Month: September 2026 (Page 2 of 8)

Azmat Khan’s NYT series did an exceptional job juxtaposing the lived experience of civilians with the apathy and lack of attention shown by the US military and the claims that officials made to the public. I especially appreciated being able to read both of her pieces in the series because it caused me to think about how writing in two different styles can change what the readers take away from the article. For example, in “Airstrikes Allowed America to wage war with minimal risk to its troops,” Khan includes information about her methodology of conducting interviews. Specifically, she notes that she didn’t contact anyone before arriving to limit awareness that she is coming, and thus bias. This was interesting to me because I had never considered awareness of forthcoming interviews to be considered the root of bias. She explains that “evidence could be doctored; stories could be aligned.” I found this to be a great way to bring more credibility to Khan and her witnesses because it demonstrates that she is considering the possibility that the witnesses may try to deceive her. However, she of course also demonstrates great empathy towards the civilians. Thus, this style of writing allowed her to include accounts of her methodology, which allows space for strengthening her credibility.

This piece also helps strengthen Khan’s credibility by explaining more context behind her experience in the field, and decisions she had to make as well as the reasoning behind these decisions. I appreciated how that style of journalism helped humanify the writer, which I believe makes her message able to reach more people, especially those who are a bit more closed minded to these types of messages. I also find the headline of this article to be worth discussion. This headline seems almost geared towards people who have a positive outlook on America’s involvement in the war, and who would believe that America is a hero in this situation. This makes me think that the article was written in this way to try to get to Americans who would not normally start reading articles that claim wrong doings by the American army in hopes of penetrating the polarizing nature of politics in America. 

 “In Hidden Pentagon Records reveal Patterns of Failure in Deadly Airstrikes,” however, Khan takes more of an impersonal writing style. She includes more context behind the US military’s procedures and thought processes, while showing the stark contrast between their apathy and the lived experience of the civilians. Thus, I thought reading these two very different articles that were written by the same person, about the same events was very interesting, and I will take this into account when planning for my Berlin article. 

In the Holy boarders vs EU boarders article, I was specifically drawn to this quote: “the heightened scrutiny on places of worship giving sanctuary to refugees reflects hardening attitudes towards immigrants in general.” As I wrote my news piece on Malta, I was particularly interested in how attitudes towards refugees intersects with attitudes towards immigrants in general, since I was speaking with a student in Malta who has witnessed blanket disrespect towards all immigrants. Thus, it was interesting to see this correlation between scrutiny against refugees reflecting scrutiny against all immigrants. 

No Paperwork, No Problem!

Mila was only fourteen years old when she was raped. After enjoying a cigarette with her classmates in Weichselplatz, a playground next to the Neukölln shipping canal, she left her friends early to return home. “I assume that’s when he spotted me,” she says. Mila was walking through the neighborhood when an adult man approached, restrained, and then assaulted her. She assumed he was a Syrian refugee based on his physical appearance and the borough’s demographics, including its large refugee population; however, this is conjecture and has not been verified. The man was never caught, and little was done by Berlin authorities to ensure accountability for the attack. Mila’s story serves as one example of the growing sexual violence within Germany’s own borders.

Unsolved assaults like Mila’s are common in Berlin’s police records. In 2025, police in the city documented 1,300+ cases of sexual assaults in particularly serious cases, according to state parliament preliminary data. Ninety-four of those cases occurred in the borough of Neukölln, the borough where Mila was walking through. Among the victims across Berlin, 268 were between 14 and 17, which was also Mila’s age group at the time of her attack. Police identified at least one suspect in almost 900 cases which left 425 with no suspect identified, roughly one third.

Refugee status does not exempt a refugee from prosecution or imprisonment; however, that does not mean there will be consequences. When a refugee is identified as a suspect or offender, German authorities can prosecute them under the same criminal law that applies to any normal German citizen or tourist; however, a conviction does not always mean an offender can be deported after serving their sentence. A few notable challenges are possible missing travel documents and difficulties confirming their nationality with the country of origin. Germany also cannot return a refugee to a country where they face a verifiable risk of torture or inhuman treatment(s), regardless if that refugee has committed a serious crime, like a sexual assault. As a result of this, an offender would potentially remain in Germany after being released. Another obstacle authorities encounter are establishing a refugee suspect’s identity when their identity documents are missing or nationality cannot be confirmed. Some refugees arrive without a passport, leaving authorities to establish their identity through other methods, like trying to locate someone via the information of a guest register at a hostel or hotel where that person may have stayed.

“I worked at two hostels while in Germany and both played fast and loose with the documentation rules,” says Jessica Tutor. “While there were no sexual assaults while I was there [hostel], there were regular reports of women feeling ‘creeped out’ by the men who did long-term stays.” A police inspection of a hostel on Wundtstrabe on April 20, 2021 documented a case where officers visited and investigated the hotel after receiving an anonymous tip from the public. According to Berlin police, the owner had not documented his guests identity and could not provide specific information about them. Amongst the guests were individuals who police suspected had left their assigned refugee accommodation to flee a potential deportation. Additionally, officers also found a 26-year-old man who was staying in Germany unlawfully. Authorities then had to close the hotel and investigate the operator for violating the Residence Act. Although the police statement reported no sexual assault, this case adds some context for how missing guest records would leave German authorities lacking information about who is staying where.

Women staying in a hostel should be able to expect that their concerns will be taken seriously and that staff know who else is staying there. Reports of men making guests uncomfortable do not establish criminal behavior; regardless, they deserve attention and recognition before anything more serious happens. Tutor comments further this concern as reports of potential crimes may be occurring in places where basic documentation was already being neglected. It is also important to note that there is no evidence that a hostel sheltered Mila’s attacker but by not keeping accurate guest records, it exposes flaws in a system especially where there seems a reasonable responsibility for businesses where strangers share bedrooms and bathrooms.

Mila left her friends that evening with the normal expectation to make it home safely. At fourteen, she should have not been expected to remember every detail of her attacker’s face to help with his identification, especially in the modern world full of technological advancements. Her attacker’s identity remains unknown, and neither his appearance nor the neighborhood can establish where he came from. For Mila, accountability would mean “knowing the identity of the man who assaulted her” so she can “no longer question the safety of her neighborhood; This is an answer she is still waiting for, and will remain waiting until there is effective change.

1. Mila, interview by Ellis Speagle on September 23rd, 2026. Surname requested to be withheld.
2. Berlin Senate Department for the Interior and Sport, response to written inquiry, January 20, 2026.
3. German Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch)
4. Jessica Tutor, interview by Ellis Speagle, September 23rd, 2026.
5. Polizei Berlin, “Gemeinsamer Einsatz mit dem Ordnungsamt. Hotel versiegelt”, April 21, 2021

Germany’s left-wing party Die Linke secured the most votes in Berlin’s state election on Sunday, September 20, with party leader Elif Eralp, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, poised to become Berlin’s next mayor. As the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) prevailed in other parts of the country, some see Eralp’s victory in Germany’s most multicultural city as a rebuke to the anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies dominating German politics. But voters are divided as to whether Eralp’s candidacy portends real change.

Eralp’s platform highlighted affordability and alleviating Berlin’s housing crisis, as well as social justice and standing up to the rising right. Die Linke won an unprecedented 25.7% of the vote in Berlin. The AfD finished a distant third, but put up a stronger showing than it has in past races, edging out the Social Democrats.

Eralp has drawn comparisons to Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City who is lauded for his left-wing populism and charismatic style. But Melina, a young voter and pro-Palestinian activist in Berlin who asked to be referred to by her first name only, was skeptical about this analogy. 

“Erap was trying to recreate Mamdani’s aura, which I didn’t think was authentic. She’s not that radical, in my opinion,” Melina said. She explained that she has qualms about Eralp’s reluctance to take a stronger stand opposing Israel’s conduct in Gaza. “I can’t say that things are going to change, especially when it comes to Palestinian life in Berlin.”

Others were more optimistic about how Eralp’s background as a child of refugees may influence her governance. Julia Hack, a student from Frankfurt who described being highly engaged in politics as a teenager, praised the historic nature of Eralp’s triumph. 

“She is the first elected mayor with a migrant background,” Hack said. “That fits what you want from a Berlin mayor, because Berlin is such a diverse city.”

However, Jan-Werner Müller, a German political philosopher and Professor of Politics at Princeton University, cautioned against exaggerating the novelty of Eralp’s victory. He called the “German Mamdani” narrative “facile,” pointing out that other prominent figures in German politics hail from a Turkish background, and Eralp is not the first leftist or female mayor of a major German city.

Still, Müller said, Eralp’s win “deservedly gets attention.” He added that she will now face pressure to deliver on the ambitious housing and expropriation promises that helped propel her to victory.

Hack expressed the view that Eralp’s identity enhances her receptivity to the needs of her constituency. “With her migration background, she is closer to the average Berliner,” she said.

Müller speculated that beyond Eralp’s identity, Die Linke’s welcoming approach to migration contributed to their ascendance in Berlin. He argued that center-right and center-left parties across Europe have begun “copying elements of far-right rhetoric” on migration. “I think it’s understandable that people might want an uncompromising message in this regard,” he said.

Juli Janitz, a German student studying in the U.S., also echoed the belief that Die Linke’s impressive performance may be partially attributable to the party’s status as a counterpoint to the anti-immigrant hostility espoused by its rivals. The AfD “creates this fear of Germany being overrun by immigrants,” Janitz said.

Noting the significance of the decline in support for the center-left Greens, Müller observed that the Greens’ willingness to work with the Christian Democrats, who are “increasingly soft on the far right….can look like they’re legitimating [far-right migration policies].” For many voters, Die Linke represented the only option prepared to unequivocally defend immigrants.

“I think living in a diverse city makes people more tolerant and open-minded,” Melina reflected, when asked about why Berlin’s voting patterns on migration might diverge from those of other parts of the country. “But Berlin is also not Germany. Berlin is an exception.”

For Veronika’s relatives in Ukraine, leaving the country has gone from something they had decided to do in the past to a plan with a deadline.

The change follows a shift in the pattern of Russian attacks on Kyiv from nighttime to round-the-clock bombardment of targets. In a September 4 report, the Associated Press described how Russian drone and missile attacks, which for much of the war had come mainly at night, were increasingly occurring during the day as well. As Samya Kullab of the Associated Press writes, “[the air raids have] interrupted commutes, shopping trips and children’s school, intruded on life’s biggest moments.”

Her relatives have considered leaving before, said Veronika, an alumni of Princeton University from Kyiv, Ukraine who asked to be identified only by her first name. But in recent weeks, as Russian daytime strikes began, many families around them have also left, according to Veronika.

“They have decided to leave before, but this is the time they sound the most earnest to leave,” Veronika said. When asked where they might go, Veronika said her extended family has not decided. They are considering joining her family in the United States or moving to Spain. They now plan to leave within the month, she said.

About 4.41 million people had returned to their places of residence after being displaced by the war as of December 2025, including about 1.1 million who returned from abroad, according to the International Organization for Migration. The IOM also reported that nearly 4 million people remained internally displaced within Ukraine.

For Ukrainians who have remained in the country through more than four years of war, the attacks come as another winter approaches. “Combined with the cold winter around the corner, it no longer makes sense to stay. Finding basic needs like water will be an issue once more,” Veronika notes.

Ekaterina Pravilova, Professor of History and Director of the Program in Russian, European, and Eurasian Studies at Princeton University whose research focuses on the Russian Empire and its prior satellite states including Ukraine, said the winter is particularly difficult because Russia’s targeted attacks on infrastructure leave residents without electricity and heating.

Pravilova remarks that people she hears from in Kyiv describe repeatedly responding to air-raid alerts, “So it’s like constantly, all day, drones and missile attacks.”

Yet, many Ukrainians have adapted to the conditions, she said, including by buying generators and changing their routines around power outages and air raids. “The resilience of the population is just remarkable,” Pravilova said.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that 5.9 million Ukrainians were refugees abroad at the end of 2025. UNHCR further emphasized that persistent airstrikes, damaged housing, and attacks on essential infrastructure continue to hinder sustainable returns to Ukraine by refugees.

For Veronika’s relatives, these challenges are weighed against fleeing. “My relatives plan to flee, but it is so hard for them to leave [their country] and their livelihoods, that is why they have stayed so long,” Veronika said.

I was impressed and appalled by Azmat Khan’s investigation into the U.S.’s devastating airstrikes on Syria and Iraq. I was particularly struck by how Khan was able to establish a pattern of “confirmation bias” in which civilians were consistently presumed to be combatants. Rather than a series of incidental errors, the killings of civilians were an inherent feature of a system in which all ethical considerations were subordinated to the goal of obliterating ISIS targets. While reading, I wondered whether the astonishing civilian death toll was a product of Pentagon incompetence, or merely a callous disregard for human life. The stagnation of the accountability process made me inclined to believe the latter; that no disciplinary action was taken in nine out of ten cases of failed strikes and only a quarter garnered further review suggests that the Pentagon views civilians as disposable. I was also curious as to how much of the misidentification of civilians as combatants can be attributed to racism, and whether myths and stereotypes about Arabs are being perpetuated at the highest levels of the military, leading to the devaluation of human life. 

I appreciated how Khan drew attention to the replacement of boots-on-the-ground warfare with airstrikes directed by controllers sitting at computers far away. I think the remoteness of airstrikes likely contributes to their inhumanity, as it is harder to conceptualize the impact of violence on real people when you are divorced from their physical presence. The cold, clinical language in the military chat logs that Khan reproduced revealed the dehumanization of civilians in strike zones, reflecting the gamification of violence. The rise of autonomous weapons seems like an even more dystopian extension of this trend. The Pentagon’s lack of transparency about the civilian toll of its strikes and failure to make condolence payments to victims was horrifying but unsurprising. Drawing any attention to this devastation would lay bare, as Khan’s reporting does, the contradiction between the soft power image the U.S. seeks to project of itself as a bastion of liberal democratic values and humanitarianism, and the destructive effect of U.S. intervention on the rest of the globe. ISIS’s exploitation of the strikes for propaganda purposes demonstrates how they undercut the U.S.’s diplomatic goals, calling into question whether the Pentagon was more motivated by the expansion of American empire than the defeat of ISIS alone.

I also thought Khan did a fantastic job explaining the methodology of her investigation and why it matters. She spelled this out particularly well in the nut graf, writing that “the Times did what military officials admit they have not done”: the piece epitomizes how journalists should serve as democratic watchdogs. Khan also preemptively shuts down potential skepticism of her damning findings by clearly delineating her methodology – she went to the strike sites, looked for eyewitnesses, did not give advance notice of her visits, and more to prevent bias from tainting the information she received. Journalism shouldn’t have to justify itself, but in an era of the erosion of trust in mainstream media, reporters can enhance their own credibility by reaffirming why their function is vital.

Azmat Khan’s two-part article reveals the need for independent investigative mechanisms in wartime. The military has little to no incentive to conduct thorough investigations of their own misconduct, nor publicize their wrongdoing, as this could invite public scrutiny, fuel foreign propaganda, and slow the progress to reaching military aims. And it’s clear that the U.S. military has no interest in drawing attention to its own faulty methods; they only recommended full investigations in twelve percent of credible cases. Especially concerning are the anecdotes about the blatant refusal of some officials to accept or document civilian harm (“tell the cameras to look somewhere else”). Khan’s reporting reveals that the military cannot be trusted to hold itself to account. Journalists, NGOs, and UN bodies must do the evidence collection and analysis, so that war crimes can eventually be prosecuted, victims’ families can receive explanations and restitution, and failures can become lessons learned.

Then there is the harder truth which comes to light in these articles: just because there were civilian casualties does not necessarily mean a violation of the law of armed conflict occurred. As Khan writes, the law requires two principles in an attack: 1) the military must take precautions to avoid the loss of civilian life and infrastructure and 2) the military must ensure that innocent deaths are proportional to the military advantage gained. But these requirements are all too vague. In practice, as Khan explains, what this means is that “The expected civilian toll was proportional if the officer making that determination reasonably believed it to be so, and if it did not exceed a ‘noncombatant cutoff value.’” It’s not that the military is always acting with impunity; it may be that the law is actually too permissive of civilian death, so long as it is not ambiguously “disproportionate.” This emphasis on subjectivity resonates with simulations I participated in for my humanitarian law class, taught by Danish veterans. We would do “exercises” wherein we roleplayed military commanders and had to decide whether or not to greenlight certain strikes. Especially in urban warfare, there was always the threat that civilians would be “collateral,” so we would weigh how important the military objective was against the possibility of the destruction of innocent life. It was morally miserable, even as a classroom exercise with no real consequences. I was left with the question of whether the law should be stricter/more prescriptive about what type of destruction is legal, or if subjective judgment will always be the basis of military decision-making for reasons of pragmatism. 

As several writers pointed out, the pause on the admission program for Afghan refugees is no doubt a result of the rise of the AfD party and an uptick in xenophobia. It is interesting, then, that Germany pays for some refugees’ room, food, and medical care in Pakistan. How do they garner support for this spending? And how does it compare to the cost of granting more refugees asylum, which is, as some sources voiced, a “matter of life and death”?

by Devon Williams

Azmat Khan’s New York Times series shocked me with how flippantly America seemed to measure foreign lives. The number of civilians killed by avoidable airstrikes, the way the ‘best’ technology could be so extremely wrong, and how little officials seemed to care about the cost of their mistakes showed another side of American militarism than what is broadcast to the general population. After reviewing thousands of casualty assessments and seeing a “pattern of impunity” rather than isolated mistakes, Khan emphasized that these losses are more than a simple discrepancy or even negligence. This military is capable of taking responsibility for this harm yet intentionally avoids it, instead using the excuse of video limits or technological errors that cannot be disputed yet are still indirectly the fault of operatives. The same branches that committed these grave mistakes are the same ones who investigate it, and it is no surprise that they don’t want to be the ones held accountable.

The ideas of “transient” civilians and heat maps of the traffic of public areas struck me because surveillance itself usually still identifies innocents like women and children, yet the people operating the machines still accept the strikes. The fact that people are moving and ‘could’ get out of the way or there ‘may not’ be as many people as their could be within a space is enough plausible deniability for the US to dismiss the lives likely to be extinguished, and even when these decisions are challenged, the military stands by their flawed techniques.

Technological obscurity is continuously employed as a scapegoat, as children are called “unknown heavy objects” within rubble or in buildings, cars entire colors are mismatched, or men on motorcycles are seen as possible attach formations all because of an easy moral escape and intentional confirmation bias. Even when external analyses reveal extremely high death toles like the 120 civilians following the Tokhar strike, the existing policies and practices are seen as acceptable for continued operations. Where is the line where countless innocent deaths are acceptable for the possibility of striking one or two select targets? The obscurity and instability of technology and decision-making before a strike  can justify action due to the possibility of harm while also acting as a system to take the fall when that inference is wrong or miscalculated. It seems like there is no way that the operatives themselves are ever held accountable for their actions or actually accept that they are the ones to take the blame.

This led me to consider how institutional responsibility continues after conflict is over or when mistakes are retroactively recognized by internal or external bodies; even the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a ‘mistake’ to some, with Abdul Wahid Wafa calling it “hasty” and “irresponsible” when it jeopardized careers and institutions built alongside American presence and protection. Despite America being the institution to cause much of the unnecessary harm aforementioned, the shadow of retaliation and strength still deterred harm for many within the country. Germany’s suspension of the programs accepting Afghans into the country was parallel in its haste and self-interest, leaving people stranded in Pakistan seeking their deportation (Reuters) or at risk of being sent back to the country that was already violent enough to force them to escape, with EuroNews reporting that “Afghanistan is not safe” even when Europeans want it to be for deportation. The countries and institutions that cause this harm both directly and indirectly still never seem to feel like they have blood on their hands, and through technological errors, miscalculations, or straight-up refusal of wrongdoing it doesn’t seem like anything can force them to recognize their role as the aggressor in addition to the self-proclaimed ‘protector.’

The Crisis of Going on Record at the Prince

by Devon Williams

President Donald Trump announced on September 18 that he would bar CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from reporting within the White House, accusing them of reporting “fiction and lies,” according to Reuters. The outlets sued three days later, and their credentials were temporarily restored by court order on September 24 while the case continues.

The White House is not the only American entity rejecting the media as biased and villainous coverage. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 28% of Americans had a great deal or fair amount of trust in mass media. At Princeton, the Daily Princetonian says this hesitation forms less along partisan lines and more around fear of national visibility, accuracy, and source treatment. 

“A lot of people were trepidatious about talking to the Prince because historically, The Daily Princetonian has had issues with naming sources and … not properly attributing quotes,” said Luke Grippo, head News editor of the Daily Princetonian. 

In the past two years, Grippo remembers sources requesting anonymity or refusing interviews because of previous negative experiences with the quality of the Prince reporting under different leadership.

The Municipality of Princeton’s government shared these same concerns two years ago with misattributions, and the Princeton University Administration was similarly tentative with communication on hot-button issues.

“One of [former editor-in-chief Miriam Waldvogel]’s priorities was working to change that stigma around The Daily Princetonian … bringing a more rigorous editing process, making sure that we were accurate and checking everything,” he continued. He states that this helped increase trust in the paper for all members of the Princeton community.

International students are uniquely tentative to have contact with the Prince. The sense of national visibility and public identification could put their safety and stability at risk.

“International students were worried about visa concerns if they were named in an article,” said Grippo.

Grippo says the current board has become more willing to grant anonymity as identification increasingly puts students at risk.

Yet Oliver Wu, assistant News editor, doesn’t “believe that it’s actually created a substantive change, at least from what I can tell.” 

Wu has struggled to find students willing to comment on the country’s new restrictions on student and work visas, shortening the time students have to find a job post-grad to stay in the country or even complete degrees longer than four years.

Nationally, this distrust in media is divided by partisan bias. At Princeton, this is not as simply the case. 

Opposing voices, specifically those that are right-wing, may not be in conflict with the paper because they are not speaking at all.

Wu explained that while polling and getting comments from students on the University’s DEI policies last year, multiple conservative students “just declined to comment” because they believed their views would not be “welcome,” while all interviews he successfully conducted were from students in support of DEI policies.

“It may just be the case that … they feel their opinion is not socially accepted overall on campus,” Wu said.

Grippo noted that the Opinion section has received repeated critiques of perceived liberal bias rather than the news section itself. He says they are actively working to combat this bias.

Social media has also been a spark of partisan polarization in the media. Headlines spin truth to attract the attention of one political party or another, framing everything through the lens of key partisan issues to intentionally gain clicks from an audience they know will respond to such keywords.

“That headline might be pasted onto an Instagram post, and … maybe that’s all people will see,” said Wu. 

Wu says this atmosphere has made him more “cautious” about headlines that fairly represent all viewpoints, and Grippo says the paper now has to scrutinize if a headline is “clickbaity.” 

In a modern world primed for polarization and distrust, the Prince is working to edit more strictly, protect anonymity, and remain objective to ensure the paper is reliable for all students on campus.

For Wu, these changes will take time to solidify the community’s trust. 

“That must be done over multiple years of consistent quality coverage or fair coverage.”

The NYT investigation by Azmat Khan, is excellent, I am very unsurprised that it won a Pulitzer. Call me a dissociated international, but I hadn’t heard about the atrocities of U.S. military air strikes on civilians in Afghanistan and Syria prior to this reading. The notion that continuously reappeared throughout this thorough and intense investigation, was the lack of accountability: “mistakes do happen,” – Bill Urban, “policies, procedures, practices” are “sufficient for continued operation,” with no condolence payments to victims’ families. This lack of accountability is evident in the survivors’ testimonies, the people who want answers for why this happened and why their homes and loved ones were targeted by air forces. This kind of collateral damage certainly raises a moral dilemma. On one hand, there was a job to be done, and that was to stop ISIS, and the U.S. operations were able to do this, but at the cost of so many civilian lives. They had the facilities to make analyses and surveillance better and more equipped but they chose to spend that money on better weapons to create more damage. Why? It feels incredibly counterproductive. The reason the U.S. military were sending air strikes in the first place was to stop ISIS from committing terrorist acts and mass murders, but the U.S. military had a part to play in the killing of civilians themselves.

The “Play Time?” section of part one was both enjoyable to read, as it felt as though I was reading a fiction video game novel, but heartbreaking, because this is not fiction. I thought it was impressive how almost each air strike Khan mentioned had its own NYT article attributed to it. But Khan brings humanity and condolences to the casualties of these strikes in a way that the linked news articles don’t. Reading Part 2 in the magazine, demonstrated the immense amount of investigating, and the intricate methodology Khan used to gather her sources, her access to countries, sites, reducing misinformation from eye witnesses, it’s all so impressive. I wonder, with the amount of people she talked to, heart-wrenching stories she listened to, did she ever break down? Did she ever develop compassion fatigue? – as so many readers of migration and war time news do. How on earth did she manage to conduct so many hourly, personal interviews all on her own accord? Was it safe? Khan uses a lot of dysphemistic imagery, she says what she sees, or what the eye witnesses saw, but what impact does this have on the journalist?

In the Euro News and Politico, Reuters and Nieman stories, we learn of Germany’s abrupt decision to revoke a promise of resettlement for Afghans, and then a reversal of that decision. I am particularly struck by the quotes in these articles, “Germany must finally bring those seeking protection to safety from torture and death,” – Mareile Dedekind, and “For the moment, I don’t see any light in this darkness,” – Rubin, and “we’re safe now and can live like humans again,” – Baresh. The news and context is important, but quotes like this, I think, make the story worth reading, because we can see the actual impact a news development is having on those affected. I did my news piece on Ukrainians and their uncertainty in Germany as far-right movements rise, but it is clear that Afghans are directly impacted, with 2400, waiting to travel to Germany. It is certainly worrying for these groups as to what could happen to their protection and rights if the fair-right movement gains more traction.

The course began by introducing David Miliband’s concept of an “Age of Impunity.” At first, the concept evokes authoritarian states and military juntas exercising virtually unchecked power and committing human rights violations without meaningful consequences. Yet the NYT articles complicate that conception by showing that democracies, including the U.S., are not immune from the dynamics of impunity. This raises a broader question: how can the U.S. credibly condemn other governments for violations of international humanitarian law while engaging in conduct that can also result in civilian harm? What becomes challenging is when impunity can coexist with democratic institutions, international law, and the language of accountability itself.

The quotation that “the fog of war can lead to decisions that tragically result in civilian harm” is particularly striking (NYT). Uncertainty is inherent in warfare, but one of the central purposes of intelligence collection, targeting procedures, and precision weapons is precisely to reduce uncertainty and minimize the risk to civilians. This makes me wonder what is at the core of this rhetoric. Is “the fog of war” being used to describe an unavoidable limitation of military operations, or can it also function rhetorically to explain away miscalculations that should actually generate scrutiny and accountability? If powerful states expect other governments to exercise restraint despite uncertainty, what happens to that expectation when they invoke uncertainty to justify their own failures?

The situation involving Germany and Afghanistan problematizes political legitimacy and human rights. The German government has maintained that it does not recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government, while simultaneously engaging in technical discussions with the Taliban’s de facto authorities in order to facilitate deportations. In Aug. 2026, the German government explicitly described these contacts as necessary to address removals while maintaining that recognizing the Afghan state is distinct from recognizing the Taliban as its legitimate government. However, the policy creates a difficult human rights question. UN reporting has documented ongoing human-rights violations under the Taliban and more recent UN reporting continues to monitor violations by the de facto authorities. This makes me wonder whether cooperation with the Taliban for the purpose of managing migration can remain narrowly transactional, or whether repeated cooperation gradually normalizes engagement with a regime that Germany officially does not recognize as legitimate. The EU Jun. 2026 meeting with Taliban officials over return procedures illustrates this tension at the broader European regional level.

This also raises a question about the consequences for Afghans who remain in Germany. If migration policy becomes increasingly centered on deterrence and deportation, what happens to Afghan refugees who are legally permitted to stay, but must continue building their lives amid growing political pressure over migration? Germany’s debate over migration has become increasingly contentious, with the AfD advocating significantly tougher migration policies. The push for regulating the continuing refugee flow has taken center stage in political candidacy and the future of Germany. A question that has stayed with me is how growing political pressure around migration interacts with Germany’s human-rights commitments and with the social integration of Afghans, alongside other migrants, who remain in the country.