06 August 2013
On Saturday a suicide attack unfolded near the Indian Consulate in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. A dozen people were reported killed with another twenty wounded. Eight of the killed were reported to be children.
The next day, 04 August, another bomb exploded in Jalalabad, wounding another sixteen people for a two-day total of about forty-five killed and wounded.
An Afghan friend forwarded the image above, saying this was a suicide bomber who was shot before he exploded and that his vest had been removed. The man who forwarded the image said that even the kids hate these people. Needless to say, this image, bad as it is, marks an important “atmospheric” in the war and is newsworthy.
For people unfortunate enough to experience a few suicide attacks, the image of the child urinating is not shocking. The thunder of the bombs, the inevitable automatic weapons fire from security forces, follow on attacks, the frequent secondary explosions, the shrieks, the stunned children and adults stumbling in the smoke, the fully electrified high tension wires dangling waiting to fry people, the ambulance that arrives filled with explosives, the clothes and body parts up in the trees along with thick smells of petroleum and flesh all create a screaming chorus.
Normally little is left of the suicide bomber. Often some random piece, a foot, or as so many veterans have noticed, his penis and testicles will remain magically intact but with no body. The dogs come out to snatch pieces. The people who are collecting body parts of their loved ones or rushing wounded to hospitals are frustrated, in shock, for what to them is normally a random act, often at a public market. For a child whose mom and dad are killed, if he or she has no great family, that’s it: a life of prostitution has begun. “Boston bombings” happen every day in Afghanistan – but usually much larger. Many bombs are so big that they thunder.
Yet random, pearl clutching westerners who never experienced a suicide bombing are shocked out of their skins that a child would urinate on a suicide attacker. The horror of the suicide attack is like a freight train running over your brain, while the urination after such an event is little more than a cup of tap water poured onto the face of a demon. It is an insult, a slap to the face, yet in context it is the sound of a fly landing in a hurricane.
Having been to Jalalabad many times, I can say with certainty that locals have plenty of experience with these demons. Context is not lost in these memories.
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