Category: Uncategorized (Page 4 of 6)

I think it’s interesting how open source intelligence allows for reporting crimes that can not be reached by journalist, reporters, or most people other than those directly affected. Of course, open source reporting needs verification and that teams are dedicated to corroborating footage to document war crimes to fight disinformation or propaganda campaigns (which mainstream journalism from either side is used to disseminate).

Perhaps open source data, if taken at face value, could be the best bet to access objective facts about the war. Some things I thought were cool was using facial recognition to identify military personnel, enabling citizen reports through government apps, and corroborating data procured through uploads by satellite footage. It is amazing how data and narratives from both sides of the war can be used to construct a fuller picture — which mainstream journalism perhaps forms just a part of. It is amazing to me how much can be understood from the data, entire buildings reconstructed, timeline of army advances revealed, people in command identified, the use of chemical weapons and based on impact photos whether they were dropped from the air or the ground revealed. Open source intelligence just widens our scope of knowledge by an exponential amount, casting this wide data net and then sifting through it to create a story. The common narrative I found in the readings was that of justice — that open source intelligence allows us to document attack on hospitals, use of chemical weapons, and other war crimes perpetrated by either part in the conflict.

There is a sense in which the agents in the Al Jazeera documentary were looking for very specific things in the data set, it is a directed search. It is interesting, then, to me that open source intelligence is often directed by the intent of documenting crimes so that they may one day be presented in court and justice will be administered to those who suffered so incredibly. Generally, we document for historical reasons — and until the Nuremberg trials we didn’t think prosecution for crimes on an international level was feasible. Information is hard to have concentrated ownership of in today’s world — which is a blessing — but to think that power isn’t concentrated would be astray. With the current international order it appears we require the cooperation of the perpetrators (or their allies) to prosecute them in any meaningful way — this leaves us at a standstill. It is difficult to say, when, or if the global powers will be brought to justice. I’m not hinting that open source intelligence should not document the war and war crimes, I think they should — but perhaps not just with the focus of creating a case. Perhaps if we used this treasure trove of data in other ways, I wonder what we would unearth.

Last month marked two years since President Joe Biden withdrew American troops from Afghanistan takeover of the nation by the Taliban. According to the Biden Administration, 70,000 Afghans were evacuated by the U.S. military in August. In addition, The Biden Administration added staffing and expanded the budget of the for the Special Immigrant Visa program that relocates Afghans who aided American soldiers and diplomats in  Afghanistan.

However, a recent report released by the US Department of State reveals that these reforms have fallen disastrously short.

The report found that efforts to improve the SIV process in anticipation of the Afghan withdrawal began in February 2021 – in addition to the expanded staff, email processing software was employed, and a new consular was established in Doha, Qatar,. These improvements, however, were no match for the influx of SIV applicants that followed the fall of Kabul in August 2021. “The number of Afghan SIV principal applicants awaiting COM approval increased by 1,416 percent from October 2021 through December 2022, from 4,029 to 61,114, respectively,” the report notes. Applications were spiking as the Taliban crackdown intensified in Afghanistan, but there were no additional personnel hired to deal with this increase in applications after February. As of August 1st, 2023, nearly 35,000 SIVs had been issued – but more than an estimated 152,000 SIV-eligible applicants remain stuck in Afghanistan or otherwise in limbo waiting for their visa to be processed.

Belonging to the latter group is Muhammad Idrees Ghairat, a scholar at the SPIA Afghan Policy Lab at Princeton University and an Afghan refugee. Ghairat, a former employee of the United States Institue of Peace in Kabul, applied for his SIV in April 2021 – four months before the US withdrawal. In May, he was given a case number and asked to submit a supervisor letter of recommendation, but he did not receive any further updates on his case. On August 15, 2021, when Kabul fell, Ghairat was among the 70,000 immediately evacuated, aided by the fact that he had a case number in hand—but he still did not have a visa. In December of 2022, after arriving in the US, he found out via the online SIV portal that he had been denied for an SIV because his recommendation letter was “not verifiable.” “My supervisor stopped working for the US Institute of Peace when Kabul fell,” he explained. “When they contacted her by email, it was to an email that is now not working.”

Ghairat has appealed the decision, but it has been pending for more than 8 months. In the interim, he is in the US on humanitarian parole, a visa that only allows you to be here for two years. His parents and disabled sister are still stuck in Afghanistan. “You don’t know what’s next, or what’s happening,” Ghairat says. “The Taliban are threatening family members. The emotional and psychological stress – my family has insurance but no access to healthcare in the Taliban government. It is very frustrating.”

Despite these circumstances, Ghairat is hopeful about his future. “I am still confident in my case because my office is still functioning; my employers know me personally. They can send in any verification evidence that the process requires. But what if you don’t have a direct supervisor or if you are a subcontractor?” he asks.

Ghairat strikes at a crucial point. “The Afghan immigrant visa process is incredibly layered,” says Jenna Jaffe, Congressional Immigration Specialist. “I have yet to see a program category with a higher threshold to meet – and you must meet every criterion 100%.”

Jaffe explains that after an SIV application is submitted, the most significant hurdle is clearing the first step: obtaining Chief of Mission (COM) approval. COM approval is the Department of State’s process of applicant employment verification and letter of recommendation review. Ghairat is currently awaiting COM approval as well.  “60% of applications get stalled or do not pass this phase, and in many cases, not because of any fault of the applicant,” Jaffe says.

Jaffe gives the examples that it is not always possible to get a letter of recommendation from an applicant’s supervisor. “I’ve worked on cases where the applicant’s supervisor has passed away. What then? You would think the government would keep a list of its contractors – they don’t, or they won’t share it.”

The COM approval is part of the “enhanced vetting” process touted by elected officials and even the secretary of Homeland Security as a way to stop “bad actors” from entering the country. “But there is no data to support that enhanced vetting is catching any bad actors.” Jaffe says, “For example, many of our security systems are not built for non-European names, whether in spelling, length, or naming conventions.”

Jaffe explains that there are many ways that there could be multile acceptable transliterations of the same Arabic name – “but if there is an inconsistency in our  system, the applicant is denied.” Jaffe says that enhanced vetting doesn’t really work, and ultimately, it only makes life impossible for both Americans and Afghans.

Looking forward, the Department of State’s report outlines plans to hire a hundred additional personnel to support SIV processing. They estimate that this has the potential to allow the government to process all the applications currently stalled in the COM phase within the next three to five years.

Jaffe appreciates any extra help but does not see a way forward in this system long-term without greater reform. “The Department of Homeland Security needs to be meaningfully restructured,” she says. “The government has no vested interest in people understanding the immigration system, and the vast majority of the public points their anger and fury at people who have nothing rather than at Congress for failing to create a functional immigration system.”

After over a year of repeated requests from Kyiv for the American MGM-140 ATACMS, U.S. President Joe Biden has finally agreed to send these long-range missiles to help Ukraine with its counter-offensive.

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 27 — U.S. President Joe Biden told the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Washington will soon provide Kyiv with a small number of Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to help its counter-offensive against Russian forces in Russian-occupied Ukraine, according to an NBC news report which cited three U.S. officials and a congressional official. The White House, Pentagon, and Zelenskyy have not publicly announced or confirmed the move.

Biden’s decision comes after over a year of Kyiv’s pleas with the Biden administration for long-range missiles to help its counter-offensive. ATACMS are long-range ballistic missiles with a range of up to 300km (as per the website of Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of ATACMS) which will allow Ukraine to fire far beyond the front lines into command headquarters, weapons repositories, air bases, and supply networks like the railway in occupied territory.

“Ukraine is running out [of long range missiles] because it used up a sizable number in the summer,” says Shashank Joshi, the defense editor of the Economist, “it probably has long-range firing capabilities for another 6 months at best.” Ukraine’s already small arsenal of long-range missiles consisting mainly of the British Storm Shadow and French SCALP cruise missiles has depleted after use in the counter-offensive this Summer making America’s supply of MGM-140 ATACMS critical to Ukraine’s long-range striking ability. “Ukraine will need long-range missiles especially in the winter,” according to Joshi, “When Russia is likely to move its facilities farther behind the front lines since ground fighting becomes more difficult due to inclement weather.”

ATACMS are also different from the Storm Shadow and SCALP long-range missiles given to Ukraine by Britain and France respectively. Storm Shadow and SCALP are cruise missiles powered by a jet engine with a flat low flight trajectory. ATACMS, however, are ballistic missiles which have a projectile trajectory and are much faster in hitting their target which will allow the Ukrainian military to strike moving and time-sensitive targets.

“What’s neat about the ATACMS is that they can have warheads of different types,” says Joshi, “and the cluster warhead can do a lot of damage.” The cluster warhead ATACMS explode in the air over a target releasing submunitions that detonate over a large area surrounding the target, as opposed to the unitary warhead which is filled with a single explosive. According to the Washington Post, the U.S. will be giving Ukraine cluster warhead ATACMS. “Cluster Munitions are especially bad because undetonated submunition in an area persists after the attack, often later killing civilians that walk through it,” says Princeton History Professor Yana Prymachenko. Many human rights groups have also voiced their concerns about the U.S. supplying Ukraine with cluster munitions even outside of the most recent cluster warhead ATACMS.

Even though the White House announced a new $325 million military aid package for Kyiv on Thursday when Zelenskiy visited Washington for talks with Biden, the announcement did not include and wasn’t succeeded by a statement on the supply of ATACMS. For over a year now, Washington has been hesitant on providing Ukraine with ATACMS for “three main reasons” according to Joshi.

The first is the risk of escalation and potential for Ukraine to attack Russian territory as opposed to just Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova said, “if Washington decides to supply longer-range missiles to Kyiv, then it will be crossing a red line, and will become a direct party to the conflict,” in a briefing earlier this month reported by Reuters. The stakes of the escalation are immense considering that both Russia and the U.S. are nuclear powers. The second, is that America’s own stockpile of long-range missiles is limited and supplying ATACMS to Ukraine may undercut America’s military readiness.

The third, and “very important” reason for the delay in the provision of ATACMS to Ukraine according to Joshi is that currently most military aid to Ukraine is funded through presidential drawdown authority which is capped. “Even with the increase [in Presidential drawdown authority] to $11 billion by Congress in Fiscal Year 2022, the authority is limited and Biden probably considers it fit to fund more critical military aid like air defense, artillery, and ammunition which is of much greater priority than long-range missiles,” says Joshi. This opinion was echoed by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin who urged allies to send artillery ammunition and air defense systems which are Ukraine’s most urgent needs after a meeting with the Ukraine Contact Group this month.

Joshi says that ATACMS are “just another long-range missile to add on to Ukraine’s inventory” and “will not affect the course of the war by much” especially if only a small number of ATACMS are provided but artillery and ammunition are critical to Ukrainian defense. According to Joshi, the future of American funding for Ukraine looking grim. “At the moment the vast majority of democrats and Republicans support military aid for Ukraine, but aid to Ukraine is becoming a partisan issue with Republican voters increasingly questioning support,” Joshi says. “So considering the political climate in the U.S.,” Joshi adds, “prioritizing long-range missiles may not be a strategic move.”

Biden to give long-range ATACMS missiles to Kyiv

U.S. President Joe Biden has agreed this weekend to send a “small number” of long-range missiles known as the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to Kyiv in the coming weeks according to NBC News and the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, in Geneva, a U.N. inquiry into human rights has revealed that substantial evidence has been collected to implicate Putin on human rights violation. In less than two weeks, Russia will run for reelection to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Although initially hesitant to ship long-range missiles to Kyiv, Biden’s decision comes in response to the U.S.’ “realization that Russia is gaining more ground and aligning itself with other alliances to make its position stronger than before,” according to Princeton Professor Mahiri Mwita.

The U.S. and NATO have displayed caution in their assistance to Ukraine and in their rhetoric towards Russia throughout the past year and a half of conflict. Many people are concerned that the use of U.S.-made missiles could aggravate Moscow and bring the U.S. closer to direct conflict. Whether Ukraine plans to use these U.S.-supplied missiles to “strike further within Russia itself” dictates whether this is “an escalation that could be dangerous” as opposed to only “us[ing] them in occupied Ukraine,” according Peter Singer, Australian moral philosopher and Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University.

There is “a danger” without the “assurance that they [long-range missiles] won’t be used inside Russia itself,” says Singer.

Despite U.S. qualms, Russia has stuck to the narrative that actors in the West have been the true aggravators in the war. In a press conference on Saturday, September 23, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told journalists that the U.S. was directly in conflict with Moscow rather than in a proxy war as others have claimed, reports CNN.

“We can call this a hybrid war, but that doesn’t change the reality,” said Lavrov in CNN.

Should it be true that American missiles are killing Russians inside their country, then the idea of direct conflict and war “would be verified in the eyes of Russians” which “could lead to dangerous escalation,” says Singer.

On Monday, September 26, 8 U.S.-made M1 Abrams tanks arrived in Kyiv, amid concerns doing so would bring NATO more “directly into war.” Two months earlier, the U.S. agreed to send Ukraine cluster-bombs, despite protests from human rights groups concerned about the dangers of undetonated bombs left behind after the end of the war.

Russia “campaigns aggressively” to rejoin UN Human Rights Council, says BBC.

On Monday, September 26, a U.N. -mandated investigative body stated it had collected evidence that Russian military in occupied Ukraine has inflicted “widespread and systematic” torture “with such brutality that is has caused the death of the victim,” reported Reuters.

Over 15 months ago, Russia was expelled from the United Nations Human Rights Council after invading Ukraine, with “93 votes cast in favour…24 against it and 58 abstentions,” according to The Independent.

No Russian representative attended the U.N. hearings this past week, and thus no response was given to the allegations. In March, the U.N. commission announced that the crimes of Russian forces in Ukraine “may constitute crimes against humanity,” including “the use of torture.”

“Russia is trying to reestablish its credibility,” says Mwita, amid recent news that Russia prepares to run for reelection to the U.N. Human Rights Council in an upcoming vote on October 10th.

Moscow is circulating a position paper at the U.N. campaigning its intention to “promote principles of cooperation and strengthening of constructive mutually respectful dialogue in the council in order to find adequate solutions for human rights issues,” reports BBC.

“They’re trying to refuse to be labeled, and maligned by the USA,” says Mwita.

The Russian position paper being circulated purports its primary focus is to prevent the “increasing trend” of weaponizing the HRC for punishing rivals or rewarding allies of its member nations.

Mwita points to the fact that the U.S. has continued to have a spot at the HRC despite their own atrocities committed in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq as rationale for Russia’s scrutiny towards the HRC and its removal from the council.

In the eyes of Russia, Moscow has a “right to rejoin the HRC” if the U.S. continues can continue to sit on it despite their own human rights violations abroad, says Mwita.

Moscow has reportedly begun seeking votes from smaller countries in exchange for the promise of goods such as “grain and arms,” writes BBC. Russia only competes against Albania and Bulgaria for two remaining seats on the council.

“Rejoining the HRC is a way of them [Russia] showing their force,” says Mwita.

Beijing, September 22 – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Chinese leader Xi Jinping announced a strategic partnership to rebuild a war-torn Syria during the Arab leader’s rare visit to China. 

Assad visited China for the first time in almost two decades in an attempt to end over a decade of diplomatic isolation under Western sanctions. His visit takes place as China seeks to advance its influence in the Middle East, where it recently aligned with Iran and Saudi Arabia.

“China opposes interference by external forces in Syria’s internal affairs… and urges all relevant countries to lift illegal unilateral sanctions against Syria,” Xi said in a readout of talks published by Chinese state media. “China supports Syria’s opposition to foreign interference, unilateral bullying … and will support Syria’s reconstruction.”

The United States, the European League, and much of the Arab League called for Assad’s resignation from the presidency in 2011 after he ordered a violent crackdown on Arab Spring protesters during the events of the Syrian revolution, which led to the ongoing Syrian civil war. A series of economic sanctions were imposed in 2011 by the E.U., the U.S., Canada, and Australia as a result of the repression of civilians in the war. Syria regained full membership in the Arab League in May. 

As the second largest economy in the world, China has worked to partner with nations that have been historically shunned by the U.S. Assad’s motivation for visiting China was for financial and international legitimacy purposes, the same ones behind his Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) tour earlier this year to the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.

Xi announced that a number of initiatives would be implemented aimed at building up infrastructure along the Silk Road and promoting China’s approach to global security. Syria joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2022, which aims to strengthen China’s ties in Asia and Africa by improving regional integration, increasing trade, and stimulating economic growth.

Xi told Assad that China would help Syria to rebuild its ruined economy and counter domestic unrest, by upgrading ties to a “strategic partnership.”

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, over 12 million Syrians remain forcibly displaced in the region, including almost 6.8 million within Syria and 5.4 million living as refugees in neighboring countries. 15.3 million people in Syria will require life-saving aid this year. The country remains the world’s largest refugee crisis.

In August 2023, protests over Syria’s high inflation rate and economic situation in Syria erupted in the city of Al-Suwayda. The protests began with hundreds of participants and grew to thousands of protesters by the next week and spread throughout the country. Protestors chanted slogans demanding the downfall of the Assad government.

In an interview with the New Jersey Times, Dora Guo, a research assistant for Princeton University’s Center on Contemporary China said “China is trying to help countries such as Syria in a very peaceful way. China is continuing to rebuild countries, no matter who’s in position.”

Guo added that Middle Eastern countries are in a “tough place,” where they have to “choose sides between global superpowers. “If it’s not the U.S., it has to be someone else, like China.”

Guo, an expert on China’s influence on the global scale, emphasized China’s want to gain control over the Middle East and its natural resources. 

“China has very limited oceanic resources,” Guo said in reference to the Belt and Road Initiative. “The initiative with the Middle East helps China, not only politically, but also economically, and culturally.”

Yan Bennett, the Assistant Director of the Contemporary Center on China, expressed a similar sentiment in an interview with the New Jersey Times.

“Based on trendlines from other Belt and Road Initiative projects, whatever infrastructure or energy investments in Syria will be more beneficial to China than to Syria,” she said. “China makes very one-sided deals with Belt and Road Initiative nations, which favors Chinese trade and investment gains.”

In the readout of the talks, Xi emphasized that this development marks an “important milestone in the history of bilateral relations”.

The meeting took place on Thursday, September 22 in Hangzhou, China. 

As Assad returned from China, the U.S. Central Command announced that the U.S. military captured an ISIS official in a helicopter raid in northern Syria over the weekend.

“If Halabi is the highest-ranking Syrian war criminal who can be arrested, it is only because the greater monsters are protected.” Ben Taub’s piece on the Halabi brings to attention the ways — and the extent to which — war criminals are protected, and in a way how impunity and protection enables them in committing horrific crimes. The higher up you are in the hierarchy, the more you have to offer any side that dominates the war in any given moment, if you are willing to sacrifice loyalty. Ben Taub’s latest piece along side the Halabi piece gives a close up of is the role of individual people in the war — whether the role is as the perpetrator of some of the horrors of the war or as the documenter of the crimes with the hope that someday the perpetrator may be brought to justice. The Halabi piece especially is almost fictitious, almost. It has all the featured of a Netflix thriller, a war criminal, chased by CIJA, but elusive to their grasp because of a wide, corrupt or incompetent, network of institutions and authority figures offering him shelter. The end? The bad guy gets away — but this of course wasn’t on accident, just the way a director engineers the plot, Halabi’s story was engineered to end this way by his protectors.

The reading on the Beekeeper brings forth the stories of a different set of individuals in the war — the powerless. Most civilians are powerless in a war, and women and children are perhaps the most vulnerable but the way ISIS exploited the vulnerability of Yazidi women in Sinjar is just unfathomably inhumane. The stories from the Beekeeper show the many levels at which the women were tortured, the first was the individual sexual violation they experienced, the second was the risk they put the women’s children in (like making bombs and connecting wires which if done wrong would most certainly result in the child’s death) to force compliance from the women, the third was forced cultural cleansing and starting a new family with another man. And the escape from this tortured life was not any less perillious. Diving deeper into stories of escape, Patrick Kingsley’s piece sheds light on the plight of refugees on their treacherous journey to the West. Death is perhaps the most known outcome of the journey to news readers in the West, but Kingsley closely follows the journey in its many stages, revealing the challenge of a journey which someone who could hop on a flight to Europe couldn’t fathom being so difficult.

This week’s readings captured unspeakably vile realities of the genocide against the Yazidi people, so much so that it feels disrespectful and silly to try to summarize them for reading response. So much cruelty is enacted by power-drunk people for the sole reason that they can. Why is it that we can revel in somebody else’s excruciating pain? How can we see another as so dehumanized that we can inflict such torture as is described in The Bee Keeper and the Zaman piece? Dehumanization is easy to recognize when it is used to justify horrific acts. But on the topic of dehumanization, this particular quote from the Zaman piece landed particularly unwell with me: “[The Yazidis] typically experience less of the racism endured by other migrants. This is because ‘the German taxpayer understands that their situation is unique, that they have truly suffered’ and therefore takes pride in offering them a haven, Blume explained,” writes Zaman. 

“Truly suffered” – they have “truly suffered” – what does that mean? In my view, this is no true kindness or reduced racism. To look at a group of displaced people and decide not to be racist to them because they have “truly suffered” is dehumanization too. It reminds me that people of color will, in perpetuity, convince the white ruling majority that their suffering is real. They are asked to rehash, perform, confess, and cry while the white jury looks on and decides if it is true enough to reap pity. The pragmatist in me realizes that this is just how it is, and it is ultimately best that they are safe and housed away from harm. The human in me is disgusted. To this end, I do not find the closing comments of the Zaman piece shocking – “we have to hurry. The welcome coming atmosphere of 2015 is no longer here,” interviewee Minnayi says. How could the welcome last if it was never based on real respect or empathy as much as it was self-serving pseudo-heroism?

This brings me to the question posed for this week’s discussion: should journalists sensationalize tragedy to spur action? My response is that I don’t know that it is a meaningful action that will be spurred, especially as it relates to migration. Sympathy brought on by sensation is performative and shallow and only followed through with if it causes no discomfort to the giving party. That is, if people are not educated fully and brought to view others as human – deserving of peace not because they have performed a trauma circus for them – but because we trust them and welcome them because we truly see them as equals. I’m not convinced that journalism that centers on sensationalism can ever encourage a society of equals – is it the practice of consuming sensationalist media itself not somewhat grounded in an inherently patronizing lens? Journalism speaks to the public directly and shapes their view of people they do not know. It seems to me that journalists have a duty to educate rather than sensationalize, although I do not know where that line is in the case of such atrocities. 

I found the chapters we read in “The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq” particularly emotional and impactful, without relying on sensationalism to grab a reader’s attention or garner empathy for the Yazidis. I wasn’t familiar at all with Daesh, or their genocide of the Iraqi Yazidis before reading these chapters and the corresponding article. Yet, even with zero context, the authors wrote in such a fluid manner, interweaving interview dialogue and personal anecdotal context, to make what was happening explicitly clear to the reader. The horrors experienced by thousands of kidnapped Iraqi women, men and children under the Islamic State were told throughout the book without hiding behind euphemisms, but also in a way that was balanced precariously between focus on the people undergoing the tragedy and on the focus of what was happening.

I also thought it was interesting how the article in AL-MONITOR explicitly mentions that Germans warmly welcomed Yazidi refugees due to their Holocaust stained past, the Yazidi’s special circumstance of having “truly suffered,” and the “added bonus” of the asylum seekers comprising mostly women and children. I think this is a theme constant among the people of all nations who accept refugees, and obviously of those who don’t. I’m not sure how to explore this problem or articulate it clearly, but I do often think about why it is that the people of countries as economically privileged as the US or Germany feel they have the right to measure the suffering or plights of others as “good enough” or not. The result of which is that the more economically powerful and privileged countries get the last say on whose life is worth saving.

Like the article mentions, an asylum haven country’s warm embrace only lasts so long. In the US there’s a rampant public anti-immigration attitude among conservatives, and a less vocal one among liberals, but the result is the same: survivors of cartel violence, political persecution, or poverty in Central and South America are no longer welcome here. This is evidenced by the immigration policies of both Trump and Biden’s administrations, as well the violent policies and rhetoric of politicians like Gov. Abbott and Gov. Desantis. What’s worse, the immigration system is so backed up it forces many would-be legal migrants to try the illegal route, in many cases completely ruining their chances of a legal immigration later on. 

In the case of Germany, like the AL-MONITOR article writes, “the welcoming atmosphere of 2015 is no longer there” for the Yazidis. So, when thinking about the moral imperative of a journalist to produce works like “The Beekeeper,” or to not, remembering how quickly public memory fades, along with its corresponding generosity and empathy, should be reason enough to support continued coverage of tragedies worldwide. Of course, I also think that such coverage should be approached with the level of care and caution seen in “The Beekeeper,” as any sort of journalistic coverage of tragedy should be done with the intention to help, not to exacerbate their pain.

I found Ben Taub’s story on Khaled al-Halabi (the Syrian intelligence official who “disappeared” in Europe) to be fascinating. This comment doesn’t have to do with the content of the piece, but as I was reading, I was amazed by the technical execution of the article, especially the structure — even though I thought I was getting lost amidst all the details and acronyms of the story (not to mention the multiple time jumps and chronological reorderings) the final flow of events made clear narrative sense to me. Another technical note: It was amazing that Taub got so far with his reporting despite Khaled al-Halabi declining to speak with him — it’s a feat worthy of Gay Talese. Also, the inclusion of the detail about Brunner was really interesting — in some way, the detail makes it clear that this is not a story about wrongdoings of officials in the Syrian regime, but the wrongdoings of officials throughout history. Incidentally, Taub asserts at the beginning of the article that “the Austrian [Brunner] was a monster; the Syrian [al-Halabi], by most accounts, is not,” but after reading about al-Halabi’s alleged war crimes (including the torture device in Raqqa), I found myself wondering whether that assertion is perhaps a little too simple.

As for the content itself, I found myself wondering what the purpose of the piece was. It doesn’t seem like a profile; for one, al-Halabi never makes an appearance (except maybe on the balcony in the final paragraph), and we as readers never reach any satisfactory conclusion over what type of person al-Halabi is. We also have no concrete information regarding his thought process behind certain key actions — from deciding to flee to Turkey to agreeing to work for the Mossad. But at the same time, Taub’s piece doesn’t seem like an investigation, either: We hear about all sorts of wrongdoing (most egregiously in the BVT), but even the title of the article (“How a Syrian War Criminal and Double Agent Disappeared in Europe”) makes it clear that this piece isn’t meant to be a type of watchdog-style exposé of corruption. (Plus, Taub’s piece is deeply entertaining in many sections — I chuckled when al-Halabi tried to claim French asylum on the grounds of his alcoholism and secularism.) Taub’s piece doesn’t even feel like the New Yorker article we read from last week, which followed a single Afghan women through years of turmoil; the Afghanistan piece’s purpose felt like it was to describe the evolution of a country through a single vantage point, whereas Taub’s article never felt like it had any concrete narrative it wanted to tell — except to recount a crazy, John le Carré-esque saga, a là Isn’t this a wild story? The most substantial argument that Taub advances is regarding international criminal proceedings — he points out that al-Halabi (among other Syrian officials) have largely escaped prosecution, even in Europe.

All of this brings me to wonder — how (and why) did Taub begin reporting on this story in the first place? Also, was locating al-Halabi important for technical reasons (to interview him and flesh out the story) or important for narrative reasons (so readers could learn what had happened to him)?

I found the readings deeply moving and also difficult at times to comprehend and process.  I started with the second assigned reading.  First I saw the picture of Yazmin and then I read after what happened to her.  I thought that the burning had been inflicted o her.  But then to read that she lit her self on fire from trauma and that she thought she was being recaptured was something that truly demonstrates the horrors that they faced.  The stories we read this week further showed the brutality that was inflicted on Syrians, Yazidi, and people in Iraq.  The brutality was often indiscriminate and also scarier because it was so unpredictable.  I found problem with the author of the beekeeper saying that the boys had it worse.  I feel like victims should never be weigher against each other and also that boys and girls each had horrific and traumatizing experiences that they had to survive.  Nobody left their capture unscathed.

I think furthermore that what was overarching necessity for all survivors was the necessity of mental health and rehabilitation.  As I read I just kept realizing that many of these people would have to watch the fathers, brothers, husbands die or hear about their deaths.  However, they were fighting to survive and so they did not have real time to process their deaths.  The trauma to have to repress your sorrow and fight for you and sometimes your remaining family to survive is an immense emotional burden.  This on top of whatever horrors they faced after irreparably changes who you are as a person.  While being able to escape is the first step there is so much that it takes to actually start to recover from such traumatic events.

I think another article that was so interesting was the one about Halabi.  He was such an enigma in the article.  I mean I felt like as the story unfolded more parts of him were exposed but at the same time he became more shrouded  and secrecy.  I think even by the end the person writing the article didn’t even really know who he was or what he stood for.  I read Halabi as a man that would do anything to survive and that included leaving his wife and children behind and telling whatever stories that he could in order to achieve this. While there were stories of him helping or not being as violent there are also accounts of him being aware of the torture and oppression so many faced during his time in the intelligence in Syria.  I think is there ever an innocent person who is a member of a government body that represses people.  How do we justify allowing the possibility of refugee status for him.  But then also as it was shown in the article he played a very small role in a much larger regime.  They were after him because he was the highest government figure in Europe.  As the article pointed out is this really justice if you were to try this small scale person for crimes when there are much bigger players still roaming free.