Nick Turse (born 1975) is an American investigative journalist, historian, and author. He is the associate editor and research director of the blog TomDispatch and a fellow at The Nation Institute.
Education
Turse earned an MA in history from Rutgers University–Newark in 1999 and his doctorate in sociomedical sciences from the Columbia University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) in 2005. As a graduate student, Turse was a fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in 2010-2011 and at New York University's Center for the United States and the Cold War. He also worked as an associate research scientist at the Mailman School's of Public Health Center for the History and Ethics at Columbia University.
In 2001, while researching in the U.S. National Archives, Turse discovered records of a Pentagon task force called the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group that was formed as a result of the My Lai massacre. These records became the focus of his doctoral dissertation, Kill Anything That Moves: United States War Crimes and Atrocities in Vietnam, 1965–1973.
Career
Turse is a contributing writer at the blog TomDispatch. He has written for publications such as The Guardian, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Harper's Magazine, Vice News and the BBC on subjects such as ethnic cleansing in South Sudan, the U.S. military in Africa, the video game industry, street art, the war in Afghanistan, and the Vietnam War. He has also reviewed books for the San Francisco Chronicle, The Daily Beast, Asia Times, and other publications.
South Sudanese Civil War
Turse has reported on the South Sudanese civil war that began in 2013 including an investigation of a government ethnic cleansing campaign for Harper's, and wrote a book on the South Sudanese civil war, Next Time They'll Come to Count The Dead. Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch wrote, "Turse gives a sobering account of the horrific crimes against ordinary people that define South Sudan's conflict. He shows how efforts to count the dead, investigate the crimes, and bring perpetrators to justice have so far failed. His compelling account reminds us why accountability is both urgent and necessary." The Los Angeles Review of Books said Turse "delivers a scathing and deeply reported account of South Sudan's suffering since its collapse in December 2013." Next Time They'll Come to Count The Dead was a finalist for the 2016 Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. book award.
Drone papers
Turse was part of the investigative team at The Intercept that won the 2016 New York Press Club Award for Special Event Reporting and the 2016 Online Journalism Association Award for Investigative Data Journalism for "The Drone Papers". "The Intercept" had obtained a cache of secret documents detailing the inner workings of the U.S. military's assassination program in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia. The documents, provided by a whistleblower, offered an unprecedented glimpse into President Obama's drone wars.
Los Angeles Times series
Turse is the co-author of a series of articles for the Los Angeles Times that was a finalist for the 2006 Tom Renner Award for Outstanding Crime Reporting from Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. This investigation, based on declassified Army records, interviews, and a trip to Vietnam, found that U.S. troops reported more than 800 war crimes in Vietnam. Turse asserted that many were publicly discredited even as the military uncovered evidence that they were telling the truth.
Operation Speedy Express exposé
In a 2008 exposé in The Nation for which he won the Ridenhour Prize, Turse reported on a veteran whistleblower who served in Operation Speedy Express.
Kill Anything That Moves... Turse has described Kill Anything That Moves... (2013) as a history of Vietnamese "civilian suffering" at the hands of U.S. troops during the Vietnam War. The book is based on archival materials Turse discovered and interviews he conducted with eyewitnesses in the U.S. and Vietnam, including a hundred American Vietnam War veterans. Turse won a 2014 American Book Award and an Izzy (I.F. Stone) Award for Kill Anything That Moves....
Writing in The Huffington Post, Peter Van Buren called the book "one of the most important books about the American War in Vietnam." John Tirman of The Washington Post wrote, "Turse forcefully argues the narrower question of how the government failed to prosecute crimes committed in Vietnam or Cambodia."