Human rights issues of Pentagon’s use of surrogate forces

U.S. Special Operations forces aren't required to vet for past human rights violations by the foreign troops they arm and train as surrogates, says The New York Times, citing documents it obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

And a similar gap exists in another Pentagon surrogate force program for so-called irregular warfare, according to the documents. That program is aimed at disrupting nation-state rivals using operations that fall short of full armed conflict — including sabotage, hacking and information campaigns like propaganda or clandestine efforts to shape morale.

"Proxy forces are an increasingly important part of American foreign policy," the Times says. "Over the past decade, the United States has increasingly relied on supporting or deputizing local partner forces in places like Niger and Somalia, moving away from deploying large numbers of American ground troops as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The disclosures show a need for tighter rules on proxy forces, says Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif. “We need to make sure that we are not training abusive units to become even more lethal and fueling the conflict and violence that we’re aiming to solve,” she says. “And that starts with universal human rights vetting.”

Last year, Jacobs and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., sponsored an amendment to a defense bill to require human rights vetting of surrogate forces that passed the House but not the Senate. 

Jacobs says she plans to introduce a more comprehensive bill to tighten such rules.

A senior Defense Department official says all members of a proxy force already get extensive screening to ensure that they won't attack or spy on American forces. The official says vetting is sufficient to weed out bad actors.

Lt. Col. Cesar Santiago-Santini, a Pentagon spokesman, says in a statement to the Times that the department has found “no verifiable gross violations of human rights” by participants of either proxy force program.