Author: Ceci McWilliams (Page 2 of 2)

I had never thought in depth about how the Nuremberg trials set a precedent for condemning future war crimes. The movie Nuremberg led me to consider this question. By dramatizing the courtroom scenes and the moral struggles of the tribunal members, the film shows how the trials reshaped the world’s understanding of individual culpability and international law.

The most interesting aspect of the movie to me was the way it portrayed the question of blame. Nuremberg demonstrates well the potential scale of culpability in Nazi Germany. The members of the tribunal understand that the state was not the only guilty party. Instead, they consider that Hitler’s orders compelled generals, soldiers, ministers, and even ordinary people to commit atrocities. Over and over, the judges note that “following orders” did not acquit a citizen of responsibility. Rather, anyone who endorsed or enabled the Nazi regime was liable to prosecution. This shift–from condemning states to targeting citizens–transformed the world’s understanding of culpability in war, making it possible to prosecute individuals for complying with a state’s criminal activity. These legal questions are interspersed with flashbacks of war, and this dialogue–between the legal questions of the present and the scale of atrocity of the past–emphasizes the moral stakes of the trial.  

The movie suggests that the judges were aware of the historical implications of the Nuremberg trials’ outcomes. On the plane to Germany, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson says that the trial symbolizes the potential triumph of morality over evil. For him and the rest of the tribunal, the Nuremberg trials are not only a legal process, but a necessary reckoning with accountability that the world must confront.

This trial’s moral implications guide the judges throughout the film, motivating them to conduct vigorous investigations. Their sense of duty to victims of the Holocaust compels them to keep the Nazi soldiers alive. I was surprised to learn that the tribunal included a psychologist specifically for this purpose–to keep the defendant from killing himself before they could be prosecuted. Even if a Nazi would be sentenced to death, his survival throughout the trial was a requirement of the tribunal’s success. 

Watching this movie made me think about the international community’s obligation to intervene in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I learned recently that Russian soldiers are paid huge sums to serve. If they are killed in combat, their families are compensated. This system complicates the opposition families of soldiers may have to the regime, deescalating dissent. It also presents challenges to an international court of justice aiming to prosecute criminals of war. Russia’s infrastructure for recruiting and deploying soldiers implicates so much of the population that the judicial proceedings of war crimes, which require a court to identify a perpetrator and a victim, merit reevaluation.

Over the past few months, I have worked on a couple stories about female Afghan migrants in the U.S. Through this reporting, I have learned more about the Taliban’s restrictions on women’s rights, and especially its exclusion of women from education and sports. The Taliban’s current limitations on women’s rights constitute what Metra Mehran, an Afghan activist living in Virginia, has called “gender apartheid.” Yet the international community has failed to intervene in the Taliban’s human rights abuses.

As women flee this oppressive regime, they face new restrictions on immigration. Germany is a salient example. In July, the country suspended humanitarian admissions for Afghans, leaving many left stuck in Pakistan, where they had been waiting for visas and flights out. Germany resumed deportations to Afghanistan, and in July, sent 81 Afghans to their home country after rejecting their asylum applications. This was the second deportation since the Taliban took over in 2021.

Those deported from Western countries may face new risks in Afghanistan, said Wahid Wafa. Contact with the West may be grounds for the Taliban’s persecution. These vulnerabilities are heightened for Afghan women, especially those who have engaged in activities that are banned at home, like sports. In Berlin, I hope to follow the stories of women who face the risk of deportation. I am especially interested in the situation of high-profile women who faced persecution in Afghanistan before immigrating.

Nazira Khairzad was a goalkeeper for the Afghan women’s national team before fleeing the country in 2021. Khairzad immigrated to Italy and moved near Frankfurt in 2024. Her family eventually joined her, including her sister. The sisters, Nazira and Nazima, were both athletes in Afghanistan, despite the dangers women in sports faced. Though reunited, they confront new challenges in Germany. Today, Nazira may face deportation to Italy. In April, DW reported that “Nazira’s deportation back to Italy is therefore likely to stand.” There has not been anything published about her since then, and I am interested in finding out where she is now.

Nazira recently gave me her number via Instagram and we are in touch on WhatsApp. I hope to follow her story, exploring the broader vulnerabilities Afghan women face in Germany. While in Berlin, I will conduct interviews with Afghan women, German politicians, activists, and refugee support organizations. This story will be about one family’s struggles to escape persecution in Afghanistan. More broadly, it will focus on the way anti-immigrant sentiment enables the Taliban’s human rights abuses. As follows is a list of potential sources.

• Metra Mehran, activist and policy advisor for the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council (Virginia – remote interview)
• Elke Gabsa, Nazira Khairzad’s lawyer (Giessen, Germany)
• Berenice Bohlo, immigration lawyer (Berlin)
• Tobias Jung or Emily Barnickel – Hardship advisers at the Flüchtlingsrat Berlin (Berlin Refugee Council), an organization’s aiming to protect the right to asylum and refugee protection and eliminate state discrimination.
• Mawluda Akbari – researcher focusing on women’s rights at the Afghan Research Hub in Berlin. Also does volunteer work for local refugees.
• Waheed Rafie – Afghan writer in Berlin with a wide network of Afghans in Germany

AfD Questions

• AfD has connected immigration to high rents, housing shortages, and bad schools. Can you explain this connection?
• Afghan migrants who are deported face persecution in their home country for contact with the West. How, if at all, does AfD plan to protect people who are deported from violent regimes such as the Taliban?

The readings for this week on Open Source Intelligence were motivating. On the one hand, journalism is in peril as sensationalism favors accuracy online, and disinformation is rampant. On the other hand, new technologies like artificial intelligence, digital mapping, spatial reconstruction, and geolocation allow people to pursue rigorous investigations behind their computer screens. In many ways, journalists have more tools than ever to bypass the restrictions of security states. 

The Human Rights Watch articles we read are excellent examples of open-source journalism. I was fascinated by the way satellite imagery combined with survivor narratives to prove that bombings took place. Open Source Intelligence is also used to counter Russia’s denials of the bombings. In this example, journalists who follow stories with online tools return credibility to survivors, taking it away from a powerful state. In another example, Human Rights Watch reconstructed the story of a bombing at a train station in Ukraine. They used video and photographic evidence to estimate the amount of people in the crowd, and screenshots of telegram announcements to provide context. I was most impressed by the way the investigators collected medical evidence from survivors–X-rays, fragments of metal, and descriptions of injuries–and matched it with the remnants of submunitions. This kind of project is inspiring. Communication with people on the ground, along with social media posts, satellite imagery, and background research into Russia’s weapons combined to produce a comprehensive account of a bombing that can be archived.  

I was blown away by the “spatial reconstruction” technique mentioned in “The Listening Post” episode. The only evidence journalists had to investigate a torture prison in Syria were memories of survivors. They used the sensory details victims remembered to identify architectural elements of the space, eventually reconstructing it using digital tools. This example made clear how important collaboration will be as the field of journalism changes. In the case of spatial reconstruction, reporters, architects, and software developers collaborated to expose war crimes. On that note, exposing war crimes seems to be the greatest use of Open Source journalism, which relies on reporting tools that do not endanger sources. 

Open Source signals a shift not only in the tools of journalism, but also in the structures of power that govern its dissemination. Traditionally, the stamp of legacy media – NYT, BBC, etc. – gave a piece of writing credibility. Now, that is undermined on the one hand by politicians who spread disinformation, and on the other hand, by changing reader habits. Further, anyone, today, can be a journalist. It is harder to verify the truth of the media than ever before. 

Open Source – and specifically, citizen journalism – responds by proving credibility through transparency, not institutional backing. Citizens and Open Source journalists who operate independently must lay bare the evidence backing up their claims. The documentary on Bellingcat develops this idea, paving a way for a new model for building public trust in the media. Ironically, this ideology, in some ways, aligns with the anti-establishment view of many populist politicians. But while a source like Bellingcat may favor transparency over institutional backing, its work is ultimately guided by the pursuit of truth, not profit or political gain. 

I was intrigued by the format of The Beekeeper of Sinjar, by Dunya Mikhail, which almost reads like an oral history. The book is comprised of Mikhail’s interviews with Abdullah, who rescues Yazidi women who are sold as slaves to Daesh officers. Mikhail gives minimal context. She doesn’t tell us what Daesh is or anything about its history. She also gives scant context about the Yazidis and the vulnerabilities they face as a persecuted group. Instead, the context emerges naturally. Mikhail assumes a certain amount of prior knowledge and lets Abdullah fill in the rest. Through the stories he tells, we learn more about the crimes Daesh commits and the experiences of those held captive. 

On the one hand, this format allows the reader to learn through immersion. Abdullah rarely mentions numbers or dives into history, instead focusing on stories of particular women. Through giving voice to these stories, we feel closer to the subjects. Context sections never pull us out of the narrative at hand. Readers are also invited into an intimate reporting process. We bear witness to one-one-one phone calls between Abdullah and Mikhail, learning details about Mikhail along the way. 

At some moments, I found myself craving context. The risk of telling many narratives in sequence is that they blend together and lose their weight. Over time, the reader can become desensitized to the acts of extreme violence described. Kingsley takes the opposite approach, weaving context throughout human stories. He even alternates between one man’s story and those of other immigrants. A combination of narrative and background create a comprehensive (though never complete) picture of Europe’s migration crisis. 

Kingsley also incorporates his own takes, at times. I appreciated this. He clarifies a key tension: as migration swells, Europe tightens border controls. The continent’s response to scores of migrants has not just been inadequate, but also, negligent. 

Today, Europe’s response is becoming more extreme, and sometimes, explicitly xenophobic. Germany started issuing payments for Syrians to return home after Assad’s regime fell. Meanwhile, the AfD gains ground around the country, helping to entrench anti-immigrant sentiment. 

Ben Taub’s reporting gives us a glimpse into migration of another kind. Taub follows the story of Khaled al-Halabi, who was initially not persecuted by Assad’s regime, but part of it. Taub never spoke with Halabi but managed to reconstruct his story, relying on other sources and his French asylum interview. Halabi went from spy to refugee when conspiracies swarmed of his failure to defend Raqqa, where he was stationed, from rebels. He crosses the border with Turkey and flees to France. Soon, scores of Syrians escaping war are also abroad. Meanwhile, the international community failed to persecute a regime whose violence was obvious and widely condemned. 

To emphasize this failure, Taub draws parallels between the world’s negligence of Jews during the Holocaust and its ambivalence toward Assad’s regime. Taub makes this connection for reasons more historical than symbolic: Nazis helped form Syria’s intelligence services. The structure that propped up Assad had structural origins in another regime that has been universally condemned. Taub’s story, in this respect, calls attention to the need for international law to protect countries from systems of persecution.

Volunteer interpreter Bruno Verduzco listened as the young mother on the phone told how the FARC beat, raped, kidnapped, and threatened her. As she spoke, Verduzco, a Mexico City native, Googled terms he missed. Colombia has its own words for the FARC and the guerilla group’s crimes, and if Verduzco got any of them wrong, the woman’s case for asylum could be rejected.

In many contexts, human interpretation is a profession of the past. In an ad for Apple’s new Airpods Pro 3, which came to stores on Friday, the technology helps a woman buy carnations from a Spanish-speaking vendor. A Portuguese-speaker and an English-speaker, both donning a fresh pair, talk business over a meal. At $250 apiece, AirPods Pro 3 uses Apple Intelligence to translate a foreign language live, in a human-like tone, into the wearer’s ear, toning down the speaker’s voice at the same time.

The possibilities to navigate foreign countries, conduct business, and communicate with loved ones are vaster than ever. But some fear Apple’s new savvy machine will become a cheap replacement for something only humans can do.

“The news about Apple’s new headphones has us a bit worried,” said Maria Juega, a legal interpreter.

Juega’s fears are warranted. In recent years, the U.S. government has started using AI-powered translation to communicate with immigrants. In 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol created an app to help officers communicate with non-English speakers entering the U.S. In 2019, ProPublica published an internal manual from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that tells officers how to decipher the social media posts of non-English speakers. “Go to translate.google.com,” it reads. “Paste the text that needs to be translated to English.” “Click on the blue ‘Translate’ command button.” “Review results.”

AI-powered translation can move a backlog of immigration cases forward. In the U.S., the demand for interpreters is constant, fluctuating based on circumstances abroad. When the Taliban took over their country in 2021, many Afghans sought asylum in the U.S. A shortage of Dari- and Pashtun-speaking interpreters slowed their cases.

Though the new AirPods are only fluent in English, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and French, the technology signals hope for immigrants who speak lesser-known languages. “It’s difficult to find somebody that can interpret from Wolof to English,” said Mary F. Chicorelli, founder of Equal Access Legal Services, a Philadelphia non-profit that represents immigrants. “Or something called Soninke,” she said, referring to a West African language with no written form of its own.

Chicorelli has long relied on Google Translate for basic communication. The technology allows her to write to clients in their native languages to confirm consultations or notify them of a green card approval. But she is skeptical of AI’s ability to handle more important tasks, like preparing for asylum interviews or verifying key facts.

If an interpreter mistranslates an immigrant’s story, “their entire case could be blown,” she said. The stakes are especially high for asylum seekers, who rarely know English and are often fleeing dangerous circumstances. In their hearings, they rely on interpreters to get their stories right.

To request asylum, each applicant needs to prepare a document explaining her reasons for seeking refuge. For a case to make it to court, this document must be written in clear, well-formatted English. Asylum seekers depend on interpreters long before they make it to court.

“The nuances of interpretation are extremely important for translating how a person’s experience fits into—or doesn’t—the very specific statutes that govern asylum,” said Amelia Frank-Vitale, an anthropologist and immigration scholar. For someone to qualify for asylum, they must fit into a persecuted group. “It isn’t enough to rise to the level of asylum under US and international law that people want to kill you,” Dr. Frank-Vitale said.

In this context, details matter.

An example: In Spanish, jefe means boss. In Mexico, it sometimes means “father.” In an asylum case, a mistranslation of jefe could nullify a plea for asylum due to familial or gender-based persecution.

“The translation aspect of it, in my opinion, is the easiest part,” Verduzco said, reflecting on his work for Solidaridad Central Jersey, a Pro-Se clinic for asylum seekers. “I do fear that not a lot of people can interpret, and even less can interpret in a cultural sense.”

Live translation technology is not novel. But with Apple’s new product, it is easier to use than ever. The wearer simply taps a button or says “Siri, start Live Translation” to activate the setting. Human interpreters are wary of the risks that come with machine replacements. “We think that in the legal context, our jobs will keep being necessary,” said Juega, a court interpreter. “Even if certain aspects will be made easier by the new technology.”

A robust investigation by Azmat Khan’s reveals that the civilian death toll of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was much higher than what the Pentagon disclosed, investigated, or even counted. In Part 1 of her series, Khan explains how cultural misunderstandings and outdated intelligence led military airstrikes to target civilians instead of ISIS. She notes how the quality and quantity of video footage blinded officials to an air strike’s true victims. And she exposes a system of impunity in the U.S. military, which gives officials the authority to determine how many civilian deaths justify an enemy strike. Khan’s research makes clear that the technology of air warfare, which is meant to target enemies with precision, depends on adequate intelligence if it is to spare civilians. 

I found Part 2 of Khan’s project especially moving. For this section, Khan compares the Pentagon’s records, which are full of redactions, to the stories of people who survived or witnessed the strikes. What she finds reveals the failures of the U.S. military to accurately identify and target members of ISIS. Civilians with nothing to do with ISIS lost lives, homes, and family members when military officials mistook civilian areas for ISIS-controlled zones, and misidentified civilians as ISIS fighters. The Pentagon’s process for reviewing strikes neglected to investigate these cases. Meanwhile, civilians who lost family members or suffered injuries were left with confusion, grief, and anger. 

Khan’s project is enlightening not only because it details the underestimated–and underinvestigated–toll of air warfare, but also because it guides the reader along Khan’s own investigative process. At every moment, Khan is clear about the source of her findings. She explains how she obtained Pentagon records through FOIA requests, and used the evidence in these records to guide her investigation. She measured what the Pentagon wrote against stories from the ground. When gathering these stories, she navigated the possibility that civilians may misremember or misconstrue events. With this in mind, she made site visits without notice, asked open-ended questions, and ensured that subjects understood her motives. These details are both instructive and in line with journalistic ethics, which push for transparency.

While Khan’s reporting gives readers a window into the toll of war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, other news reports follow the huge exodus of people the wars spurred. Since the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, scores have fled the country, with the U.S., Canada, and Germany receiving the most migrants from Afghanistan. At first, governments abroad organized special programs to take in Afghans fleeing the ruling Taliban. Operation Enduring Freedom gave many migrants humanitarian parole in the U.S., and protected citizens who helped the U.S. government during its invasion and subsequent occupation. Germany, in 2022, set up an admission program that aimed to bring in as many as 1000 Afghans per month. Though neither program was adequate (there were many more persecuted Afghans than seats on U.S. chartered flights, and many asylum seekers whose cases are yet to be processed in Germany). But each was an attempt to mitigate the humanitarian toll of the U.S.’s hasty abandonment of Afghans. Today, these attempts are dwindling as anti-immigrant politics slash humanitarian programs. After Trump took office, he suspended refugee admissions, withheld TPS from Afghans, and put a near-total ban on Afghans entering the U.S. Recently, Germany’s new chancellor suspended the program meant to admit Afghans, leaving thousands stranded in Pakistan. 

As memories of the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2021 recede and right-leaning politics gains favor globally, countries leave Afghans vulnerable to the Taliban’s persecution. At the same time, the Taliban’s violence has created a migration crisis impossible for the international community to absorb, given the inadequate systems of support for refugees. Germany’s chancellor, Friedrick Merz, who is anti-immigrant, does raise an important question, of “how one deals with [the Taliban].” 

“A Faith Under Siege” challenges the narrative, which some conservatives have propagated, that Ukrainians are targeting Christians. In the documentary, a group of evangelical Christians from the U.S. travel to the frontlines of the war in Ukraine. They reveal the ways in which evangelical Christians in Ukraine have been targeted by Russians and demonstrate how the Russian Orthodox Church is a state agent. The documentary challenges the Kremlin’s portrayal of Ukraine as the aggressor and exposes Russia’s abduction, indoctrination, and militarization of children. To the evangelical Americans, Russia’s mistreatment of Ukrainian children is part of its attack on pro-family and evangelical values–and, more broadly, religious freedom everywhere. 

I found parts of this documentary moving. It is an example of the way shared beliefs can compel people to put themselves at risk and advocate for a vulnerable group. The evangelical Americans who traveled to the frontlines were drawn to support evangelical Ukrainians, though they may share little else with them than religion. The resulting documentary challenges a belief that members of their American communities at home may hold: that Russians, not Ukrainians, have been victimized. In this respect, the production of “A Faith Under Siege” allowed a small group of Americans–and by extension, audiences at home–to gain a deeper understanding of the Ukrainian experience of war today. 

Still, I have questions about the legitimacy of the documentary’s claims. Is it true, for instance, that the Russian Orthodox Church is targeting Ukrainian Evangelicals disproportionately? Or, rather, does the Russian Orthodox Church target churches in Ukraine to lower morale and divide civilians, and not necessarily to obliterate evangelicalism? And, how true is it, if at all, that Ukraine targets Christians? Where did this claim come from? Finally, will evangelical advocates help civilians of other faiths? 

Regardless, the other readings from this week affirm that faith-based action is insufficient to help Ukraine protect its citizens. Instead, Zelensky pushes for a broader vision of unity, one that integrates other European countries, along with the U.S., into Ukraine’s fight against Russia. In Europe and overseas, the effects of Russia’s invasion have been impossible to ignore. While the war has pushed Ukrainians to seek asylum in nearby countries, far-right politics has gained ground. Ukrainian refugees arrive in Germany in droves at the same time as conservative voices push to close borders. 

Countering this attitude of separation, Zelensky pushes for unity. European countries may put their own national security at risk if they ignore this plea. Deb reports in her Substack that Russia has recently ramped up its use of drones in warfare, making civilian life more dangerous. In response, Ukraine started a program to shoot down Russian drones. This is a small solution to a pressing threat: drones are changing warfare–and global politics–at an alarming speed. 

While drones have unleashed new possibilities for Russian attacks, they have also been essential to Ukraine’s defense. In the “drone race” underway, whichever country–Russia or Ukraine–advances and scales drone technology more quickly will gain a massive advantage. Russia has the resources to do this. Ukraine does not. For Ukraine to outpace Russia in its use of drones, it needs support from abroad. And for Ukraine’s allies, ignoring this need could have disastrous consequences. As The Philadelphia Inquirer reports, “Trump’s coddling of Putin only speeds Russia’s advancement in the new global drone wars, which could boomerang against Washington all too soon.” Which is to say: if Trump does not invest in Ukraine’s military technology, it will empower a dictatorial bloc including China, Iran, and North Korea, who are already learning from–and aiding–Russia’s use of drones.

Trump has relied on lawsuits and settlements to control the media and undermine journalistic freedom. He sued Meta and recently settled for $25 million. His lawsuit against ABC, which attacked the way host George Stephanapoulos described Trump’s assault of a writer, earned him $15 million. In July, Paramount settled with Trump for $16 million, resolving a suit against the company’s editing of a pre-election interview with Kamala Harris, which Trump claimed was biased. The money will help fund Trump’s presidential library. These and other lawsuits, threats, and bans–targeting CNN, the Associated Press, CBS, NBC, and ABC–reflect Trump’s efforts to control the media’s portrayal of him.

Not only has Trump used legal strategies to attack the media, but he has also ordered financial changes to comply with his preferences for journalistic coverage. In January, the FCC launched an investigation into NPR and PBS, two entities receiving government funding. This led to an executive order, released on May 2, 2025, to cease the CPB’s subsidization of these outlets. The order claimed that NPR and PBS, which should be independent, cover issues in an unfair way. For many journalists, it signaled a growing need to self-censor to survive.

The sources we read for class agree that Trump’s legal and financial actions against CBS, NPR, and other outlets are part of a broader campaign to control the press. Such a campaign could enable a dictatorial grip on the press, one that only allows the media to publish material consistent with the President’s wishes. In this context, the government would become, as lawyer Bob Corn-Revere says, “the media’s editor-in-chief.”

But to Trump, control of the press is a necessary measure to temper what he perceives as a clear bias in the media. Two narratives–one fearing censorship, the other, left-leaning bias–are at war.

This tension reflects divisions that, in many ways, the media landscape forged. Since cable news enabled viewers to watch a variety of live shows and rerun programs at any time of day, media consumption has continued to fracture. Fewer people consume the same media at the same time of day than ever before. Instead, we can search and view content–and even demand an algorithm to create it–whenever we want. As our media landscape splinters, our shared sense of reality suffers. My hope is that new models of media will revive an engagement with prime time, allowing us to consume the same content, at the same time. At the same time, policy must ensure that this content is fact-based and independent from government censorship.