Category: Uncategorized (Page 5 of 6)

“America’s precision bombs are indeed precise: They hit their targets with near-unerring accuracy.”

The message that comes from Azmat Khan’s articles on American airstrikes in the Middle East is a very clear one: civilians aren’t compromised in air-warfare by bombs that miss their targets, they are compromised by the personnel, the institution, deploying them. And, as inevitable as collateral damage is in warfare, to characterize the civilian lives lost in air warfare waged by America in the Middle East as “collateral damage” would be amiss. It is blatant institutional apathy that caused civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria. As Azat Khan notes, “What I saw after studying them [the pentagon records] was not a series of tragic errors but a pattern of impunity: of a failure to detect civilians, to investigate on the ground, to identify causes and lessons learned, to discipline anyone or find wrongdoing that would prevent these recurring problems from happening again.”

The air campaign was launched with the promise that it would “allow the military to kill the right people” and minimize harm “to the wrong ones.” When this promise is construed in the greater context of what inspired the air campaign – the unpopularity of the “forever wars” in the American public due to the loss of American service members – an unsettling message is conveyed. The replacement of American lives from the equation of loss by “an arsenal of aircraft directed by controllers sitting at computers” prompted such a different attitude to lives involved in the war. When 6,000 American lives were lost an effort was made to minimize the harm to lives, but when the lives of Syrian and Iraqi civilians were lost in the air campaign launched as an alternative to sending troops no effort was made to mitigate that loss. In practice, the promise of the campaign was saving American lives, not innocent lives, because as Azmat Khan says, “while many [civilian deaths] might have been averted through additional precautions — widening the surveillance camera’s field of view or deploying additional drones — the phenomenon continued unabated, amid the intense pace of battle and a shortage of surveillance aircraft.”

In the The Other Afghan Women, Anand Gopal brings to attention a story from a different kind of American warfare: Intervention turned occupation. In the story of Shakira’s life in Afghanistan, she went from considering the Americans (before their arrival in Afghanistan) the liberators, a view the Americans held of themselves, to viewing them as supporters of the terrorist “Dado” after interacting with them. This shift in perspective of American intervention evident in Shakira’s account of events was applicable outside of her own experience, and was a result of America’s ignorance of the local dynamics. As Gopal summarizes: “the U.S. did not attempt to settle such divides and build durable, inclusive institutions; instead, it intervened in a civil war, supporting one side against the other.” Conversely, she also went from despising the Taliban when they banned the production of opium in her village to having hope on their side of the fight, perhaps because in the countryside their fight against the injustice done by the foreigners took the only form of fighting accessible to them – joining the Taliban. On the other hand, the story of Taban Ibraz in the kitchen sisters – a journalist dressed in modern attire working in Kabul on the day the Taliban took control of it, had a very different reaction. To her the Taliban taking control didn’t just mean she had to quit her job, but also forgo her freedom. Something I find Gopal emphasizing really well in his piece is the distinction between lives in the countryside from those lived in the cities during American occupation, and after American exit. Because when I read coverage of the war, the general narrative shifted from relative political stability and liberation of women during the occupation to violent chaos and oppression of women after the exit – which while true of the cities, eclipsed an entirely different side of the lived experience of the war by people like Shakira in the countryside.

This week’s readings have shed some light on the topic that admittedly has only occupied the periphery of my attention spotlight before. I found the New Yorker article particularly helpful in tracing the timeline of the war for its straightforward chronological structure and historical summary combined with telling a few specific stories of people on the ground. Having mostly been exposed to records of the Afghan War from the 80s due to the participation of the Soviet troops, I got to learn a lot about the uncertainty of the new war, or the twenty tumultuous years that locals call the American War.

Aside from reckoning with the fine line between foreign missions and occupying forces, the common thread of intelligence failures and civilian death tolls came up multiple times. 

In his NYT investigation, Azmat Khan reveals the deceiving nature of “a precise war waged with all-seeing drones”. This image was sold to the American public and the world, convincing everybody of the protection this extraordinary technology would offer to regular civilians thrown into the war of someone else’s volition. In this heavily reliant on technology military operation, it wasn’t the bombs who malfunctioned, but people making the call. Khan documents numerous instances of sidestepping of required procedures and pushing decision-making down the chain of command. In some cases it was confirmation bias, in others – fatal misunderstanding of a cultural divide (labeling the quietness of Ramadan fasting as “no civilian presence”). 

The absence of further investigations and disciplinary action for most such cases to me really reinforces the point on the possibility of justice from last week’s readings. Under the conditions of a war, how can we expect anybody to keep promises and abide by regulations imposed either by their own agencies or the international humanitarian law postulating the rules of military conduct? How can they account for unforeseeable decisions made in a split second and the flawed human element?

The dreariest revelation of the article was perhaps the impossibility of accounting for all civilian deaths. As Anand Gopal writes, “the vast majority of incidents involved one or two deaths—anonymous lives that were never reported on, never recorded by official organizations, and therefore never counted as part of the war’s civilian toll.” In a world where civilian deaths serve as a measure of the war’s deadliness and tend to determine the amount of media attention an event gets, how can we do justice to all the silent suffering and unknown victims? 

The New York Times opinion video revealed at least 490 people missing and murdered on Taliban’s revenge spree of former American allies. While it’s more than enough to prove that they betrayed their amnesty pledge and lied to the face of international reporters, it’s obvious that this number is far from painting a full picture. With relatives afraid of speaking up in fear of retribution and revenge killers still rampaging, it’s hard to estimate how many stories may be forever lost.

This week’s readings, particularly Asmat Khan’s series, had me deeply thinking about what it means to be an American citizen. About ‘we’s and ‘they’s –  how we think about Americas greatest feats as a operation by us, we, and how when the government is killing countless Afghans and continuing to pretend if its attacks are precise, calculated or vaguely meaningful, it is something ‘they’ are doing. Khan mentions confirmation bias as he describes how senseless violence is enacted by the American armed forces, “‘Men on motorcycles moving “in formation,” displaying the “signature” of an imminent attack, were just men on motorcycles,” Khan writes. People see what they want to see. They act on what they decide they’ve seen. The blood spilled is, however unfortunate, unavoidable collateral damage. We fall victim to this confirmation bias time and again – HW Bush in Iraq, the armed forces in Afghanistan, and the American public looking at it all. History belongs to the victors, but reality belongs to what you decide you want to see. In real time, the aggressions enacted by America against innocent Afghan civilians is not only brutal, but careless. A detail that particularly struck me was that American armed forces are so ignorant to local cultural practices, such as families sleeping in during the month of Ramadan or staying in to avoid the heat, that they would declare areas free of civilians and ready to attack without checking if anyone was inside the homes. What is the explanation for this carelessness, after years of being stationed in this country? Because they are in the name of “protecting America” and because the slain children are not “ours,” the public buys that these civilian death couldn’t be helped. 

Another example – they bombed bakeries, schools, civilan hospitals because they allege that ISIS uses these sites actively since they are traditionally protected by the laws of war. When surveillence drones miss children in the hospital at nights, miss neighbors huddling together to protect themselves from the bombs, when the bombs go off – we can shrug and look away. “It was necessary” – we buy into the confirmation bias that this is warranted. We can look at the numbers of the innocent dead and not find it evil because we decided we are fighting evil, not being it. In an age in which we are bombarded by tragedy and death and deeply desensitized, we are hardly bothered by deaths of those who aren’t our own. And if we are bothered, we do not want to think of our country – the great leader of the free world – as capable of inflicting such harm. This was the great war on “terror” – who is to say that what Khan captures here isn’t terror? Is it a journalists place to say? If a journalist says it, will they be believed? In an age where people get to self curate their news and dismiss what they don’t want to see as fake news, the ultimate breeding ground for confirmation bias amongst the masses, how can journalists contribute to real accountability?

I thought Azmat Khan’s two part series did a spectacular job of not only showing in great detail how flawed the US’ air warfare in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan is, but of also writing it in a way that would make a US audience care. After reading the comments on the NYT for the first part, it became clear to me that even to non-military people in the US, civilian casualty is viewed as morally okay and actually even as a necessary consequence of war. One comment even asked why articles like Khan’s were needed, if it’s already acknowledged, or well-known, that casualty is a necessary part of war.

It’s somewhat unnerving that a reader could finish reading Khan’s article and walk away thinking that the US military shouldn’t change its air warfare methods, particularly in Iraq and Syria, moving forward. I think that shorter breaking news articles that reveal civilian casualty counts are more easily dismissed by a reader as a necessary result of any war, no matter the precautions taken. But Khan’s article interweaves actual military personnel dialogue, along with the words of the military spokesman, Urban, to put a face to the all-encompassing “military” that’s supposedly making calculated, thoughtful, and ethical decisions in these wars. 

Not only did Khan use their words, but he contextualized them effectively. I was particularly struck when he described the atmosphere of the actual buildings that the soldiers were calling for and executing these airstrikes. Khan writes that “soldiers can sound as if they are playing video games, in one case expressing glee over getting to fire in an area ostensibly “poppin” with ISIS fighters – without spotting the children in their midst.” Comparing the chat logs and the soldiers’ dialogue to the kind typically seen or heard by people playing combative video games, and contextualizing it within the detailed stories of real families devastatingly impacted by the airstrikes, a reader can more easily understand the gravity of what it means to have soldiers who sound like they’re playing a video game, yet are calling very real fatal strikes on civilians.

Additionally, the comparison to a video game further elucidates why these “mistakes,” or inaccurate strikes could be happening so often. Without actually being on the ground, facing the same danger as the civilians you’re standing feet away from, and basing your war decisions only on what you see through a computer screen, then the task at hand does become all too much like a consequence-less video game you play for fun. Khan even writes about how this change in attitude, a seemingly direct result of the transition to a remotely controlled air warfare, is reflected in the shift from “deliberate” strikes (those that require extensive planning and vetting) to the now much more common “dynamic” strikes that can be called “within minutes or hours in the flow of war.” 

Finally, I want to also comment on the exact kinds of human stories that Khan centered on. What resonated with me most throughout the article were the anecdotes, informed by both documents and actual survivors of the civilian airstrikes, that placed these supposedly necessary and expected casualties of war in relatable settings. I specifically think of the three families who were eating breakfast when two separate strikes hit, the man who waved to his friend in the car beside him at a stoplight and witnessed his friend’s wife be incinerated by an airstrike, and then also the man who was eating fruit below a tree before being killed. 

The abundance of anecdotes like these in the article, along with the documents, do a great job of highlighting just how unnecessary the civilian deaths were. Although Urban tries to push that this idea that due to a lack of time and the “fog of war,” soldiers, or “targeteers” are forced to make decisions that result in civilian harm, these human examples of civilian tragedy show that it was really moreso a lack of care or concern, rather than time, for the people on the other side of the airstrike.

There’s one quote from the New York Times investigation on U.S. drone strikes that has stuck with me after reading — “Publishing a military document only allows you to see through its eyes in the sky — and from everything I had now learned through my years of reporting on America’s air war, that view alone is usually a dangerous one.” I thought this description of the reporter’s methodology succinctly sums up the value that on-the-ground journalism can offer, but I also think there’s an interesting moral question here: The U.S. government necessarily operates with “eyes in the sky” — the Pentagon and similar actors are focused on preserving American interests on the global level of geopolitics, and therefore very infrequently stoop down to showing concern over the life-and-death situations of individual, ordinary people. This is not just true in the Middle East, but in places like Ukraine (and maybe Taiwan soon, too) — the government will usually operate with some level of realpolitik that eschews our ideological values (concern about human rights, etc) in favor of pragmatic, strategic interests. The only way we’re reminded about individual stories on the ground — especially when they concern human rights abuses — is through the work of journalists.

But when journalists do expose what conditions are like on the ground, I wonder what our response should be as the audience. For other types of investigative reporting — child sex abuse in the Catholic Church, for instance, or officials mismanaging the Flint water crisis — there’s often a clear policy response and remedy that public officials are subsequently pressured into enacting. But when it comes to the U.S. government’s actions, especially when it comes to national security and foreign policy matters, there seems to be little recourse except for us as readers to express our horror, make small fixes, and continue the same policies as before for the sake of pragmatic interests. Which is all to ask — should journalists in situations like these play a role not just in exposing issues, but also discussing solutions?

On a separate note, I was blown away by the New Yorker article — the framing device of focusing on a single character through a very long saga made the story much more compelling than jumping around between characters or simply telling the story from the perspective of the various actors involved in Afghanistan (U.S. government, Taliban, etc). One detail that jumped out at me was this paragraph: “After the [U.S.-led ]bombing, Mohammad’s brother travelled to Kandahar to report the massacres to the United Nations and to the Afghan government. When no justice was forthcoming, he joined the Taliban” — that one detail explains much better than any policy exposition or geopolitical analysis why America’s presence in Afghanistan was ultimately so unsuccessful.

For better or worse, the New Yorker article humanizes the Taliban. Rather than framing the group as terrorists and jihadists, Gopal describes how the Talibs, in many cases, are just normal Afghans who don’t define their identity as Talibans, but as farmers or religious students. As difficult as it is to read about the normal lives of people who believe in repressing women’s rights — among other terrible things — I’m glad it’s something Gopal offers up for our consideration.

I found the first story about Pentagon cover ups about the role of Airstrikes in civilian casualties particularly interesting.  I think the journalist did a good job of exposing the way that they knowingly put civilians at risk and the ways that they justify their deaths.  The most striking to me is that they viewed the loss of Civilian life as most important to avoid from a strategic standpoint and then legal and moral viewpoints.  To see people in such an inhumane way is difficult to understand or comprehend.  The journalist also did well to talk about how the conception of air strikes ways in the conscience of the American citizens.  We do not live in the war zones that our countries inhabit and so it is very easy to forget the reality for the Army.  But then we think about how they portray air strikes as lowering the death count because US citizens do not have to go into these war zones and they can be remotely triggered.  But then as the articles shows there are so many flaws in this system.  Like how they decided to conduct these airstrikes is through limited intelligence and assessment of the areas.  As one put it the air strikes don’t make the bombings more accurate or safer for those around but instead make it possible to conduct more air strikes in places they could not reach before. It was clear from the people that the journalist spoke to that they tried to make excuses but even “the fog of war” can explain the deliberate choice to ignore the pitfalls of airstrikes and proceed with this course of war.

I think the second part of story was extremely important to humanizing and bringing to light the stories of the people who were victims of the bombings.  While people can state the death count of incidents or the overall war I think it can be hard in such a desensitized world for people to comprehend the severity. Unfortunately death is becoming more frequent and it is news that sells so it is often highly covered in the media.  But I feel because of this normalization of coverage when we see death counts the weight of the deaths lose meaning.  Some might not view a hundred deaths as gravely as thousands or even tens of thousands.  But even one death is a grave and unfortunate matter.  My Law and Economics Professor said that the optimal amount of murder in society is zero because it is not the result of some fortunate circumstance and can never be.  While the military may try to argue it was in the pursuit of good, the lives of individuals should never be measured in this way.  I think showing how people have lost their families and someotimes horrifically in more then one instance demonstrates the severity of the issue.  Especially because often times the Military dehumanized them and made their actions which any person in such a stressful environment would do are used as the foundation for why the bombings occurred in the first place

Lia Opperman’s Can-do and her Candor

Ashley Olenkiewicz

September 12, 2023

JRN 449: Student Profile

It’s often thought that you “can’t have it all,” but that’s simply not true for Lia Opperman, a junior at Princeton University studying Public and International Affairs and Journalism. Her can-do attitude is accompanied by extreme candor, a combination that allows her to find success in her academic pursuits while maintaining close relationships with her friends, family, colleagues, and partner.

At around 9 p.m. in Princeton, New Jersey, Lia quickly found Nana’s contact in her phone and pressed “call.” Moments before, she had been editing articles for The Daily Princetonian alongside other editors in the newsroom. Wearing blue jean shorts and a white top decorated with small blue flowers, Lia explained that she had tied a white ribbon around one of the belt loops but wasn’t sure how it looked. After some back and forth discussion, she ended up wrapping it around her low ponytail, seemingly content with the placement.

After only a few rings, Nana (also known as Dorothy Rothery, Lia’s maternal grandmother) picked up. Lia explained she had called only to let her know that a colleague would be reaching out to ask questions for a journalism project. “What should I say?” inquired Nana, “just be honest… but be positive!” replied Lia, followed quickly by a nervous giggle. “Just kidding, say whatever you want! I love you, good night.” Their casual conversation and playful joking perfectly encapsulates their close relationship.

One of Lia’s favorite television shows is “Gilmore Girls,” and for those who aren’t familiar, the premise follows a young single mother, Lorelai, and her academically talented daughter, Rory, from high school through adulthood. The show is marked by playful banter, Rory’s best-friend-like relationship to Lorelai, and Friday dinners at her grandparent’s house. Lia resonates with this show for all those reasons, and more. Lia describes her mother as “her pillar” and admires her for her strength in difficult times.

Lia was raised primarily by both her mother and grandmother after her father passed away when she was five years old. As a child, Lia spent many evenings after school playing baseball and practicing for plays at her grandmother’s house. Nana describes Lia as the “sunshine of [her] life” and explained how they “did anything she wanted.” Lia’s mother and grandmother’s goal was always to make Lia happy.

It’s a common trope that sibling-less children are spoiled to a fault, leading them to grow into entitled adults. Yet, the extra attention devoted to Lia had quite the opposite effect. Lia’s upbringing in a household of strong women is exactly what fostered her driven attitude, empathy for others, and ultimately is what inspired her service-oriented pursuits. In the words of her boyfriend, Maguire Sholette, Lia has a “big personality, big passions, and a really big heart.” All of that “intertwine[ed] is someone who is really an experience.” Indeed, people seem to be drawn to Lia for her personable and open disposition.

A conversation with Lia is certain to be filled with positive affirmations, like “it was worth a try!” or “good job!” and every word is spoken with genuine encouragement. Perhaps Lia’s “all-consuming” (as described by Maguire) personality can be traced back to her origins in theater. Acting requires one to play a role larger than themselves, and her short stint in a college improv group also taught Lia the skill of appealing to the considerations of a larger audience.

Lia is a self-declared “English” kid, and her strong suits always fell within reading, writing, and acting. Although acting was her primary gig before college, a chance opportunity with the Princeton Summer Journalism Program got her hooked on journalism. From there, her passion for journalism only grew until it became her “thing” on campus and subsequently the career she has decided to pursue.

Beginning as a news staff writer for The Daily Princetonian in September 2021, Lia quickly became more involved. From assistant news editor, to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) board member, then associate news editor before becoming the head investigations editor. Much of her work involves careful research into uncovered news on campus, but Lia’s unique drive and her “good eye for uncovering previously unknown things,” as described by her boyfriend, allow her to shed light on marginalized voices with compassion and skill.

Lia pursues her journalism with vigor, not in an attempt to gain fame or garner appreciation, but rather because she is truly “dedicated to service in her own community, others’ communities, and communities of people who haven’t been listened to,” according to Maguire. Lia studies policy to understand the technical aspects of issues like mass incarceration and nonviolent drug offenses (two of her most recent focuses), but ultimately she plans to pursue journalism as an avenue for highlighting the voices of those most greatly afflicted by such policy problems. Modeled after the strong and independent women in her life, Lia navigates balancing her passions with prioritizing her relationships with a dexterity that is rare, but admirable.

The western world’s use of international law as one medium to resist Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has placed the geopolitical and sociocultural ramifications of legal action in the international sphere on full display. With the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for president Putin, accusations of the ICC solely targeting weaker state actors have subsided. Professor Lawrence Douglas’ characterization of the arrest warrant as an international “attempt to reckon with the strong” marks the second such instance, as the ICC under Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda kickstarted a preliminary investigation into the United States for possible crimes committed by the American military in Afghanistan. However, current Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan’s politically motivated decision to suspend the American investigation, combined with the present-day arrest warrant for Putin, raises questions regarding the ICC’s enforcement capabilities and fuels claims of the court’s biases towards western entities. More importantly, the ICC also does not possess jurisdiction to adequately try Russian leadership, as neither Russia nor Ukraine are party to the Rome Statute. The impact of the court is limited to preventing Putin from traveling to ICC-affiliated countries (admittedly, a fairly strong consequence).

These concerns of enforceability and western bias apply equally to any international tribunal, the more likely forum for hypothetically prosecuting top Russian leadership in order to target Putin for the crime of aggression. Past international criminal tribunals have only occurred under the context of a victor prosecuting a weakened losing side unable to resist facing accountability in the victors’ courts. While Professor Oona Hathaway correctly raises the possibility of leveraging Russian oligarchs’ and businessmen’s foreign assets to indirectly apply pressure upon Putin, an international tribunal may also face resistance from countries fearing international precedent going against invading states in any territorial dispute. Overall international sentiment, particularly in the western world, seems to favor holding Putin accountable in a United Nations or European tribunal. Such a trial, however, may expose the cleavages between western states and Global South nations by highlighting the historical one-sided nature of international tribunals. 

The sociocultural impact of prosecution attempts against Russian leadership also cannot be understated. For both rapes war crimes committed by Russian military personnel, the impact of personal testimony holds profound significance for the eventual healing process following the war. Examining rape crimes from a historical lens, the visceral shock and shame felt by Germans upon discovering that Russian soldiers raped German women after World War II underscores the stigma carried by victims and horror attributed to the crime. Russia itself treats the widespread rapes committed by WWII Russian soldiers as a “toxic” topic. More significantly, Brigette Meese’s response to a question on advising a Ukrainian rape victim – “I would tell her to forget about it if she can” – and Meese’s daughter’s alarmed response to hearing the news of her mother’s rape highlights the personal and social pain felt as a result of the act, both in the past and present.

Victims of war crimes also face challenges, albeit in a different manner, in discussing their experiences. Journalist Lindsey Hilsum and Ukrainian elected official Kateryna Sukhomlinova’s attempts to elicit testimony from victims highlight the profound impact (in multiple ways) of these severe crimes. Sukhomlinova’s travels to numerous refugee centers across Poland shows the importance of gathering victim testimony for a potential international tribunal prosecuting Putin. Yet the effects of these gruesome crimes are even more impactful. Hilsum holds “no doubt that these [Ukrainian] people are victims of, and witnesses to, war crimes,” and even hears the specifics; perhaps most gruesome is the description of “Russian soldiers g[iving] rations to people huddled in a basement – and then thr[owing] in a grenade.” Maria’s description of “horrible” people, with an assertion that the war shows the “real face[s]” of victims, emphasizes these war crimes’ impact on social relationships. As “life becomes a simple matter of survival,” discussion of these crimes becomes more difficult and testimony likely becomes a distant conception, only in the back of victims’ minds, for future legal action against Russian leadership.

Russia’s invasion into Ukraine has threatened global stability and likely caused trauma for a generation of Ukrainians. The legal consequences faced by Putin and top Russian officials, as highlighted by the readings, may be rather limited in scope. Moreover, the impact of legal efforts on Ukrainian culture must not be overlooked. Both the individual and worldwide implications for legal action deserve journalists’ attention and global leaders’ scrutiny as the conflict rages on.

“It is a rare thing to live through a moment of huge historical consequence and understand in real-time that is what it is.” It is with this quote that Allan Little begins his article on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it was a line that struck me deeply. Especially in the throes of the pandemic, the awareness of the world fundamentally and forever changing around me was a sensation that I felt keenly and somewhat anxiously. Considering that yesterday was the anniversary of 9/11, it comes to mind that for most Americans, watching the Twin Towers fall 22 years ago was another one of those moments. It is, however, much easier to have this awareness when monumental change and tragedy are happening at your doorstep. Before beginning this week’s readings, I unfortunately don’t think I really was able to comprehend the real gravity of the war. “This is a third seismic event.” Lindsey Hilsum writes, naming 9/11 and the fall of the Berlin Wall as the two prior. “At the time of writing, we are in the perilous moment of not knowing if the war will widen, and bring NATO into direct conflict with Russia. Whether Ukraine will survive. Whether Putin will survive. Anything could happen.”While Western countries have been looking the other direction – the US involved in its domestic political drama, European countries blinded by Russian gas dependence – Putin has been making frequent moves reminiscent of the Bosnian invasion by Serbia. He is following the same model of invalidating Ukrainian identity and statehood followed by military siege. As the the US and EU respond with economic sanctions and war continues on, we are at a junction in which the international financial map can be redrawn – primarily based on how China may move through this landscape — on top of the devastation human and political consequences of war. Putin’s nuclear threats bring back a sense of brinkmanship to international relations that has not been felt since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The rules of international relations conduct are not only changing but may even dissipate. 

Falling consequence to this dissipation of international rules is the adjudication of rape as a war crime. Rape and sexual violence in a civilian context is severely under-prosecuted, in an ordinary military context is even further silenced, and amidst war, it is heartbreakingly weaponized. Further, victims of rape during war are traumatized beyond belief and struggle with feelings of shame around deciding to testify. If they decide to testify, the odds of finding justice are slim to none. Brigitte Messe was only 15 years old when the Red Army raped millions of women in the final days of the second World War. “She believes mass rapes were revenge taken out on the bodies of German women,” Amos comments. Mass rapes were widely acknowledged but never formally acknowledged in Germany, and expressly denied as ever happening by Russia. When asked what she might tell a young Ukranian woman who might find herself in a similar position, she said, “ I would tell her to forget about it if she can. I think even nowadays, it’s something you want to forget.” When will women’s bodies stop being considered collaterally damaged property?

“A stone thrown into a pond – the ripples will spread”

The past 566 days and counting since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion into Ukraine, February 24 2022 – a date now forever carved into consciousness of the European continent, have brought about dozens of thousands of deaths, left millions displaced and echoed around the globe as a wake-up call, one blaring with air-raid sirens. Allan Little’s in his report for the BBC conjures up an image of this war as a conflict of polarities, a grand confrontation of two irreconcilable forces. In one corner of the boxing ring stands the 1945 Yalta agreement reliant on “spheres of influence” against the 1975 Helsinki Final Act centered around independent sovereign states in the opposite corner, it’s authoritarian regimes pitted against democracies. A sort of you-win-or-you-lose with elusive peace negotiations dwindling on the horizon as a war of attrition looms over. In this binary perspective, it’s the human factor that adds dimension.

The amplitude of emotions experienced and the range of coping strategies, poignantly compiled by This American Life episode and Lindsey Hilsum’s letters, is what really struck a chord with me this week. There is no way of capturing a tragedy in sheer death toll numbers, but rather its harrowingly nagging effect on everyday lives is what’s better suited for documenting the unbearable. From cooking over a burning wooden log and predicting shelling from birds’ behavior to finding the strength to joke and smile at your neighbor while in a besieged city, human adaptability and resilience in the face of the greatest atrocities known to mankind that preserve any chance at hope. As much as a cry for the dead, it’s a mourning for the living who have to coexist with what they’ve witnessed. 

The podcast really exemplified to me the quandary of telling uncomfortable stories. The personal account of Munachi, a young Nigerian medical student in the Ukrainian city of Lviv who suddenly found himself as a refugee, though he denies the word, on a content that didn’t want him. Revealing how racism in Eastern Europe intersects with the new reality of wartime shed light on the stories of those who don’t usually make it to the headlines. Inevitably, I found myself asking if the inclusion of this story undermined the Ukrainian struggle in any way.

The other question brought up by this week’s readings (or rather listenings) was the possibility of prosecuting war crimes. In light of ICC issuing an arrest warrant against Mr. Putin earlier this year, a new debate on the effectiveness of international tribunals and the potential impunity of the main perpetrators was incited. While lower-rank criminals are more likely to receive a verdict, this sparks a conversation on the distribution of responsibility between low-grade executors and high-rank officials in the aftermath of a war. Is there justice if the main culprits are off the hook? Whether it’s worth trying to prosecute clerks in an attempt to reach to the top of the iceberg or whether it only does a disservice of creating an illusion of due process with no real substance? I’m looking to learn more about international law and answer those questions for myself.