’s actions as necessary for national security, or we can demand real change. This is not just about legal reform, but about moral reform. It’s about determining what kind of country the U.S. wants to be, and what it is willing to sacrifice in the name of security.
Some advocate for dismantling the CIA altogether, arguing that its criminal past and secretive present make it incompatible with democracy. Others suggest a complete overhaul of its structure, emphasizing civilian oversight, transparency, and accountability. Still others believe that the agency can be reformed from within, with a renewed focus on ethical intelligence gathering rather than covert action and manipulation.
Whatever path is chosen, the need for change is clear. The CIA’s criminal history cannot be erased, but its future is yet to be written. If we are to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, we must confront the uncomfortable truths about how power has been wielded in secret, often in ways that contradict the very principles of democracy.
In the end, the story of the CIA is not just the story of an intelligence agency—it’s the story of how power, secrecy, and morality intersect in a democracy. The agency’s criminal activities, from MKUltra to drone warfare, raise fundamental questions about what kind of nation the United States is, and what it is willing to become.
As we close this chapter on the CIA's crimes, the hope is that the American people will continue to question the role of their government in the world. For democracy to survive, we must remain vigilant—not only against external threats but against the creeping dangers that arise when power operates unchecked in the shadows.
If the past has taught us anything, it is that the cost of secrecy is far greater than we imagine. And the question we must now answer is: Are we willing to pay that price again?
Sources for Part 2:
Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.
Grey, Stephen. Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Rendition and Torture Program.
·Mazzetti, Mark. The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth
Mayer, Jane. The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals.
Shane, Scott. Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone.
Senate Intelligence Committee. Committee Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
Risen, James. Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War.
Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.
The Washington Post, "The Secret CIA Prisons."
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