Afghanistan and our amnesia about the horrors of war

Of the many harrowing images coming out of Afghanistan, one commandeered public attention for longer than most. It showed a small child being handed to an American soldier over the wall of Kabul airport and demonstrated, shocked viewers were told, the desperation of parents to save their children, even if it meant entrusting them to strangers.

Now two observations might be made about this. The first is that it was not quite as it seemed. It was later reported that the child was ill and was being passed for treatment at a Norwegian medical facility on the other side of the wall. The family were subsequently reunited.

The other is that, even if our initial conclusions had been correct, a parent making the agonising decision to part with a small child as the last best hope of that child’s survival and maybe the chance of a better life is hardly unique to today’s Kabul.