The Failures of the Military-Justice System

In today’s newsletter, the In the Dark team unveils a groundbreaking database. Plus:

•  How Harris should debate Trump
•  The Republican strategy in Arizona
•  The 2024 National Book Award longlists

War entails unspeakable violence, much of it entirely legal. And yet, some violence is so abhorrent that it falls outside the bounds of law. When the perpetrators are U.S. service members, the American military is supposed to hold them to account. It is also supposed to keep records of wrongdoing in a systematic manner. But it has failed to do so, leaving the public unable to determine whether the military brings its members to justice for the atrocities they have committed. To remedy this failing, the team of the In the Dark podcast, which has been reporting on the killings of civilians in Haditha, Iraq, combed through a wide array of primary sources, filed numerous requests under the Freedom of Information Act, and even repeatedly sued the military to get answers. The result is the largest known collection of investigations of possible war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11—nearly eight hundred incidents in all.

The database makes it possible, for the first time, to see hundreds of allegations of war crimes—the kinds that stain a nation—in one place, along with the findings of investigations and the results of prosecutions. Keep reading and explore the database »

Kamala Harris has enjoyed good luck on the debate stage in the course of her political career. During her run for California attorney general, her opponent said that he planned to “double-dip,” by taking both a public salary and a public pension. And then there was her 2020 V.P. debate against Mike Pence. (Remember the housefly?) Jessica Winter looks back at Harris’s previous debates to get a sense of how she can prevail tonight against Donald Trump.

• Inside the Trump Campaign’s Plan to Win Arizona
• The 2024 National Book Awards Longlist
• How Should We Create Things?

• Play today’s puzzle. The theme: Sew to speak.
• Shouts & Murmurs: What I Imagine TV’s “Mature Audiences” Are Like

P.S. The actor James Earl Jones died yesterday at the age of ninety-three. In 2010, Hilton Als described how Jones could imbue with depth even the “paper-thin character study” of Hoke Colburn, in “Driving Miss Daisy,” on Broadway. “His long Buster Keaton face tells us how little has changed racially since he was a boy,” Als writes. “But Jones doesn’t reveal the various masks Hoke wears straight off; he does it by degrees, even as he shows his spiritual fatigue in his hunched shoulders, slow gait, and watchfulness.”