RCFP attorneys are representing Azmat Khan, who is seeking records about civilian casualties resulting from military operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan.
Out in print in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine:
Earlier this summer, Kiana Hayeri set out to photograph Afghans who grew up after the U.S invasion, in a society that ostensibly promised them educational and economic progress, and careers as journalists, actresses and artists. Some led lives their parents could never even dream of; others never saw those opportunities and made desperate, deadly attempts to escape.
After the Taliban took Kabul, I interviewed half a dozen of Kiana’s subjects. All of them have no idea what their future holds. They include those who who stand to lose hard-won progress, but also those who never even got to partake in what was promised in the first place.
You can see Kiana’s moving photos and our reporting in this weekend’s magazine. I think it illustrates a rural-urban divide that is all too often missing from coverage of the country.
“One of the things I hope to do in the book is go beyond the traditional parameters of how we understand what is effective. In policy circles, this question all too often comes down to whether the U.S. is achieving its goals, and whether the costs or means are worth it. But we can't answer the question of whether aerial bombing is effective without considering what the ultimate purpose of the war is, and whether those purposes are just. A collective, democratic debate needs to happen on this question, but the reliance on air power is one way in which our population is completely inured from the reality of war and cannot participate in that debate in any meaningful way.”
Until now, the fear of legal liability has driven condolence-payment policy. Department of Defense officials have been averse to fueling any misperception that the U.S. military has an obligation to provide compensation for civilian casualties that do not violate international humanitarian law.
But sentiment shifted in the wake of a groundbreaking The New York Times investigation by Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal last November on the failure to implement amends in Iraq and Syria. Section 936 marks the first time that Congress has mandated uniform DoD processes and standards in this area.
Just Security: Condolence Payments for Civilian Casualties: Lessons for Applying the New NDAA
Couldn’t have imagined a better weekend at SNHU. Their students have gone above and beyond to graduate—many of them while raising families and working hard jobs—and it was an unbelievable honor to spend time with them at commencement this year!
American military officials have completed more than 1,500 assessments of civilian casualty allegations from U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq & Syria, but to date, they’ve publicly released only a handful.
These records are one of the only ways the American public can know what our government truly knows about civilian casualties and how it investigates them. And for Iraqi and Syrian survivors, these documents are the only answer they will ever get as to why they were hit, or why their losses haven’t been recognized by the U.S. government.
Over the last 15 months, I’ve been working to get 1,390 such documents through the Freedom of Information Act—to no avail. So earlier this month, represented by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, I filed suit against the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Central Command.
One of the biases of retrospection is to believe that the moral crises of the past were clearer than our own—that, had we been alive at the time, we would have recognized them, known what to do about them, and known when the time had come to do so. That is a fantasy. Iniquity is always coercive and insidious and intimidating, and lived reality is always a muddle, and the kind of clarity that leads to action comes not from without but from within. The great virtue of a figurative railroad is that, when someone needs it—and someone always needs it—we don’t have to build it. We are it, if we choose.
Meticulously reported and movingly told, this investigation of the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State found that far more civilians had been killed by airstrikes than the Pentagon would acknowledge. The judges deemed this a stunning and important work of journalism.
Judges of the 2018 National Magazine Award for Reporting
Do you remember this iconic photo from the Iraq war?
This was 5-year-old Samar Hassan in 2005, just moments after American soldiers killed her parents at a checkpoint in Iraq. Photographer Chris Hondros had been embedded with the unit in Tel Afar, and happened to capture a reality rarely seen by the American public. Though her face became a defining image of the war, Samar didn't learn that until 2011, after Chris was killed in Libya.
Last night, I watched Hondros: A Documentary Film, a powerful work seemingly about Chris’s life, but even more so about a theme central to his work: accountability in war.
Over and over, the film returned to the people whose faces were made famous by Chris' photos—a young soldier in Liberia, a family in Iraq. But one scene in particular was among the most arresting of any film I've watched in years. It featured Samar, the girl in the photo, who's now 18. Filmmaker Greg Campbell spent time with one of the soldiers who'd shot at Samar's parents. He was broken, and wanted so badly to tell Samar's family how sorry he was. So Greg went back to Iraq to track down Samar, and found her. He told her about the soldier and his remorse, and here's how Samar responded:
"No one ever told me he was sorry. Is sorry going to bring them back? No, it won't. I'll never forgive them...
If they were in front of me, I would want to drink their blood—and still I would not feel satisfied"
It's just one of many powerful scenes that will leave you mulling war & accountability for a while to come.
Over the last few days, some friends have asked for quality sources to get informed about the war in Syria. I wanted to recommend a few works I've found especially powerful. These aren't newsy pieces; they're films, books, and magazine pieces rich in substance, context, and history.
FOR A HISTORICAL PRIMER ON SYRIA AND BASHAR AL ASSAD:
"The Regime Responds"
Why does what happens in Syria matter so much? If you're looking for a very basic history, of both the Assad regime and the roots of the rebellion, this 23-minute film from FRONTLINE'S Marcela Gaviria is a great place to start.
ON THE REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISTS THE WORLD HAS FORGOTTEN:
"Burning Country"
To quote a friend: "These days, when politicians bring up the Middle East, they collapse a decade’s worth of occupation, civil war and revolution into a single, ineffable horror: the Islamic State. The idea is that we’ve never seen a group so horrific, so threatening to global stability — which is fueling calls for world powers to ally with, or acquiesce to, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad as a lesser evil in the war against ISIS. But look beyond this narrow counterterrorism prism and you see the devastating truth: a regime that is willing to rape, torture, starve and gas as many of its citizens as necessary to secure its rule — and in the process, sow such apocalyptic chaos as to help spawn a global refugee crisis and the rise of ISIS." This book by reporter Robin Yassin-Kassab and Syrian activist Leila Al Shami returns the focus to the people the world has so easily forgotten, the Syrian people who risked and often lost it all.
FOR AN INTIMATE CHRONICLE OF THE DEVOLUTION OF SYRIA THROUGH A FAMILY OVER GENERATIONS:
"The Home That Was Our Country"
In this book, Alia Malek takes you inside a Damascus apartment building, weaving the history of family and the country, and in doing so, capturing cultures and characters—Syrian Muslims, Christians, Jews, Armenians, and Kurds who lived and worked together— social and economic context, and events that led to today.
TO SEE BOTH SIDES OF THIS WAR:
"Syria Behind the Lines"
This film is from three years ago, but it is probably the last time anyone was able to traverse between both sides of Syria's war like this. Olly Lambert did more than embed with rebels or get the official government narrative with minders left & right, he lived with civilians on both sides— in strongholds loyal to Assad, and rebel-held areas where Islamist groups were gaining ground. If you want to know why many Syrians still support Bashar Al Assad, watch this.
FOR AN UNVARNISHED LOOK AT WHAT ASSAD'S AIR FORCE HAS BEEN DOING ALMOST EVERY SINGLE DAY:
"The Bombing Of Al Bara"
What does it look like when Assad bombs his own people? It's taken allegations of chemical weapons attacks for many Americans to turn their focus to Syria, but since August 2012, the Syrian Air Force has been bombing its own people almost daily. This immersive film (full disclosure: I produced it), illustrates like nothing else the raw chaos, horror, fear and anger on the ground when bombs fall on civilians.
AND THE IMPACT IT'S HAVING ON CHILDREN, IN THEIR OWN WORDS:
"Children of Syria"
"When they threw a missile on that house over there, I died one big death. I died and then lived again." No 5-year-old in the world should talk like this. The words of Sara, and the other children from Aleppo profiled in this film, will haunt you. These aren't children who are being exploited to support a cause; they're kids, in their own words, telling you what they see, feel, and think.
ON THE FAMILIES FORCED TO FLEE:
"Exodus"
"Sometimes I envy the dead because they’ve finally found somewhere to settle down"
TO UNDERSTAND THE RISE OF ISIS...:
"The Rise of ISIS"
When people talk about how ISIS took over territory, they often overlook the local discontent the organization so expertly exploited. Martin Smith does an incredible job of going beyond the traditionally cited ideological underpinnings to show how so much of this group's rise is deeply rooted in local context.
AND WOMEN WHO JOINED IT:
"ISIS Women and Enforcers in Syria Recount Collaboration, Anguish and Escape"
For many who joined ISIS in Raqqa, the decision wasn't borne out of ideological support; it was a gamble to change their lot in life. By chronicling the stories of three women from Raqaa who chose to align themselves with ISIS, and then chose to escape, Azadeh Moaveni captures the survival-based logic, the money, power, and status that is the basis for so many decisions in Syria.
TO UNDERSTAND THE GEOPOLITICS OF THE FIGHT AGAINST ISIS:
"Confronting ISIS"
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, Shia militias, the Kurdistan Workers Party, the YPG — the list of players in Syria goes on and on, and if you're looking for a basic primer to make sense of it, this film is extraordinarily helpful.
AND LASTLY, FOR A SENSE OF HOW THE MEDIA CAN SOMETIMES GET THE STORY WRONG:
"The Incredible Story Behind The Syrian Protest Singer Everyone Thought Was Dead"
For years now, it's been next to impossible for journalists to operate un-embedded inside the country safely, and so there are inaccuracies that can proliferate. Here is one that I found especially arresting. I'd long heard the story of Ibrahim Qashoosh, a man many Syrians believed had been executed because of a protest anthem he wrote about Bashar Al Assad. James Harkin sets out to find the truth, and the tale is as incredible as it is cautionary.
We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here, the best in investigative reporting
Against a barrage of fake news, one hope lies in the power of investigative journalism. While much of journalism can be investigative in some way, outright investigations are altogether different; they're rigorous, systematic, and sweeping, while also forensic in their detail, peeling back layer after layer. While they can (and often do) result in extraordinary impact, full-fledged investigations take immense skill, resources, and time to pull off. Many newsrooms struggle to afford them.
This is partly why I was so thrilled Longreads asked me to write about some of my favorite investigations from 2016. Here are just a few of the works I chose, not only because they represent the best of investigative journalism, but also some of the best paths forward for this industry.
My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard
Shane Bauer, Mother Jones — http://bit.ly/2h8RHDz
In 1887, acting on rumors of abuse at the secretive “Women’s Lunatic Asylum” on New York’s Blackwell’s Island, a tenacious reporter named Nellie Bly decided to investigate the only way that she could: she feigned “insanity” in order to get inside. Her bombshell reports—published in Joseph Pulitzer’s paper The New York World, and her later book, “Ten Days In A Mad-House”—resulted in a grand jury investigation with enduring impacts, and changed the face of investigative journalism. Over the next century, undercover reporting became an important plank of investigative journalism, a method used when all other options at cracking an important story failed. But since the 90’s, when the grocer Food Lion famously sued ABC News for an undercover report, this once-essential part of the investigative journalist’s toolkit, with few exceptions, has mostly been retired from serious newsrooms — instead relegated to the world of tabloids, TMZ, and the seedy underbelly of media. But in this sprawling undercover investigation for Mother Jones, Shane Bauer shows in devastating detail what we have lost as a result, and what we can gain if newsrooms make serious investments to do it right. Faced with the daunting secrecy of the country’s growing private prison industry, Bauer got a job as a guard at a private prison in Louisiana. The systematic mistreatment he witnessed—in one case, to the extent that an inmate’s legs had to be amputated as a result—was damning enough. But what he felt as he found himself sucked deeper into the psyche of guard life —his shame over his “lack of self-control” and his “growing thirst for punishment and vengeance”—could only be exposed by going undercover. It is a must-read, and a worthy reminder of investigative journalism’s fundamental tenets: to shed light on injustice that would otherwise go un-exposed, to probe in a systematic, comprehensive manner, and to employ the highest of standards in the quest for the truth.
Pentagon: Special Ops Killing Of Pregnant Afghan Women Was “Appropriate” Use Of Force
Jeremy Scahill, The Intercept — http://bit.ly/2hRCB4P
Since its inception, The Intercept has published a number of truly remarkable investigations that few other outlets would invest in. At first glance, it would be easy to overlook the years of reporting that went into this one. It began in February 2010, when the U.S. military announced a raid on a Taliban compound in Gardez, Afghanistan, where Special Forces discovered the bodies of three Afghan women. CNN described their apparent Taliban execution as possessing “the earmarks of a traditional honor killing.” But when British Sunday Times reporter Jerome Starkey journeyed to the site—the only reporter to do so—the official story quickly unraveled. The so-called Taliban militants were in fact government allies. One was even a police commander who had gone through dozens of U.S. police training programs— his walls lined with his portraits with American soldiers. Multiple witnesses and Afghan investigators told Starkey that American soldiers had dug bullets from the bodies of at least one of the dead pregnant women. All signs indicated that in one night 16 children lost their mothers because of a botched U.S. raid that was subsequently covered up. Starkey’s damning investigation forced the military to abandon its earlier claims and open a formal investigation. The story could have ended then, but more than six years later, The Intercept followed up with the long-awaited results of a Freedom of Information Act request for the military’s own inquiry. The answers Jeremy Scahill received — laid bare in this investigation — are devastating and important. They are also a testament to the dire need for investigative ground reporting from war zones, and the years of persistence required to hold the powerful to account.
Unearthing The Secrets Of New York’s Mass Graves
Nina Bernstein, The New York Times — http://nyti.ms/2hEA4ul
If Nina Bernstein had not investigated, this story—of how some of New York’s most vulnerable wound up in this mass “graveyard of last resort” and the systems that failed them—would likely never be told. Bernstein’s unearthing of hundreds of those buried at Hart Island for The New York Times is a haunting, systematic indictment of some of the ugliest chapters of America’s past and present, from the Southern slave owners who “donated” or sold the bodies of dead slaves to medical schools, and the 16 people with AIDS who were buried on the Island “under 14 feet of soil instead of the usual three” during the height of ignorance and fear surrounding the epidemic, to the inmates who are today paid 50 cents an hour to act as pallbearers there. Through rigorous data collection and analysis, extensive interviews, and rich historical context, this piece manifests many of the best practices of investigative journalism, but it also showcases the kind of beautifully crafted storytelling that is too often lacking from this hard-hitting genre, making Bernstein’s opus a triumph.
Welcome to America — Now Spy on Your Friends
Talal Ansari and Siraj Datoo, BuzzFeed News — http://bzfd.it/2gr6Pw8
Donald Trump’s campaign trail rhetoric may have cast a worthy spotlight on Islamophobia and Muslim registration programs, but this fresh attention masks a grim fact: similar programs have already been in existence for years. In this BuzzFeed News investigation, Talal Ansari and Siraj Datoo shed light on one of the least known among them, the Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program, or CARRP. Formerly secret, this federal program delays or denies citizenship and immigration benefits based on what rights groups have only been able to identify as religion, national origin, or similar factors. The overwhelming majority of those affected by CARRP are Muslim. Their investigation, “based on government and court documents, official complaints, and interviews with immigrants, immigration and civil rights lawyers, and former special agents,” exposes how many Muslims caught in CARRP’s crosshairs have reported being pressured by the FBI to become informants in exchange for immigration help — a violation of the FBI’s own rules. It’s remarkable, not just for its depth and unprecedented findings, but because it offers a blueprint for other investigative reporters as they venture into the burgeoning Islamophobia beat in the Trump era.
It took the rise of Donald Trump for many Americans to first learn about NSEERS, the post-9/11 special registration program for non-immigrant males from mostly Muslim-majority countries. But for years, many of us have been writing about this—and other programs like it—that disproportionately impact Muslims or those perceived to be Muslims.
Trump's rhetoric may surprise you, but it is not new. It began even before 9/11 and continues today, often transcending political party. Here are just eight examples:
1. The "Secret Evidence" Law
Passed in 1996, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act created a new court specifically for government cases to deport aliens accused of terrorism, based on classified evidence that would remain secret, even to the accused and their lawyers. (It also did many other things.) It was expanded the same year through the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act so that "secret evidence" could be used to deport even lawful residents in immigration proceedings.
Almost every single secret evidence case known to the public involved Muslims or Arabs. http://bit.ly/2eO55vO The Clinton-era law quickly became notorious among these communities. People were deported, with no understanding of the testimony against them, or who had offered it. ''It seemed like I was trying to defend my client blindfolded and handcuffed,” a Dallas lawyer in a secret evidence case told the New York Times. http://nyti.ms/2f7Yurl
When George W. Bush ran for president in 2000, he vowed not to use secret evidence in immigration cases. That year, 78% of American Muslims voted Republican in the presidential election. (Of course, 2004 was a different story.)
2. The Bridgeview Op
Also in the 90’s, a small community outside of Chicago was the focus of one of the FBI's biggest counterterrorism surveillance operations before 9/11. The failed op—dubbed "Vulgar Betrayal"—was secret at the time, but Bridgeview’s Muslim and Arab communities had their suspicions, especially about the building across the street from the mosque. No one has gone inside the community it targeted, or explored the havoc it wrought there, until Bridgeview native Assia Boundaoui began working on a film. Here’s a sneak peek: http://bit.ly/2g4oDMg
3. The National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS
At this point, you’ve likely heard about Special Registration, a post-9/11 counterterrorism program registering more than 90,000 male individuals from 24 Muslim-majority countries (and Eritrea & North Korea). At the time, the government claimed it had caught terrorists through the system. The reality is that not a single registered person has ever been convicted of terrorism. Instead, more than 13,000 were involved in deportation proceedings. Because the program often did not give proper notice to targets, according to the ACLU, and often violated their right to counsel, it resulted in the deportation of “thousands of men and boys from Arab- and Muslim-majority countries for civil immigration violations that were frequently based simply on a failure to understand NSEERS' arcane rules.” http://wapo.st/2gGqR4p
4. The Interviews
In the wake of 9/11, an unknown number of Muslims across America received letters from the Department of Justice like this one, which is on display at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan: http://bit.ly/2foCF7z
An excerpt: “During this interview, you will be asked questions that could reasonably assist in the efforts to learn about those who support, commit, or associate with those who commit terrorism.”
In 2007, an elderly Pakistani-American man who worked at a kiosk at the Mall of America forgot his phone at the mall's food court. When he went to retrieve it, it was cordoned off, and he was interrogated by the mall’s counterterrorism unit, also known as a “fusion center.” The unit filed a “Suspicious Activity Report” or SAR detailing his interrogation, which you can read here http://bit.ly/2g2Se53. Over and over, he was grilled about his background. But because that SAR was then shared with the police and the FBI, a few weeks later, the FBI show up at the home of his son, asking if he knew anyone in Afghanistan. http://to.pbs.org/2fDph2s
This bizarre tale of events are the result of a nationwide post-9/11 SAR initiative for local authorities, the state government and the federal government to collect and share information, with the goal of helping detect and prevent terrorism-related activity.
But what exactly is considered ”suspicious activity"? I dug through the definitions years ago. Some were truly baffling: For example, the LAPD considered dining & dashing suspicious activity, as well as people “who carry on long conversations on pay or cellular telephones.” Maryland’s fusion center said "overly cautious" drivers. Kentucky specified “people avoiding eye contact," "people in places they don't belong," or being "over dressed for the weather.” http://to.pbs.org/2eOeAuH
When GW Schulz at the Center for Investigative Reporting looked at who wound up in the SARs obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, almost two-thirds deemed "suspicious" were minorities. Additionally, more than half of the mall's suspicious activity reports were then shared w/law enforcement agencies, like the FBI. It’s worth watching this by CIR for a clear understanding: vimeo.com/28556335
In 2010, the federal government moved forward with an expansion of a new nationwide suspicious activity database, which continues today: http://bit.ly/2g5YRVE
And as for the more than 70 local fusion centers, where many of those SARs originate, (mapped here, btw: http://to.pbs.org/2fRslYt), here’s what a bipartisan Senate Committee’s two-year investigation into their effectiveness concluded: Fusion Centers have “not produced useful intelligence to support federal counterterrorism efforts” and have “too often wasted money and stepped on Americans’ civil liberties” http://to.pbs.org/2fMWeau
6. Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program, or CARRP
Formerly secret, this federal program in place since at least 2008 delays or denies citizenship or immigration benefits, based on what rights groups have only been able to identify as religion, national origin, and similar factors. Many of those affected by it are eligible to become residents, but whose applications have sat for sometimes more than 10 years. Many of them are Muslim or originate from Muslim-majority countries. But it goes even further for some Muslims with immigration delays that seem unexplainable, until an FBI agent knocks on the door offering immigration help in exchange for becoming an informant. It’s worth reading Talal Ansari and Siraj Datoo’s investigation: http://bzfd.it/2gr6Pw8
7. The No-Fly List
You’ve heard of this list of nearly half a million names, but do you know how broad and ill-defined the criteria for getting on the list is? Or how it’s riddled with errors, and yet so difficult to get a name off the list? That it’s almost entirely “populated by Muslims or individuals assumed to be Muslim”? Or that some of those who are unfairly on the list have been approached by the FBI and told that if they become informants, they can be taken off the list? Here’s Diala Shamas, again, to explain: http://cnn.it/2foICBp
8. Law Enforcement “Muslim Outreach”
For a long time now, government officials have touted the important of Muslims in the U.S. working with law enforcement. In fact, Hillary Clinton brought it up during the Oct. 9 debate. But here’s a look at how some of those efforts have gone over the last 15 years:
The Associated Press’ Pulitzer-winning investigation into the NYPD’s surveillance of Muslims shed incredible light on how the department had spied on the city’s Muslim partners. For example, Brooklyn-based Imam Sheik Reda Shata, who had partnered with the FBI and done local outreach with his community, was actually under secret surveillance by the NYPD. When he found out, here’s what he told the AP: “This is very sad. What is your feeling if you see this about people you trusted? … It’s a bitter feeling.” http://to.pbs.org/2grfVZw
Beyond distrust among the communities, what were the results? According to the AP, “In more than six years of spying on Muslim neighborhoods, eavesdropping on conversations and cataloguing mosques, the New York Police Department's secret Demographics Unit never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation.” I don’t have the time to point out every one of the AP’s explosive findings. Just take a look for yourself — it’s stunning: http://bit.ly/2fc75MU
But it’s not just the NYPD. Let’s move on to the FBI, and how for more than four years, it used “community outreach” meetings at mosques in Northern California as a guise to collect intelligence on congregants, according to documents obtained by the ACLU. Sometimes, the FBI would begin by asking congregants about hate crimes, to get them to open up, before proceeding to other questioning. There's no evidence the FBI informed the Muslims they interviewed that the information was for intelligence, or would be recorded/disseminated: http://to.pbs.org/2f8bJZ7
Or how about the time an undercover informant for the FBI said he was trained to entrap Muslims he surveilled. But here’s the kicker: Those Muslims were so alarmed by the informant's talk of violence they actually reported him to the FBI. It's so worth listening to Sam Black's This American Lifeepisode that takes you through the entire story: http://bit.ly/2g5YmuI
Then, there’s the FBI's data mining system, “Domain Management,” which Trevor Aaronson exposed, pinpoints ethnic & Muslim communities: http://bit.ly/1czcwu6
Then there are the FBI training materials which instruct agents at Quantico that “mainstream” Muslims are violent, radical & linked to terrorism, as exposed by Spencer Ackerman: http://bit.ly/2g4B4oV
Even the Air Force can fall prey, publishing a paper stating that Muslim women wearing headscarves represent “passive terrorism” and that “sexual deprivation” drives support for militant groups. As exposed by Murtaza Hussain: http://bit.ly/2fDxHXF
These and other bungled efforts have left many Muslims pretty wary of "law enforcement Muslim outreach.” Here’s just one example of something I personally hear regularly among Muslim communities: http://bit.ly/1hg4gqC
All of this is to say that a Muslim database shouldn't be so shocking given the history. The government has been implementing it for years; Muslims (and those assumed to be Muslim) have been experiencing it for years; Journalists have been covering it for years. And it shouldn’t take Trump’s rhetoric to know it.
If this history is unfamiliar to you, it's probably unfamiliar to many of those in your circles. Learn it. Share it. Follow it forward.
The United States trumpets education – particularly of girls – as one of its key victories during the war in Afghanistan. But Azmat Khan’s exhaustive reporting reveals otherwise. Many of the schools Khan visited during her investigation for BuzzFeed News have never seen a single student or teacher. In a category dominated by big-team reporting, the judges were especially impressed by Khan’s initiative as a solo practitioner. In fact, she was the first member of the Western media to follow the trail of a billion-plus dollars spent by the U.S. on education-related funding in Afghanistan, piecing together a well-written narrative from contractors, aid workers and warlords. Khan also conducted more than 150 interviews for her piece, many of them on-the-ground in one of the most dangerous countries in the world. The payoff? Khan’s work had a clear impact, prompting detailed monitoring of USAID as well as a commission to investigate corruption in Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education.
origamiaround
areudirty
gummygunk
stormborns
dededos